2020 Delegate Assembly
Having just barely adjusted to the reality shift brought on by the 2018 Janus vs. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, the MCCC is now tasked with another major reality shift. The deadly COVID-19 global pandemic, which has already caused untold suffering and, by the time this report is published, over 110,000 U.S. deaths, is a paradigm shift that is perhaps beyond our capacity to fully grasp at the moment. Millions of workers have been furloughed or laid off. Hundreds of thousands of jobs may have … [Read more...]
Imagine Our Power
Welcome, everyone, to the start of a new academic year. The MCCC has lived through year one post-Janus and so far, things are holding steady. Yet now is not the time to become complacent. The threat to collective bargaining is as great as it has ever been. Our hard-won benefits – health insurance, vacation accrual, sick time – are losing ground against the tide of wealth consolidation into fewer and fewer hands. The 2% raises given to us by the governor, despite the strongest economy in over a … [Read more...]
Union Strength 2019 Delegate Assembly President’s Report
The union world has been on the move since my election to MCCC President a little over a year ago. Despite the Janus v. AFSCME Decision, support for unions has been steadily climbing. Far from the short-sighted anti-union perspective of Janus and his ilk prevailing, people are re-discovering that it is not good enough to just have a job. After all, what good is the creation of 1,000,000 more jobs, if those jobs demean employees and pay wages they can’t live on. Working conditions matter. Livable … [Read more...]
President’s Column March 2019
Community College As A Pathway to Lower Student Loan Debt Student loan debt was on the mind of nearly everyone I chatted with the morning of March 21, 2019 (Higher Education Advocacy Day) at the Statehouse as I headed to the offices of my State Representatives to speak about the need for increased funding to public higher education. One student in her second year at UMass Amherst told me she was already carrying $20K in loans, and had just signed on to $15K more. Another student at … [Read more...]