labor unions

In a significant stride toward improving working conditions and wages, ride-share drivers across Massachusetts are fervently championing a statewide ballot initiative that seeks to grant them the right to unionize.

The effects of the SAG-AFTRA strike have hit home in New England. Productions that were slated for the area are either on hold or canceled, leaving local performers in limbo.

On June 28 the employees of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston ratified what will be their first union contract with the museum. By establishing collective bargaining rights, the MFA staff is helping to bring about necessary systemic change for museum workers in general.

In America, reputedly the land of opportunity, many people are struggling for survival. While there are still many stories about those who rose from poverty to become millionaires, it is increasingly difficult for the average worker even to attain middle-class status.

Members of Harvard workers’ unions rallied Nov. 9 to show solidarity with the university’s custodians and security guards, who are in the midst of a contract negotiation.

The United States has seen 287 labor strikes since the start of 2021. Nationwide, groups from graduate students at universities to workers at major corporations have stepped off the job and onto the picket lines to speak out for requests like better working conditions.

Hundreds of hotel workers marched through Back Bay on Labor Day in a bid for better working conditions and pay before demonstrating in front of the Boston Sheraton Hotel where Unite Here Local 26 President Brian Lang announced the hotel workers would take a Sept. 12 vote to strike against the Marriott Hotel chain.

With starting salaries at or above $60,000 a year, along with health insurance and pensions, the building trades can be a fast track to middle income wages. But women make up just 7 percent of the total number of people in the building trades in the Greater Boston area, a deficit the Northeast Center for Tradeswomen’s Equity aims to rectify.

On Monday, the Poor People’s Campaign and Raise Up Massachusetts held a rally in front of the State House to demand that legislators vote on and pass a $15 minimum wage and paid family medical leave act before the legislative session ends this month.

Merrie Najimy, the president-elect of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), was inspired to become an educator and later a unionist after experiencing in her own youth that the curricula taught in the Massachusetts public schools she attended felt exclusionary to Arab-American students.