Union News: Unfinished business, Our state budget and the fight for Fair Share
Union News: Unfinished business, Our state budget and the fight for Fair Share
Events
NAACP
The NAACP is holding its national convention in Boston starting this week end. Register before Thursday, July 27, to get the advance pricing rates. Otherwise, you can buy tickets on-site if you only wish to attend for one or two days. View the full schedule to see all the convention has to offer.
Saturday, July 29, will be a day filled with education-related offerings. And Tuesday, August 1, is the day for labor to show solidarity with the work of the NAACP. We expect NEA President Becky Pringle to be there.
Greetings,
The MTA Summer Conference registration deadline of July 26? Very real! This is your last chance to sign up for a week of learning at UMass Amherst, or just to commute for a day. We have over 500 members coming – please join us!
The state Legislature’s obligation to complete a budget by the deadline of July 1, the start of the new fiscal year? Not so real. We are still without a state budget, and the Legislature is about to give itself another extension.
It seems they are competing to, once again, be the last state in the nation to approve a budget. Fortunately, that gives you one more chance to push the conference committee to protect our remarkable Fair Share Amendment victory, and not pass on wasteful tax giveaways to the ultrarich.
It is truly appalling that some legislators are ready to write a check to the top 1% after Massachusetts voters decided last fall to ask the ultrawealthy to pay a little more for our public schools and colleges, and our roads, bridges and public transportation systems.
Standing with workers on strike
Our members are showing solidarity with the many workers on strike or about to go on strike.
On that note: Congratulations to the Teamsters who just today reached a tentative agreement which would bring major improvements to the working conditions of both full- and part-time employees! Read more about their successful TA.
Learn how to support unionized actors (SAG-AFTRA) and writers (WGA) here.
Political Education
Even as we take action to support workers in the entertainment industry and at UPS, this New York Times opinion piece on Starbucks is well worth a read. It describes the “corporate dirty war” that the highly profitable Starbucks has waged against its workers with “employee rights casually crushed and labor laws too weak to help.”
Wherever you are on the political spectrum, we hope stories like this, repeated in virtually every industry, make you more committed to standing in solidarity with those who work to support themselves and their families – that’s all of us, the 99% – and in opposition to corporate owners who have amassed and concentrated more wealth than at almost any other time in this nation’s history.
In Solidarity
Max and Deb