Massachusetts Jobs with Justice ANNUAL REPORT 2020-2021 A reflection of our work during the covid-19 pandemic 375 CENTRE STREET, JAMAICA PLAIN, MA 02130 | 1380 MAIN STREET, SUITE 203, SPRINGFIELD, MA 01103 JWJ@MASSJWJ.NET | WWW.MASSJWJ.NET
A MESSAGE FROM OUR CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS: LILY & ALICIA The chaos and tragedy of the past year has shown us many things, but chiefly that we have the power within our own communities to take care of each other -- and that we must in order to survive collectively. The world constantly reminds us that working people confront white supremacy, misogyny, and violence at work, at home and in our communities. This past year has also shown us that the marginalized: BIPOC women, queer women, transgender women, and gender non-conforming people, people with disabilities, and immigrant women, are and always have been at the forefront of defending and organizing our communities. At Mass Jobs with Justice, we believe that those closest to the pain should be closest to the power.
We are led by and predominately comprise women of color, and we are rooted in our firsthand experiences of oppression as well as interpersonal and state violence. We are survivors, disabled, immigrants, formerly undocumented, queer and non-binary, first-generation children of immigrants, formerly incarcerated people. We are deeply rooted in our communities, identities, and experiences. We work towards justice in the “sites of struggle”: the workplace, in the home, and in our communities to build the power of workers. Throughout 2020, we built mutual aid networks to deliver groceries to elderly neighbors and raise rent funds for out of work disabled mothers. We organized workplaces to advocate for worker rights and power. We poured into the streets to fight for racial justice. And through it all, we built a stronger community.
Table of contents Racial Justice 01027: A Knee is Not Enough....................................................................................4 Police Do Not Belong in Our Schools........................................................................5-6 Hold Them Accountable...........................................................................................7 Dignity for Dauda.....................................................................................................8 Love Resists.............................................................................................................9
Reproductive Justice and Public Health Reproductive Justice & Infant Mortality In Holyoke's Latinx Community..............10 Mass Covid Response Alliance.................................................................................11 Mass Nurses Association.........................................................................................12
Immigrant Justice Mass Undocufund....................................................................................................13-14 Outreach Victories...................................................................................................15 PUMA........................................................................................................................16
Economic Justice and Workers Rights School Reopening....................................................................................................17 GE Workers Strike...................................................................................................18 PPE for Frontline Workers......................................................................................19 Union Collaboration................................................................................................20 Project Restore US..................................................................................................21
Training and Leadership Development Training Series........................................................................................................22
Mass JwJ in the Media Feature on MassUndocuFund..................................................................................23
01027: A Knee is not enough The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery sparked massive protests all across the world. A call for racial justice and defunding the police came loudly from millions, including the community-based group, 01027: A Knee is Not Enough. A Knee is Not Enough, or AKINE, is a BIPOC-led group based in Easthampton, MA that was founded after the Easthampton Police Department and public officials took a knee for eight and a half minutes to acknowledge the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police, but did not follow up with any further action. AKINE rapidly grew to a group of 170 members with a strong social media presence, developing a strong structure through subcommittees and Google groups.They organized their first protest, bringing out over 200 people, with 413 Stay Woke Stay Active, a BIPOC led group formed in Western MA to maintain momentum for Black liberation, and Massachusetts Jobs with Justice. The groups demanded that the city take anti-racist actions “to transform historically-biased institutions, policies and practices in the city of Easthampton." AKINE members were then invited to attend one of Easthampton's Community Relations Committee meetings, which were founded after a racist incident at Easthampton High School in 2017. The committee called for more members, more diversity, and a more focused purpose. On Sept. 16, the city council voted to elect residents and AKINE members Myra Oyedemi and Gabriela Stevenson to join the Community Relations Committee (CRC). Stevenson stated, "For me, the CRC just seemed like an appropriate space for [our work]. Part of the mission statement is to bring forth these conversations that Easthampton desperately needs to be having in efforts to make Easthampton a welcoming, safe space for everyone.” AKINE is still active a year later, pushing the City Council to establish a committee to find peer-led alternatives to policing, and to look critically at the scope and duties of the Easthampton Police Department with the goal of divesting a large portion of their budget to other groups and agencies.
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Police do not belong in our schools Easthampton resident groups focusing on policing in schools grew out of A Knee is Not Enough (AKINE)’s work and subsequently connected with a statewide network. Mass JWJ meets monthly with the Statewide Connection on School Policing Group alongside Citizens for Juvenile Justice, Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, Mass Budget, and community groups that address the issues stemming from over-policing of students. Organizing centered around the issue of School Resource Officers in Easthampton Public Schools, an issue with a heavy history in the city. In 2017, multiple students of color were arrested by theninterim SRO Rick Rogalski in connection with an alleged assault on the son of former SRO Allen Schadel. The incident and related complaints of racial inequities sparked tensions in the city and led to an investigation by Attorney General Maura Healy, forcing a reckoning with the true impacts of SROs in schools. Last summer, the Easthampton School Committee finally begged the question: do we really need SROs? They sought to determine if the city should hire an SRO for the upcoming academic year, but struggled to approach the question without solid data on the impact that SROs actually have on students. Some committee members, community members, and parents spoke out against having a SRO in schools, citing their role in carrying out the systemic racism of the school-to-prison pipeline, and advocated instead for a social worker or counselor. Others favored SRO presence, saying that some parents have witnessed positive things with their SRO.
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Easthampton's Mayor Nicole LaChapelle said she doesn’t see data for their schools suggesting that they need an SRO present to prevent criminal activity. The Committee explored the 2017 incident during this debate; committee member Marin Goldstein questioned former interim SRO Rogalski about the arrests made that prompted an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office related to racial equity. Rogalski noted that he was not the SRO at the time and that the then-SRO was out injured, and stressed his feeling that had an SRO been in the building, the incident in question would not have happened. Goldstein said Rogalski and another officer were assigned to the school because it was in their assigned patrol district. After conversation, the School Committee submitted a request to the state to have the SRO requirement waived, giving power to the superintendent to remove the SRO. Along with the Equity Committee, they also committed to research SRO impacts on students and bring data forward. When September came, the school committee stepped back from the waiver due to confusion about what power it actually conferred. However, as of June 9, 2021, a police officer will no longer be present in the city’s public schools. The city will redirect its School Resource Officer positions to focus on community-based policing, according to Mayor LaChapelle. The officers will still work with juveniles, but will not be based in the district’s schools.
Through this fight and many others across the state, along with analyzing the state's data on school-based arrests and policing, we can say even more firmly now that police do not belong in schools. The criminal "justice" system disproportionately targets people of color, and this systemic oppression starts with police criminalizing students in schools. School-based arrest data in Massachusetts is sorely lacking and inconsistent, but both in content and in the ineffective manner of collection points to a dire need for action against racialized policing and arrests based on misbehavior that could easily be addressed by teachers. We need to support students, especially Black and Latinx students, to grow and learn rather than punishing them and feeding them into the school to prison pipeline.
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Hold them Accountable Hundreds protested police brutality outside Springfield police headquarters last summer, sparked by George Floyd's murder and continuous acts of violence in Springfield. Residents called on the police to review their policies for choking measures and to adopt police liability insurance. The latter increases the rates officers have to pay if they continue wrongful murders and misconduct, meaning they would ultimately be priced out, uninsurable, or unemployable. “I'm not speaking to either confirm nor deny how many police officers engage in what I would characterize as brutality,” said Alicia Fleming, our co-executive director. “We’re not looking to necessarily place blame at this moment with this event, but rather to talk about steps towards the solution.” Mass JWJ worked in coalition to support Hampden County Defenders for Black Lives in their organizing, together with public defenders and activists working on issues related to policing, incarceration, and detention. Accordingly, Mass JwJ is collaborating to form the Coalition to Abolish, Decarcerate, and Defund (CADD).
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DIGNITY FOR DAUDA
On the night of May 22, 2019, Dauda Handan was experiencing a mental health crisis. When his work supervisor received a concerning text message from Dauda, his supervisor called the Chicopee police department to request a wellness check. Dauda was attempting to kill himself when he opened the door for the police officers conducting the check, and opened the door holding two knives. The two inexperienced and armed policemen shot him twice with a taser gun and twice more with a firearm. Fortunately, Dauda survived, but he suffered a permanent injury to his right hand, lost his job, and is now unable to work. To add further injustice, the Hampden County District Attorney has charged Dauda with assaulting the officers who shot him.
Dauda maintains that he did not assault the officers, and neither of them suffered any injuries.The shooting of Dauda Handan is yet another example of why sending armed police to address a mental health issue is dangerous and harmful, beyond being ineffective. Additionally, the DA’s decision to prosecute Mr. Handan is a racist, punitive response to this tragic situation: it is in fact the opposite of justice. Mass JWJ is therefore demanding that the Hampden County DA’s office drop the charges against Mr. Handan. In fighting to support Dauda, Mass JWJ collaborated with public defenders, Area Labor Federation Racial Justice and Street Heat solidarity committees, did outreach to unions and community groups, and helped reach over 5,915 people on Facebook. These efforts resulted in over 2,400 signatures for the Dignity for Dauda petition.
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Love resists Love Resists is a Mass Jobs with Justice Research project in collaboration with UUSC, MJL, and Grassroots Leadership in Austin, Texas.
Mass Jobs with Justice will be conducting surveys and interviews with directly affected people on surveillance and policing in their communities.
Mass Jobs with Justice will use case studies to answer the questions: What are the mechanisms and methods by which law enforcement agencies (individually or through collaboration) surveil, extract information from, intimidate, detain, and/or deport members of criminalized communities? How do individuals and organizations resist, disrupt, or stop these mechanisms and methods? 9
Reproductive Justice & Infant Mortality In Holyoke's Latinx Community
The Holyoke Birthing Center was a gem in the community, but in the Summer of 2020, leadership announced it would soon be closed. Former patients were upset--the closure of HBC would leave Holyoke residents with no place to get obstetric care within the city. Residents expressed shock at the allegations of former employees who told the Gazette that administrators bullied them and forced them out, risking patient care in the process. HBC saved women’s lives, including that of Zoraida Rivera, the young woman pictured above. She credits the hospital for saving her life after she developed postpartum preeclampsia. Holyoke has a history of high infant mortality rates, especially for women of color, in a community where more than half the city identifies as Hispanic or Latino. The birthing center was opened in an effort to curb the high infant mortality rate in the city in the 1980’s.
Zoraida said she questions whether something similar would happen in other nearby communities that don't have a 50+% Puerto Rican population. “If it was more with white people, I think they would have been able to save that over a city that has a lot of minorities,” she said. In response, Mass JWJ collaborated with the Massachusetts Nurses Association, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, midwives, and the community to form the Coalition for Birthing Care Access, and expanded this collective work to address other health access and justice issues as well, including cuts at Baystate Health's Noble Hospital and the privatization of mental health care in the region.
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Massachusetts Covid Response Alliance Mass JWJ is on the Central Coordinating Committee that includes: Community Labor United Mass Alliance Mass Voter Table Mass Budget Focus has been: The intersection of housing justice Childcare advocacy Education justice Actions completed: Held micro-conversations among strategy team partners in childcare, housing, and education sectors to build consensus toward a campaign
Current actions: Leading regional power-mapping sessions with key partners (in Western MA, Metrowest, Merrimack Valley, Southshore) in January Launching a Stimulus Funds state allocation fight in January holding state officials & corporations accountable, and thinking about long-term power building Launching Communications, Research, and Organizing Teams starting in January One-on-ones with key strategy team members
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Our work with the Mass Nurses Association Mass JWJ helped Baystate Noble nurses gather over 1,000 digital signatures in support of their efforts to strike for a new contract, and recruited unions from around the state to participate in rallies, speak outs, and forums to boost awareness and create public pressure on Baystate.
The project had been opposed by the state’s nurses union, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, as well as other advocates for community-based behavioral health services. In building the Holyoke facility, Baystate also planned to close mental health beds at: Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield Baystate Wing Hospital in Palmer. 2021 holds more campaigns...
We also worked to slow down the sale of a public building to Baystate Health for a forprofit mental health center in order to propose a resolution in favor of fair labor practices and mental health access to lowincome people. The $43 million Baystate-Kindred project meant the demolition of the Geriatric Authority buildings to make way for a new in-patient psychiatric care facility.
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MassUndocuFund
Mass JWJ's Immigrant Justice Organizer, Yessenia Podrero, led Jobs with Justice's MassUndocuFund project. The Massachusetts UndocuFund for Covid-19 Relief was founded in March 2020 by a coalition of nonprofit immigrant rights groups and service organizations. The UndocuFund provides direct relief funds to undocumented workers affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Massachusetts. In order to be eligible for the UndocuFund, one must be undocumented and not already receiving government assistance such as unemployment or a stimulus check.
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MassUndocuFund Victories In 2020, MassUndocuFund..... Trained 80+ volunteers Conducted interviews in 8 different languages Had over 10,000 applicants Distributed more than $1.2 million to undocumented workers Benefitted more than 4,000 families Had over 10,000 applicants Had 28 funders attend a funders' briefing in May Reached all 14 MA counties and more than 148 cities and towns
Visit www.massundocufund.org to learn more! 14
OUTREACH RESULTS Worker Survey
Reached 2,434 people 112 participated in the survey
Paid Sick Leave Infographic
Reached 33,165 people Resources translated to Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Kreyol, & Arabic
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Parents Union of Massachusetts Grassroots community-based organization with a membership of primarily immigrant and mostly undocumented mothers and their families Distributed flyers around neighborhoods and started building lists of families in need Led mutual aid efforts where PUMA coordinated and delivered fresh groceries, staples, hot meals, and diapers through a network of food pantries, neighborhood mutual aid efforts, and direct donations Dispersed more than $50,000 of financial assistance with the Eos Foundation and $30,000 with MassUndocuFund Opened a food pantry in collaboration with the Rock of Salvation Church
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School Reopening Survey Over the course of 12 days in August, Mass JWJ, along with the Parents Union of Massachusetts (PUMA), conducted a confidential survey of working parents, guardians, and caregivers across 116 districts in Massachusetts, including private, charter, and religious schools. In all there were over 250 responses, allowing both organizations to put the needs of some of the most vulnerable members of our communities front and center in the effort to balance the need for in-person education with the need for public safety. Across the board, families reported great difficulty with their online learning experience, as many parents complained of not being able to both work and be responsible for their children's education at the same time. Many complained of infrequent communication from teachers.
Parents and caregivers noted particular issues for their students with special needs or IEPs and English Language Learners. Many districts did not provide enough resources for those students, and what was available often only became so after sustained intervention from parents. Furthermore, parents complained of little personalization for students and lack of direct support from necessary professionals. Despite these difficulties, many parents were still weary of returning to in-person classes, with more than half reporting a high level of concern about the safety implications and almost 45% saying they would not send their kids back at that time.
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GE Workers' Strike
In late March, GE announced 10 percent of their workforce in the New England region would be cut, despite a very clear need for the production of ventilators which could have been produced in their factories with slight adaptations. Workers decided they had faced enough of the unsanitary and dangerous conditions. They had to use machinery used by shifts before them, and had little in the way of hand sanitizer, soap, or other ways to clean and sanitize their work stations. GE also proved unresponsive to worker concerns, refusing to meet CDC guidelines and preferring to respond to issues about COVIDrelated paid sick days on a "case-by-case basis". When a worker at GE's Lynn plant showed up to work after having been exposed to the virus, other workers there refused to work and took a strike on sick time instead.
This stood in stark contrast to the executives and corporate reps at GE, who despite themselves working at home (showing they clearly understood the risks) continued to push workers to work in unsafe environments without providing proper safety protections. We were proud to support the striking workers in Lynn, boosting petitions and events held near GE's headquarters in Boston and emphasizing the workers' five key requests: SUPPLIES SANITIZATION SIX FEET SICK TIME SERVE THE PUBLIC (including, but not limited to, hiring unemployed workers and building ventilators in factories)
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PPE FOR Frontline Health Workers Mass JWJ joined forces with the Western Mass Area Labor Federation and a fabricator/handyman based in Easthampton to distribute face shields to healthcare workers in dire need of extra PPE. In addition to issues of worker fairness, ensuring basic safety on the job is a key battle whose importance has only increased amidst the COVID pandemic. We have been happy to join this fight, and are very proud of all our partners across the Commonwealth.
UMASS Grad Employees fight for protections Mass JWJ proudly supported Graduate Employees at UMass Amherst in GEO-UAW local 2322 in their recent fight for labor protections. Grad students are some of the most overworked and least protected workers, while doing much of the research and education that brings money to their institutions in the first place. The COVID pandemic posed new risks, not only because these students face increasingly untenable housing prospects but also because they would be the first to go if colleges and universities were forced to cut back on their expenses.
Because of this, we wholeheartedly supported the GEO's efforts to secure greater job security, summer employment, and rent waivers and eviction stays for students living in campus-owned houses. We also commended their highlighting of the struggles international students faced, including the threat of deportation and greater hate crimes against the Asian community specifically. Mass JWJ joined caravans and letter-writing campaigns, and celebrated the agreement reached in September, winning PPE guidelines, expanded family and medical leave, and online work options for high risk employees.
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Union Collaboration
NORTHAMPTON — Workers at Safe Passage, a Northampton-based social services organization with a mission to end domestic violence and relationship abuse, officially unionized after not receiving voluntary recognition from the organization’s board of directors earlier this year. Workers voted 14-6 in favor of becoming affiliated with United Auto Workers 2322 in Holyoke when ballots were counted on June 25, according to election results posted online by the National Labor Relations Board.
NORTHAMPTON – Employees of the Daily Hampshire Gazette and the Valley Advocate formed the Pioneer Valley NewsGuild, a labor union with the mission of providing employees a voice in company decisions. A small organizing committee comprising Gazette and Advocate employees worked with an organizer from the News Guild-Communication Workers of America, a union that serves over 25,000 news media workers across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.
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Project Restore US We have delivered 259,835+ pounds of food to 2,239+ households with the help of 200+ delivery drivers, restoring 1,916+ shift hours to restaurant workers. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Marena Lin could not find a bag of flour at her local grocery store. Marena contacted PAGU Chef/Owner Tracy Chang, who ordered a 50-pound bag of flour for delivery the next day. Recognizing that this was an efficient and safe source of food, these women realized that this supply chain could be leveraged to help communities in need. Marena and Tracy put their heads together and got in touch with Irene Li (Chef/Owner of Mei Mei Restaurant), who had recently piloted a grocery box program for healthcare workers. In order to better understand community needs, these three women brought in Lily Huang (Co-Executive Director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice), who had been working on COVID-19 relief with MassUndocFund. Project Restore Us is an initiative led by our friends Dr. Marena Lin and Chef Irene Li of Mei Mei Boston along with Mass JWJ's own Lily Huang. Food insecurity in Massachusetts doubled in 2020. 1 in 8 families in Cambridge are food insecure. With UFCW Local 1445, La Comunidad, Inc., Cambridge Community Foundation, Cambridge Mutual Aid, the Chinese Progressive Association, VietAid, Boston Children’s Pediatrics, Friends of the Children Boston, and Solidarity Supply Distro, Project Restore Us provided 2000+ essential worker families in Somerville, Everett, Chelsea, East Boston, Chinatown, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, Quincy, Malden, and Revere with 200,000+ lbs. (50 tons!) of groceries, tailored to family size, dietary restrictions, and culture. Contact the group at team@gopagu.com. to get involved.
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Mass JwJ 2020 Training Series 11/12/20 - Part I: Got Data? Excel Charts and Graphs Basics for Organizers: Participants learned the basics of understanding, interpreting, and summarizing data and how to create and customize basic charts and graphs in ways that meaningfully and clearly represent that data. 15.6%
21.9%
6.3% 25%
31.3%
11/19/20 - Part II: Effective 1 on 1s: Participants learned how to use 1 on 1s as a tool for building relationships within their organization and community.
12/3/20 - Part III: Identifying Issues: Participants learned how to identify issues that affect their communities, with community input. They were introduced to an overview of a campaign and all the moving parts, including power mapping to identify the right target.
12/11/20 - Part IV: Strategic Corporate Research 101: Participants learned how to brainstorm which aspects of their target to research, how to navigate various databases, like Open Secrets and OCPF, and basic research skills needed to know their enemy and support their campaign.
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Mass JWJ In the Media
Unemployed And Undocumented, Thousands Turn To Community Organizations For Support
By Shannon Dooling, 10/29/20, WBUR News But some immigrant advocates say writing checks to non-profits isn't enough — the state needs an official safety net for undocumented residents who, by some estimates, make up 5% of the state's workforce. "A lot of folks rely on community organizations like ours just on a daily basis, pandemic or not," said Juan Pablo Blanco, a coordinator with the MassUndocuFund, which has raised $1 million in donations to support undocumented state residents who are unemployed because of the pandemic. The organization administering the fund, Mass. Jobs with Justice, isn't designed to be a direct service provider, but Blanco, who was formerly undocumented himself, said the group has adjusted during the crisis. "It's sort of a shame that we have to step in and do all of this work when, you know, the state is supposed to be doing this," he said. https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/10/29/unemployed-undocumented-covid-19-coronavirus-donations
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SUPPORT OUR WORK! Mass JWJ centers the voices of those directly impacted by corporate greed, racism, and economic inequality every day because we are of the very communities we fight for-- we are Women of Color led and our team is first-generation, immigrants, LGBTQ+ folks, formally incarcerated, and parents. And we need your support to continue our work! Donate or become a sustainer here: secure.actblue.com/donate/massjwj2020annualreport
375 CENTRE STREET, JAMAICA PLAIN, MA 02130 | 1380 MAIN STREET, SUITE 203, SPRINGFIELD, MA 01103 JWJ@MASSJWJ.NET | WWW.MASSJWJ.NET
