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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
After a generation of allying itself with either the Republican or
Democratic parties, New Jersey labor took a step toward political independence in 1935 when Labor Party tickets entered the field in Essex and
Passaic Counties. Although none of the nominees was elected, the action
led to the formation of the State-wide Labor's Nonpartisan League the
following year. Thus far the organization has endorsed two successful
candidates in the Newark city election of 1937 (one of them Vincent J.
Murphy, secretary of the State Federation of Labor), and held the balance
of power in the last gubernatorial contest. The estimated 150,000 members
of the league are expected to form the nucleus of the proposed State
Labor Party.
Along with its quest for political independence, labor is seeking economic independence by joining professional and white-collar workers in
cooperative enterprises. Cooperative leaders look to such economic activity
to provide consumers with a means of controlling prices and the cost of
living. Fifty years of effort in New Jersey resulted in the establishment by
December 1936 of 240 consumer-producer cooperatives. Of these, 120 were credit unions; 42, agricultural purchasing organizations; and 26,
urban food stores.
Consumer cooperatives, which chiefly sell groceries and fuel supplies,
are strongest in the northern and central urban areas; producer cooperatives naturally center in the agricultural south. Jersey Homesteads, organized by the Resettlement Administration in 1935, is considered one of
the most modern cooperative experiments in the United States. With a
garment factory, gardens and homes, it represents a fusion of the industrial, agricultural and consumer interests of cooperative enterprise. This
fusion typifies on a small scale the social goal of the cooperative movement.
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