MTA President Max Page at No Kings rally in Greenfield
MTA President Max Page at No Kings rally in Greenfield
The following remarks were delivered by MTA President Max Page at the No Kings rally in Greenfield on Saturday, Oct.18:
Good afternoon, Greenfield!
I am Max Page, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which is the 180-year-old diverse union of 117,000 education workers in virtually every public school and on every public college and university campus in the Commonwealth.
We are the largest union in New England. And our members proudly stand with all of you to defend democracy, defend unions, and defend public education, from before kindergarten through public college and university and lifelong learning.
As a western Mass resident, born and bred, I am so happy to be here with you.
When I drive west from work in Boston, and I start to relax because I am approaching home, I think of the election maps for two recent elections.
Our members proudly stand with all of you to defend democracy, defend unions, and defend public education, from before kindergarten through public college and university and lifelong learning.
In 2024, when we defeated the use of high-stakes testing, the west was a sea of green on those maps, voting 'Yes' to end the destructive use of the MCAS to determine who gets a diploma.
And in 2022, it was that same sea of green in the western counties that were the difference in passing the Fair Share Amendment. In some towns out here the vote was over 80% – like in my hometown of Amherst! (Greenfield was a mere 72% in favor!). With Fair Share, you all voted in favor demanding that multimillionaires and billionaires pay a little more so we could all have:
Universal school meals.
Free higher education.
Free regional transit.
More for literacy programs.
More for campus construction.
More for the T and road repairs.
$3 billion dollars this year alone from the wealthiest 7/10th of 1% of the population all to invest in the common good.
Thank you, Western Mass!
We, the people, have assembled here and in a thousand places around the country to declare that in this country we have NO KINGS.
In this year of celebrating the American Revolution, We, the people will protect democracy even when Mad King Donald thinks that Mad King George was the hero of the story of 1776.
We in the MTA sit at the intersection of two key points of attack by an authoritarian regime – public education and unions.
I will not dwell on the daily attacks because you know and experience them: the evisceration of the Department of Education, federal research grants that will save lives pulled from our faculty at UMass Amherst, orders to eliminate teaching the truth of our history, attempts to crush free speech on campus, doxxing and threatening and kidnapping our educators and students for exercising their right to free speech; the antisemitic attempts to use of accusations of antisemitism as a way to crush unions and public education; the elimination of union rights for a million federal workers. And on and on …
I do, however, want us all to be clear-eyed about why these attacks began on January 20 at the start of this would-be king’s regime. Every authoritarian and fascist regime of the past century has recognized that the twin forces of public education and unions must be crushed for the authoritarian to succeed in destroying democratic society. Unions are independent, democratic institutions that bring workers together across race, politics, gender and religion to demand justice at work and in society. This scares the bejesus out of capitalists and autocrats. I know of this personally, as my father was kicked out of the public schools in Berlin early in Hitler’s takeover.
Unions will be the source of resistance in this time.
They know that unions will be the source of resistance in this time. We in the labor movement must be ready to play that role once again, in solidarity with our communities.
But educator unions face another challenge.
Authoritarians hate nothing more than truthful history, freedom of thought, freedom of teaching and learning, and the places where future citizens are nurtured as independent, critical thinkers and future thorns in the side of the antidemocratic, the unjust, and the comfortable oppressors. Public education is, we say and believe to our core, the foundation of democracy. Which is precisely why Trump focused his ire on public schools and colleges from the very start.
And yet…..And yet!
While authoritarians hate unions, a large majority of Americans admire unions and a large majority of worker wish they could be in a union. The popularity of unions is at an all-time high.
And while authoritarians hate public education, the vast majority of Americans send their children to public schools and are dedicated to their educators and their schools. While Trump won by 20 points in Nebraska and Kentucky, private school vouchers programs were killed in both places by the same amount. The message in red and blue states is: ‘Hands off our public schools!’
At the start, I noted that I am proud to be here to defend public education, unions and democracy.
As we fight back, we must fight forward.
But as we fight back, we must fight forward.
The world we inhabited before Donald Trump arrived was no paradise.
It was too unequal, too cruel, too racist, too unhealthy, too beholden to the uber-rich, too anti-democratic, too capitalist.
We must turn back this billionaire oligarchy by fighting for the world we want to live in.
“Workers over Billionaires” is the companion slogan to “No Kings.”
Even in the midst of this terrible time, we in the MTA, and I know all of you, will be fighting forward:
For public schools that are fully funded, and embrace real learning for our future neighbors and citizens, not rote learning dictated by a standardized test.
For free, high-quality public higher education for every resident, where ideas are invented and debated, where we value argument in pursuit of the truth.
For economic justice for our families of our students, because without that there is no education justice. That means rent control, universal, single-payer health care, true living wages.
Unions for every worker, and the right to strike for all of them, including our educators.
And in this state, what would be, if it were a nation, the sixth-wealthiest nation on earth, we will demand that the wealthiest people and corporations, who found their wealth here, pay their fair share so we can have the public schools and colleges, and Commonwealth, we all deserve. Fair Share, my friends, was just a good start.
I will end by saying that there is one king:
We, the People!
And when we, the people, fight, we win!
When we fight, we win!
When we fight, we win!
Thank you!