Andre Francois
Workers Memorial Day
Freeport Yard – May 28, 2020

Boston School Bus Drivers Want Say In Reopening Plans: ‘We Must Be Part Of This Discussion’

July 20, 2020

Local 8751 Informational Meeting June 18, 2020 6:00 PM

June 15, 2020

Local 8751 Demands Letter to BPS Superintendent Dr. Cassellius

June 8, 2020

Text of Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s robo-call to members of USW Local 8751 on Friday afternoon, April 3, 2020 in English and Kreyol

April 6, 2020

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Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers

3 days ago

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Boston school workers blast ‘reopening plans’

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Boston Public School nurses, teachers and bus drivers occupied City Hall Plaza on July 29, vowing to defend public safety by any means necessary. The action was a response to the threatening, dangerou...

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4 days ago

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‘Hero pay, not zero pay!’

www.workers.org

Essential workers protested July 30 in a flash-mob protest in front of a newly remodeled Tops Market, a supermarket chain based in Western New York. The event was organized by the Amalgamated Transit ...

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4 days ago

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#SEIUDroptheCops makes demands

www.workers.org

Following weeks of intensive internal organizing, research and analysis, the (Service Employees) #SEIUDropTheCops campaign — a rank-and-file-led initiative with SEIU members in locals from coast to ...

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1 week ago

USW Local 8751 July 29, 2020 Statement on School Reopening in Solidarity with the Boston Teachers' Union.

Boston School Bus Drivers Say,
“No School Reopening Without Union-Planned and Designed Health & Safety Procedures!”

Teachers, Nurses, Bus Drivers & Monitors, Custodians, Paraprofessionals, Food Workers Demand a Seat at the Planning Table, Now!

First Step: Nurses In Every School, Bus Yard and Food & Nutrition Facility to Ensure Frontline Emergency COVID-19 Standard Operating Procedures.

Transdev: Stop the Fraud! Hire Professional Bus and Facility Disinfecting Companies, Now!

Transdev/BPS: Hire More Bus Drivers and Monitors! Impact Bargaining for Full Hazard Pay and Benefits for All School Workers, Now!

For weeks in February and early March 2020, USW Local 8751 published demands to our private employer, Veolia / Transdev, and Boston Public Schools to professionally disinfect our bus yards and busses, to institute emergency Health & Safety protocols such as providing masks and other PPE, temperature screening, strict outdoor physical distancing, touchless restroom facilities, etc. As the pandemic spread world-wide, our employer and responsible parties failed to act, and in April, Local 8751 suffered the deaths of 4 drivers to COVID-19 who were active in the City’s food home-delivery program to thousands of BPS children. Only the Union’s forceful, on-site intervention and job actions to enforce Emergency COVID-19 Worksite Standard Operating Procedures stopped infections among our members, until Transdev dumped us all onto the unemployment line in late June.

Local 8751 pledges to our members and the children, families and communities we serve:
Not One More Death!

Local 8751 applauds the Boston Teachers Union’s frontline, essential, and, in our opinion, non-negotiable demand for Union Nurses in every school. As the school bus is first daily contact with tens of thousands of Boston’s most precious cargo, Local 8751 also demands BTU Nurses be stationed at the bus yards to assist Local 8751 with ensuring and enforcing Emergency COVID-19 Procedures.

Local 8751 raises 1,000 fists of Solidarity with the American Federation of Teachers’ July 28, 2020, powerful commitment and warning to federal, state and local governments that “Safety Strikes” will be the result if the workers’ Health & Safety demands remain unmet.
No Reopening Without Safety First! ... See MoreSee Less

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1 week ago

BPS nurses, teachers, bus drivers rally at City Hall against reopening schools without proper safety measures

By Naomi Martin Globe Staff, Updated July 29, 2020, 1 hour ago

[Image: Boston Teachers Union nurses and other staffers held a sit-in on City Hall Plaza. on Wednesday.PAT GREENHOUSE/GLOBE STAFF]

Boston school nurses, teachers, and bus drivers demonstrated Wednesday at City Hall against reopening schools in the fall, saying conditions amid the pandemic would be too dangerous without massive investments in protective gear, new staff, rapid coronavirus testing, and air ventilation systems.

Chanting, “We want to go back when it’s safe,” dozens of school staffers said they missed interacting with students in person but felt returning to classrooms without adequate safety measures would jeopardize their lives and those of their families, students, and students’ loved ones. The demonstration, which came amid national threats of teacher strikes this week, was among many signals of growing tensions in the increasingly political fight over the safety of reopening schools as the fall draws near.

“Honestly, it is not safe. We can’t go in,” said Esther Onuoha, a school nurse at Community Academy and Greater Egleston High School. “We are willing to go back, but it has to be safe for us.”

She said she has no space to isolate students exhibiting possible coronavirus symptoms from other students while they await a ride home. Many nurses’ offices are converted closets and lack sinks for basic hand-washing, she said.

In a statement, the school district insisted its plans for the fall are predicated on shielding children and employees from the coronavirus. “The health and safety of our students and staff remains the top priority of the Boston Public Schools,” the district said.

Schools across Massachusetts abruptly shut down in March because of the pandemic. In Boston, officials are considering a hybrid approach for the fall, with students coming to school two days a week and studying remotely three days a week. The start date is still to be determined; earlier this week, the state and teachers unions agreed on a plan that gives districts permission to delay their openings, setting Sept. 16 as the latest students should return to classes.

Wednesday’s rally came as educators protested across the state and the country against reopening schools. Educators from Malden and other districts, along with the Massachusetts Teachers Association, plan to rally Thursday outside the offices of the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education asking for reopening decisions to be rooted in public health standards with full funding.

On Tuesday, the American Federation of Teachers, a national union, threatened to authorize limited “safety strikes” among teachers as a last resort if their safety needs aren’t met.

Public employee strikes are prohibited in Massachusetts. But school bus drivers, who work for private contractors, echoed the federation’s warnings of strikes if their safety demands are ignored. USW Local 8751, which represents Boston school bus drivers, said Wednesday that four drivers who worked in the school district’s food-delivery program died in April of coronavirus, which the union blamed on unsafe working conditions.

The local bus drivers union said it “raised 1,000 fists of Solidarity” with the national teachers union’s warning of strikes if health and safety demands “remain unmet.” (Transdev, the bus drivers’ employer, said it had not heard about threats to strike, but said it maintained communication with workers and prioritized the safety of passengers and employees.)

The Boston Teachers Union said to return to school safely, its members want to see policies consistent with best practices in nursing and approved by school nurses; accessible rapid testing for staffers and families; adequate protective gear; sufficient air ventilation in all schools, with strictly enforced cleaning policies, isolation rooms near health offices, soap in all bathrooms, and windows that open.

Ellen MacInnis, a board member of the Massachusetts Nurses Association and a staff RN at St. Elizabeth's, spoke to the crowd at a rally by Boston Teachers Union nurses and staffers at City Hall.
Ellen MacInnis, a board member of the Massachusetts Nurses Association and a staff RN at St. Elizabeth's, spoke to the crowd at a rally by Boston Teachers Union nurses and staffers at City Hall.PAT GREENHOUSE/GLOBE STAFF
The teachers union also requested air quality and ventilation assessments in schools, with the results made public. And it demanded the district hire more substitute nurses and teachers, psychologists, social workers, custodians, and other staff to support all students and keep everyone safe.

From a public health perspective, those requests make sense to reopen schools safely, said Helen Jenkins, an epidemiologist at Boston University.

“I think their demands are totally reasonable,” she said.

But the lack of funding for such efforts is also a reality schools must contend with. An average district of 3,700 students can expect $1.8 million in pandemic-related costs during the upcoming year, or roughly 3 to 4 percent of its annual budget, according to the AASA, the School Superintendents Association. Boston Public Schools serves about 54,000 students.

Ruby Reyes, director of the Boston Education Justice Alliance, agreed that the demands were valid — and echoed years of pleas from parents and teachers in Boston Public Schools. As the Globe reported last year, city public health inspectors found problems — from nonflushable toilets to obnoxious odors — in 89 of 111 Boston Public School buildings they visited, and many school bathrooms routinely lacked basic soap and toilet paper.

“People are feeling super anxious because we haven’t received those things for 20 years, so why would we expect it to suddenly happen now?” Reyes said. The district’s instructions for its dozens of schools that lack proper air ventilation systems were to open windows, she said, but many windows don’t open more than a few inches, if at all, which is “not comforting” when dealing with a potentially airborne virus.

“It totally makes sense that people are feeling like the school district isn’t ready to reopen,” Reyes said.

District superintendents and principals across the state agree with teachers unions about wanting to ensure the safest schools possible, said Tom Scott, president of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. But he disagreed with the unions’ approach.

“It does feel as if at this point they’ve organized in a way that is more making a statement than looking for: how do we build a plan based on the desire to bring students back to school as reasonably as we can?” Scott said.

The unions’ strategy, he added, “feels to me a little more confrontational than trying to work together.”

Jonathan Haines, a school nurse at Boston’s McKinley Middle School who helped organize the rally, said the district hadn’t included any school nurses on its planning committee, so they had to demonstrate publicly to make their wishes known. He said at least one school nurse should have a voice in the district’s decision-making meetings, as school nurses have crucial health expertise and will play an integral role in implementing the final plans.

“They should’ve come to us,” Haines said. “We shouldn’t have to hold an event like this to come to them.”

In a statement, Boston Public Schools said Superintendent Brenda Cassellius has sought school nurses’ input and met with them multiple times while planning for the fall. BPS is also working with the Boston Public Health Council to ensure students and staffers will have access to the most timely coronavirus tests available. And the council and Boston Children’s Hospital are advising the district on minimizing risks.

Velma Glover, a school nurse at Mattahunt Elementary School, said she would love to return to school, but she doesn’t believe safety measures and resources would be adequate. For instance, she said, she had made progress in advocating at her school for a brief hand-washing period in students’ schedules after recess and before lunch, but she wasn’t confident other schools would follow suit.

“What’s common sense to me has not been common sense to the system,” she said. “I’m coming from a health perspective. Please allow me to be at the table with you.”

Sharon Harrison, a school nurse at the William E. Carter School, voiced concerns about her students and their families during a Boston Teachers Union sit-in at City Hall Plaza.
Sharon Harrison, a school nurse at the William E. Carter School, voiced concerns about her students and their families during a Boston Teachers Union sit-in at City Hall Plaza. PAT GREENHOUSE/GLOBE STAFF
Sharon Harrison, a school nurse at William E. Carter School, said her office lacks a sink, so she uses the sinks in classrooms. But her biggest concern about reopening schools is air quality and lack of adequate ventilation systems. She echoed the union’s demands for air testing.

Many of her students and their families had serious health issues before the pandemic, and now are more at risk, she said, which deeply worries her.

“I need to keep them safe,” she said.

Naomi Martin can be reached at naomi.martin@globe.com

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BPS nurses, teachers, bus drivers rally at City Hall against reopening schools without proper safety measures - The Boston Globe

www.bostonglobe.com

Boston school nurses, teachers, and bus drivers demonstrated Wednesday at City Hall against reopening schools in the fall, saying conditions amid the pandemic would be too dangerous without massive in...

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Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers

2 weeks ago

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July 27, 2020

> SACRAMENTO, CA July 27, 2020 – Today California child care providers announced they have voted to be represented by the statewide child care provider union, Child Care Providers United. This result, which comes after providers succeeded in their 17-year battle to win authorizing legislation from the state, gives care providers the ability to bargain together for higher pay, better training, and the kind of improvements that mean their families will no longer have to struggle just to pay for necessities. With an overwhelming vote for CCPU, the 45,000 family child care providers will gain official recognition and bargaining rights with the state of California. ..

> ...The 97% CCPU yes vote also comes as child care providers are increasingly recognized for their essential role in California’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and its widespread economic fallout.

>”COVID-19 showed the world just how essential child care is,” said Shuante Brown, a provider in San Diego. “It forced many providers to put their own health at risk to ensure that frontline workers could do their jobs so that our economy kept moving.”

yubanet.com/california/california-family-child-care-providers-win-union-election-in-landslide-vic... ... See MoreSee Less

California family child care providers win union election in landslide victory

yubanet.com

SACRAMENTO, CA July 27, 2020 – Today California child care providers announced they have voted to be represented by the statewide child care provider union, Child Care Providers United. This …

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Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers

2 weeks ago

Union for UMass Amherst RAs calls the school’s reopening plan ‘suicidal’

TRAVIS ANDERSEN, DEIRDRE FERNANDES
July 27 at 11:13 AM ET

>The union for resident assistants and peer mentors at the University of Massachusetts Amherst says the school has refused to address its safety concerns as the campus prepares for a fall reopening that the labor group on Monday called “suicidal.”

>The Resident Assistant/Peer Mentor Union said in a letter to Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy posted to medium.com that it had just “overwhelmingly voted, by a margin of 95%, to authorize our Bargaining Team to formally refuse to work in the dangerous conditions your reopening plan creates.”

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2 weeks ago

Bezos, Hands Off Whole Foods Workers!

Rehire and Make Whole All Workers unjustly fired and disciplined for wearing Black Lives Matter masks, Now!

Boycott Whole Foods!
Cambridge, MA (304 River Street) ... See MoreSee Less

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Boycott li ye tonton!

It’s called a dress code, stop whining and grow up!

Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers

2 weeks ago

July 16, 2020

>For four days, hundreds of workers at several plants belonging to St. Louis-based Electrical Components International (ECI) staged protests against the company’s refusal to shut down and demanded they be sent home to quarantine with full pay.

>Prieto rallied workers outside the ECI plants. In a call and response (with everyone wearing masks), she asked them what did they produce? They said harnesses for refrigerators, stoves and washing machines.

>“And if you don’t have those things, will the world end?” she asked. “No!” they responded.

>“You all know perfectly well that Electrocomponentes isn’t an ‘essential’ business,” she said. “You know this perfectly! I understand your economic necessity and that you don’t want to lose your job. Are you better dead than fired?”

>“No!” they yelled.

>Meanwhile, the Trump administration and U.S. businesses were pushing the Mexican government to loosen up the lockdown restrictions. U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Ellen Lord claimed on April 20 that the lockdown was disrupting supply chains for the U.S. defense industry.
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The untold story of Mexico's COVID-19 strikes - Boulder Weekly

www.boulderweekly.com

Let me introduce you to Susana Prieto, a hero of the pandemic you haven’t heard about. She is a longtime Mexican labor lawyer and organizer. One day in April, she aimed her cellphone camera at hundr...

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2 weeks ago

www.apwu.org

By working together to save the Post Office, we are forcing decision-makers to act! Last week, a bipartisan group of Senators introduced S. 4174 The Postal Service Emergency Assistance Act. The bill w...

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2 weeks ago

“This is a racial justice issue,” Local 26 President Carlos Aramayo, standing with Movimiento Cosecha and SEIU Massachusetts fasters to pass the Driving Massachusetts Forward bill.

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3 weeks ago

Boston Teamsters: Paratransit drivers win victory over union-busting contractor
By Steve Gillis posted on July 20, 2020

Boston

July 20 — Some 350 paratransit drivers in Boston celebrated their victory last night after waging a 100% solid, weeklong strike against Veterans Transportation. The local taxi boss, their profitable new employer, is a notorious union buster.

[Image caption: UNITE HERE Local 26 leader Ed Childs and United Steelworkers Local 8751 Trustee Fred Floreal join the Teamster strike line, July 15. WW Photo: Steve Gillis]

Veterans Transportation recently underbid another private outfit for a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s contract for The Ride, which provides door-to-door service for disabled and elder passengers. They then came at the multinational, predominantly Haitian workforce with a list of wage and benefit concessions. Most disgusting and potentially deadly was the company’s and its government client’s demand that these workers, deemed “essential” by local government during the COVID-19 pandemic, pay substantially more out-of-pocket for their families’ health insurance. They also tried to deny wage increases, substituting a one-time bonus with impossible strings attached, and balked at the union’s pandemic-related health and safety concerns. These were the final insults these Teamster Local 25 members unanimously rejected. On July 10, they hit the bricks 24/7.

The strikers made headlines and allies during their weeklong shutdown as many other unions, politicians and community leaders, including disabled activists, picketed bus yards in Boston suburbs of Everett, Waltham and Watertown.

Passengers who depend on The Ride have suffered deteriorating service and infuriating delays in recent years, as the state’s bipartisan administration took a budget axe to the essential service. During the strike, professional union drivers and MBTA vehicles were replaced with vouchers for app companies Uber and Lyft, whose drivers under current law have zero worker rights or benefits.

The spirit on the strike lines was fighting mad, as well as inspiring and uplifting, with blaring Caribbean music, barbecue and the Local 25 tractor-trailer soundstage bringing major resources, including personal protective equipment, to the picket lines daily.

In a statement issued from Local 25’s parking lot in Charlestown, where physically distanced members ratified the new contract July 19 by over 90%, President Sean M. O’Brien spotlighted “significant health insurance increases.”

“Our members at Veterans Transportation are heroes who have put themselves and their families at risk during the pandemic, providing transit services for our most at-risk citizens,” O’Brien said in a media statement. “Teamsters Local 25 is proud to represent the MBTA [the Ride] drivers and will never stop fighting to make sure our members are treated with dignity and respect and receive fair wages, affordable health insurance and a safe working environment.”

Teamsters Local 25 has also moved the workers’ struggle forward on the legal front in recent weeks. State legislators and the attorney general have been forced, by the labor movement and the pandemic’s resulting economic crisis of mass unemployment, to move bills and initiate lawsuits recognizing gig drivers as workers. These bills will mean rights to unemployment insurance, health benefits, minimum wage protections and to organize a union, as opposed to Wall- Street-sponsored, fake “independent contractors.”

In Public Service Announcements during the strike, the MBTA urged The Ride passengers to cancel appointments or use Uber/Lyft. Its transparent, ill-advised and ultimately futile attempt to break the strike by running a nonunion, substandard, failure-of-a-scab operation behind the scenes earned local government nothing but hatred from the communities served and from the labor movement.

Gillis serves on the Executive Board of USW Local 8751 —the Boston School Bus Drivers Union.

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Boston Teamsters: Paratransit drivers win victory over union-busting contractor

www.workers.org

Boston July 20 — Some 350 paratransit drivers in Boston celebrated their victory last night after waging a 100% solid, weeklong strike against Veterans Transportation. The local taxi boss, their pro...

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FYI Disability Policy Consortium, Boston Center for Independent Living, Charlie, Dennis, Jessica

Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers

3 weeks ago

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Howard Rotman

3 weeks ago

7/20/20 STRIKE FOR BLACK LIVES & ECONOMIC JUSTICE FOR BLACK WORKERS

On Monday, July 20, Boston area union members in solidarity with thousands of workers nationwide who WALKED OF THEIR JOBS IN A STRIKE FOR BLACK LIVES rallied at 9am at the Massachusetts State House in Boston in a day of action organized by Movement for Black Workers, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in coalition with AFSCME, healthcare & nursing home workers, fast food workers, airport workers, Fight for $15, ride-share drivers, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the American Federation of Teachers, United Food and Commercial Workers, Amalgamated Transit Union, Communication Workers of America, immigrant workers, climate justice organizations , American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , Move On, racial justice organizations, and 44 labor unions in more than 25 cities nationwide that engaged in a day long strike. Others walked off their job for eight minutes and 46 seconds, a period symbolic of the length of time police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on George Floyd’s neck.

The workers were united in a day of action to protest the systemic racism that impacts their day-to-day lives in various ways — something that has been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic and more than a month of protests against police brutality targeting peoples of color.

The Coalition organizing the July 20 strike declared: “Together, we withhold our most valuable asset — our labor — demanding corporations take immediate action to dismantle racism and white supremacy to bring about fundamental changes in our society, economy, and workplaces.”

Other demands:

• Higher wages. According to a 2019 report from the Poor People’s Campaign, more than 43.5% of the U.S. population — or 140 million people — is considered poor or low-income, including 26 million Black people, which counts as more than 60% of the U.S. Black population.

• The ability for workers to form unions.

• Sick leave for everyone.

• Health-care coverage for all (including those who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19),

• An implementation of more safety measures as workers continue to be at higher risk during the pandemic.

PARTIAL LIST OF UNIONS & ORGANIZATIONS BUILDING THE JULY 20 STRIKE FOR BLACK LIVES

Service Employees International Union
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
American Federation of Teachers
United Farm Workers
Athena
Partnership for Working Families
United Food and Commercial Workers
Communication Workers of America
National Domestic Workers Alliance
Amalgamated Transit Union
Fight for $15 and a Union
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
Movement for Black Lives
Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
March On
Future Coalition
U.S. Youth Climate Strike Coalition
Center for Popular Democracy
Jobs with Justice
One Fair Wage
350.org
Working Families Party
People’s Action
Greenpeace USA
Sunrise Movement
MoveOn
Black Male Initiative
Policy Link
Indivisible
March On
Black Men Build
Union of Concerned Scientists
Climate Justice Alliance
Labor Network for Sustainability
Corporate Accountability
Freedom Socialist Party
Rising Majority
New York State Nurses Association
Center for Biological Diversity
Blackout Collective
National A. Philip Randolph Institute
MomsRising
Sierra Club
iAmerica
Progressive Democrats of America
League of Conservation Voters
New Economy Coalition
The Fund for Democratic Communities
CODEPINK
National Women’s Law Center
Arab Resource & Organizing Center
USAS
Demand Justice
National Partnership for Women and Families
American Constitution ... See MoreSee Less

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Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers

3 weeks ago

BOSTON (CBS) – Boston school bus drivers are demanding answers as the district starts planning a potential return to class in the fall. So far, they say their voices are not being heard.

“The first meeting we had with them was a Zoom meeting on Tuesday,” said the president of the Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Andre Francois. “Everybody’s uncertain, nobody’s telling us anything.”

USW Local 8751 represents more than 1,000 drivers and bus monitors. Their contractor is transport operator Transdev, an agent of Boston Public Schools. Francois says both the company and the district are ignoring their concerns. Four of its drivers have died after contracting COVID-19 and many of its drivers worked during the height of the emergency, delivering food to students.

Andre Francois, president of the Boston School Bus Drivers Union (WBZ-TV)
“Hand-washing, the wearing of gloves, the masks, social distancing, we were the ones making sure all that happened,” Francois said.

Union leaders say Transdev has failed to follow safety precautions while operating under a state emergency. In a May 29 email to Boston Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius, the union’s financial secretary wrote: “Not a single worker at the operation – has ever seen nor received direct evidence of the phantom “auto-body” company that Transdev claims it has contracted to daily disinfect the buses and our worksite facility. We have reported for 2 months and collected evidence and testimony of fraudulent documentation, nepotism, and unqualified persons and procedures in this deal which puts thousands of peoples’ lives at risk.”

“That’s exactly the level of detail we have to think about,” said Boston Teachers Union President Jessica Tang. “What’s the plan for disinfecting buses? What’s the plan even for bus stops? There’s definitely a reliance on transportation. The majority of our schools are not the type where parents are driving by and dropping them [students] off. That’s not the reality in our urban school district.”

Tang says high-level talks with district leaders continue. On Monday, the two largest teachers’ unions in the state submitted their own proposal, demanding a phased re-opening.

“We are working as hard as we can with the district to figure out how to bring students back in-person in the most safe and equitable way possible,” said Tang. “We need to really think about who are the students who need to be back in-person, where remote learning is just not working at all.”

In a statement to WBZ-TV, Boston Schools said: “BPS is currently developing plans for three fall reopening scenarios, which include any potential transportation needs and associated costs. Those discussions remain ongoing with various stakeholders, including our bus drivers. We look forward to continued engagement with the BPS community in fall reopening discussions during our virtual public meetings beginning next week.” ... See MoreSee Less

Boston School Bus Drivers Want Say In Reopening Plans: ‘We Must Be Part Of This Discussion’

boston.cbslocal.com

Boston school bus drivers are demanding answers as the district starts planning a potential return to class in the fall. So far, they say their voices are not being heard.

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Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers

3 weeks ago

DAY 8 of Teamsters Local 25 members at Veterans Transportation on strike. These essential workers are the men and women who provide paratransit for the MBTA’s “The RIDE” program.

Support your brothers and sisters. Picket lines are 24/7 at two locations:
‪594 Pleasant Street Watertown and Airforce Road‬ Everett

#teamsterslocal25 #supporttheridedrivers #onedaylonger #onedaystronger #teamstersonstrike #strikealert #mbta #theride #newenglandteamsters
Teamsters Joint Council 10 ... See MoreSee Less

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3 weeks ago

Team Solidarity marches with
#SayHerName July 4, 2020

Boston #SayHerName
Black women lead BLM march
By M. Skehan and G. Lechat posted on July 14, 2020

Over a thousand people took to the streets July Fourth to center Black women’s role in the ongoing Black Lives Matter rebellion. Gathering in Boston’s Nubian Square, recently stripped of its slaver name, the #SayHerName demonstration and march were organized by the initiative of Black women community leaders Daunasia Yancey, Karlene Griffiths Sekou and Lanise Colon Arira Adeeke.

Activist and civil rights lawyer Kimberlé Crenshaw, best known for originating the concept of intersectionality — that “race,” class and gender social categories create interrelated and deeper experiences of discrimination, especially for Black women — envisioned the #SayHerName campaign in 2014 to ensure that their stories are not ignored.

While some names like Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor have received increasing attention, on par with some of the Black men murdered by police, others like Michelle Cusseaux and Kayla Moore, both murdered by cops confronting them in mental health crises, remain lesser known. The killers of all four have, however, evaded justice. The “qualified immunity” recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, that protects cops from accountability and consequences, is part of the longer list of privileges and abuses that have moved many from reformists to police abolitionists.

Community and labor solidarity was evident at the Boston action. Team Solidarity of the Boston School Bus Drivers, United Steelworkers Local 875 provided a 24-foot flatbed truck to carry the women leaders and performers from Nubian Square to the Boston Common. Demonstrating Black and Indigenous unity, Chief Sachem Wompimeequin Wampatuck of the Mattakeeset Tribe with the Massachusetts Indian Nation and North American Indian Center of Boston activists offered land acknowledgements and statements of solidarity.

Black women lead march on cop headquarters

Under attack from intersecting forms of institutional and interpersonal violence, Black women led the local marchers to the Boston Police Department headquarters in the heart of the Black community as they held the street to demand: “Abolish the Police!” As Griffiths Sekou said: “Black women are overlooked, erased, stigmatized and feared. . . . No matter what you do to us, we’re still gonna rise, and we’re gonna take other Black women with us. We’re gonna take everyone with us! This is the vision, the imagination and the new world that is on its way!” Griffiths Sekou also demanded that $40.1 million in the bloated BPD budget go to a community-controlled fund to uplift the health and safety of Black residents.

Speakers decried racist gentrification and attempted theft of the community’s Harriet Tubman House by greedy real estate developers, while standing in front of the endangered South End landmark. Its future — a thriving Black community center or death by condo conversion for high-income white residents? — currently hangs in the balance in Boston’s Suffolk Superior Court. Sistahs of the Calabash performed Wade in the Water, “a war cry,” in tribute to Harriet Tubman.

The Sistahs explained in a post accompanying the video of their performance: “Mama Moses called on the water divinities to guide our ancestors to freedom! An action at the Combahee River, planned and led by Harriet Tubman on June 2, 1863, in the Port Royal region of South Carolina, freed more than 750 slaves. This is the only military campaign in American history planned and led by a woman.”

Arriving at the Boston Common in the evening, the day “to lament those murdered, center and uplift all Black womxn” and share in radical joy ended in a moving cultural resistance program of dance, song, drumming, spoken word, speeches and food. There were trans and nonbinary people of color, mothers demanding justice for their children murdered by the BPD and young women dancers honoring the life of Breonna Taylor.

Quoting Audre Lorde, Yancey read, “It is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.” Yancey added, “We want to be righteously angry, and we want to be holding each other in love.”

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Boston #SayHerNameBlack women lead BLM march

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Over a thousand people took to the streets July Fourth to center Black women’s role in the ongoing Black Lives Matter rebellion. Gathering in Boston’s Nubian Square, recently stripped of its slave...

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Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers

3 weeks ago

Team Solidarity supports
Lowell Mass Action Collective
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Lowell Mass Action Collective July 18, 2020

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10 new photos added to shared album

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Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers

3 weeks ago

Solidarity with the MA Indigenous Legislative Agenda!

Take down the racist MA state flag and seal!
Ban racist mascots!
Indigenous Peoples Day, Now!

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