The MTA’s first in-person Summer Conference since 2019 was already feeling like a special event as educators started gathering on July 31 at UMass Amherst. It became truly electrified later that day as members listened to a discussion among next-wave labor organizers who successfully brought union campaigns to Amazon and Starbucks.
MTA President Max Page noted that having members together again in person was important for solidarity — especially with the union facing goals such as winning the Fair Share Amendment in November, weakening the grip of high-stakes standardized testing on public schools, securing the pay and benefits that all educators deserve, and moving Massachusetts toward fully funded public colleges and universities that students can attend debt-free.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the MTA to cancel its annual Summer Conference in 2020 and 2021. The return to an in-person event included heightened health and safety precautions.
Attendance was limited to members who had signed up for multi-day workshop tracks that focused on effective bargaining campaigns, leadership development, union skills and training for new presidents.
But the energy was high — beginning with the keynote opening session.
The event featured Chris Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, which organized employees at a distribution facility on Staten Island, New York, and Kylah Clay and Tyler Daguerre, organizers with Starbucks Workers United, which has encouraged baristas to unionize at more than a dozen Massachusetts stores and is supporting an ongoing strike in Brookline. All used their stories to inspire educators facing their own battles to improve both their working conditions and students’ learning conditions.
The Amazon Labor Union found success when workers cared for and supported each other during the initial years of the pandemic, making sure people were safe and healthy even as company managers pushed them to work harder, Smalls told the crowd.
"It was a culture Amazon had never seen before," Smalls said. "We defeated the odds because we cared about one another."
The conversation turned into a bit of a celebration for workers who had just organized a union at the Trader Joe’s store in nearby Hadley, some of whom attended the opening session.
Two employees who participated in the campaign were singled out in the audience and received a standing ovation.
The union organizers for Amazon and Starbucks workers emphasized the importance of educators and the teaching of labor history in public schools. All of them said they had little understanding about unions or the U.S. labor movement when their organizing efforts began.
Audience questions highlighted comparisons between larger and more established unions, such as the 177-year-old MTA, and newer unions organized by different kinds of workers.
Clay said that workers at all levels need to be included in decision-making.
"Older and larger unions need to let workers call the shots and not be afraid to try new thinking and listen to people who are on the ground," she said.
Summer Conference activities were designed to encourage the several hundred MTA members on campus to reflect on how they could work to develop a more inclusive and stronger union.
The LGBTQ+ and Ethnic Minority Affairs Committees each held forums designed to provoke healthy self-examination on issues surrounding equality. Union members discussed ways to break down white supremacist attitudes and structures to make workplaces more equitable and welcoming for diverse educators, as well as how to best support students — especially those from traditionally marginalized or targeted backgrounds. With a critical election looming on Nov. 8, state politics also played a role at the conference.
Page worked hard to build urgency and enthusiasm around the Fair Share Amendment, which would add 4 percentage points to the tax on annual income over $1 million to generate funding for public education and transportation.
MTA Vice President Deb McCarthy focused on encouraging members to mount resistance to the high-stakes MCAS testing regimen, describing it as "an accountability system that, in reality, is destroying lives."
This year’s Summer Conference featured appearances by several MTA-recommended candidates for statewide public offices.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, a candidate for attorney general, Diana DiZoglio, a candidate for state auditor, and Tami Gouveia, a candidate for lieutenant governor, spoke at a conference event and listened to members’ concerns.
Comments focused on issues such as the unfair working conditions that adjunct faculty members experience at public colleges and universities and how a ban on strikes by public employees should be overturned.
The four-day Summer Conference, which ran through Aug. 3, kept attendees busy from morning through night with workshops, forums and social events. But ultimately, members said they left feeling energized about the union and the challenges ahead.
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