EARLIER THIS YEAR, Woburn educators, addressing the grossly unfair pay offered to highly valued paraprofessionals, won a 40 percent starting-pay increase for the district’s paras. The Woburn Teachers Association further took on the ever-growing problem of educator shortages by establishing a new minimum salary for classroom teachers that meets the goals of US Sen. Bernie […]
Steven Tolman
Posted inEconomy
The future of work is not for sale
EVERY LABOR DAY working people celebrate the countless contributions the labor movement has made to improve the lives of working people. We reflect on the past and present to organize a better future for all. Right now, working people are frustrated. Many are struggling to afford the basics, much less save for college or retirement. […]
Posted inOpinion
Essential workers need a bill of rights
THIS YEAR, Labor Day arrives in the crossfire of a global pandemic, an economic crisis, and a reckoning for racial justice throughout America, laying bare how vital working people are to keeping every person safe, secure, healthy, and fed; how economic safety nets and investments in the public good are critical; and just how deeply […]
Posted inOpinion
Union chief: Grid workers did not break
UNIONS MATTER. That’s the lesson of National Grid’s six-month lockout of 1,250 United Steelworkers. Withstanding the latest in a series of attacks on workers nationally, the men and women of Locals 12012 and 12003 held firm for 28 weeks against the hardships imposed on them and their families by a multinational, multi-billion dollar corporate behemoth. […]
Posted inOpinion
Democracy at risk when unions attacked
AS THE 2018 ELECTIONS APPROACH, many voters find themselves doing a lot of soul-searching about the state of our democracy. On the one hand, the Trump administration seems to be pushing our democracy nearly to the breaking point on a daily basis, flaunting the rule of law and engaging in tactics that threaten to stifle the rights […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Politics
Labor is the backbone of democracy
THIS LABOR DAY, if you want a close up view of our nation’s widening chasm between the rich and the rest of us, all you have to do is take a walk. Boston and the state as a whole have become one of America’s best examples of its worst trend – runaway income inequality. With […]