Greetings from Max and Deb

Greetings from Max and Deb


Greetings, MTA members!

This is the first weekly email from the two of us — Max Page and Deb McCarthy — your new president and vice president! We intend to have this MTA Union News come to you every Tuesday. We hope you’ll come to look forward to these regular updates on the work of our union.

max page and Deb mccarthy

We are beyond pleased and deeply honored to take on our leadership roles in this incredible union of 115,000 public school and college educators, composed of nearly 400 locals linked together in one statewide union, dedicated to justice, achieved through collective power.

Our goal as your elected leaders is to build that power — member by member, local by local — knitting together the most respected people in the Commonwealth so that together we can have the public schools and colleges that you, our students, and our communities deserve.

This goal, building on the remarkable work of leaders coming before us, including former MTA Presidents Barbara Madeloni and Merrie Najimy, will occupy our days and nights for the next two years.

Let’s dive right into the work.

MTA Events

Each week we will note upcoming MTA meetings, conferences, PDP workshops, and Board meetings:

  • The Summer Conference is July 31 to Aug. 3. We hope you signed up — we pushed the deadline as far back as we could, but registration closed on July 11. Look forward to reports from the conference in future issues of MTA Union News.
  • Our Training and Professional Learning staff have set up a series of PDP workshops over the summer. Visit the PDPs page often to see what is available.

Solidarity Actions

We will list ways you can support fellow locals in their contract battles or be a part of our statewide legislative and electoral campaigns.

  • Today (Tuesday) at 3 p.m. in front of Haverhill City Hall, the Haverhill Education Association is having a standout to demand a fair contract. At 4:30 p.m., join HEA members for open bargaining.
  • Nothing is more important to our public schools and colleges than winning passage of the Fair Share Amendment on Nov. 8 — just 112 days away. Every one of us should go on at least one door-to-door canvass with fellow MTA members or join a phone bank this summer. There are opportunities every week. Sign up here to help spread the word— right now!

Political Education

We will share readings, quotes, ideas, and studies that expand our knowledge as union members and provoke discussion.

As the Fair Share Amendment campaign moves into high gear, consider this: “Massachusetts’s 23 billionaires grew $36.9 billion, or 72%, richer over the first two years of the pandemic, from March 2020 to April 5, 2022, according to Forbes data analyzed by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF).” Read the full report from the Americans for Tax Fairness.

You can view this edition of MTA Union News and all future ones on our website.