New Jersey § 34:1b-30

§ 34:1b-30.

The Legislature finds: a. During the past decade, a number of industrial plants and other facilities located

in this State have permanently terminated operations or relocated operations to sites

in other states or abroad; and, b. These terminations and relocations have had a serious and undesirable impact upon

the economies of the communities in which they have occurred and upon the State as

a whole, lowering the value of land and improvements which are abandoned or devoted

to less intensive uses than formerly; reducing employment, business and personal

income, and the resources of the State to the extent these depend thereon; and increasing

claims upon those resources; and, c. Even more important than the impact of these closings on the general State economy

and the public sector are the social and personal costs to working persons and their

families of confronting the forbidding alternatives of, on the one hand, permanent

unemployment, and on the other, either extensive mid-career retraining or forced relocation

or both; and, d. In a small number of cases across the nation, employees have met the threat of

plant shutdown by collectively establishing a stock ownership trust to purchase the

facility in question and to continue its operations under the direction of a trusteeship

acting on behalf of the employee owners; and, e. These trusts can serve to save jobs, continue economic development otherwise likely

to be suspended and promote within the private enterprise system the goal or worker

participation in the risks and rewards of equity ownership; and f. In view of the facts hereinabove cited, and further in view of the avowed public

policy of the Executive and Legislative branches to preserve and expand manufacturing

and other economic activity in the State, the Legislature finds that a high priority

must be given by relevant State agencies to the provision of technical and administrative

assistance to workers seeking to save jobs by forming employee stock ownership trusts.