October and November of 2022 will be remembered for a long time in our union and Commonwealth as that moment when we finally won a fairer tax system; when educators stood up in contract fights and declared: "Enough is enough."
My last editorial was written in October, just weeks before Election Day. On Nov. 8, we won the Fair Share Amendment, with 52 percent in favor; 48 percent opposed. That sounds close but the percentage is misleading. The difference is about 100,000 votes – the size of the city of Brockton. In 1994, the last time a progressive tax measure was on the ballot, the question lost by a much steeper margin of 65 percent opposed; 28 percent in favor. Before November there had been five previous efforts to create a more progressive tax system; ours was the victorious one.
Now we will have a fairer tax system than we’ve ever had before, and that is something to celebrate. But we need to keep fighting, too. The wealthiest among us now pay a percentage of taxes that is closer to what our state’s lowest-income workers pay, yet an imbalance remains. In other words, Fair Share was a great start toward tax equity, but not enough.
We also will have $2 billion every single year to spend on improving public education and transportation for all. In November, the MTA Board approved our legislative agenda, and we have rolled out these proposals for a fair share of Fair Share revenues. The specific bills before the Legislature, as well as legislation fact sheets, can be viewed at massteacher.org/legislation.
Debt-free public higher education
With these priorities, the MTA is demanding high-quality, debt-free public higher education, including fair pay and benefits for adjunct faculty and part-time staff, green buildings, and true debt-free access for every resident of our state.
We are demanding full funding of the Student Opportunity Act and more support for preK-12 education, including living wages for Education Support Professionals, more counselors and mental health professionals, paid family and medical leave, and a true commitment to recruiting and retaining BIPOC educators.
As I wrote in the fall, perhaps the most important win in the Fair Share victory, was that we took a sledgehammer to neoliberalism, the ideology that has dominated political discourse in recent decades, and which has at its core an almost religious belief in tax cuts, privatization of public goods – including public education – and cuts to government. Fair Share has opened a range of possibilities in imagining a different Commonwealth, where we start with this question: What do all Massachusetts residents need to live healthy, fulfilling, prosperous lives that allow them to plan for the future and care for themselves and their families?
MTA educators should feel enormous pride in this historic, shared victory. It was you who spent weekends and nights knocking on doors and calling registered voters, a level of effort that was critical to the success of the campaign. It was you who contributed your dues so that a coalition of labor, faith and social services organizations could go toe-to-toe with the billionaire class and win better funding for everyone. You won this for yourselves, for your children, for your grandchildren, and for future generations. We hope and expect that Fair Share will remain in our state Constitution for generations to come.
Community and parent support
Even as we were on our way to winning the constitutional amendment in November, MTA members were making historic changes in their own local unions. After months and months of frustrating negotiations in which the school committees engaged in performative "surface bargaining" – showing up to twiddle their thumbs and avoid responding meaningfully to our members’ proposals – Malden and Haverhill educators voted overwhelmingly to go on strike. With widespread parent and community support, the MEA won a tremendous contract, including a dramatic increase in pay for ESP members – close to a true living wage – fair pay for the rest of the educators, and common good demands, such as the school committee joining with the local to demand more affordable housing for Malden families. In Haverhill, the school committee and its highly paid, anti-union lawyer insisted on dragging out the strike in order to punish the Haverhill Education Association. But the members were not deterred! They won a strong agreement that addressed pay, but also key student and educator concerns around behavioral health in the schools.
So many individuals, members and leaders showed up to support both of these unions in their contract fight. It was overwhelmingly moving to witness the solidarity and comradely love that was visible everywhere, during the Malden and Haverhill victories and then again in Melrose, over the weekend ending in Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Embracing local unions in solidarity
I have never been more proud to be an educator, a union member, and leader of the MTA, than while standing with our members in Brookline, in Tewksbury, in Belmont, Andover and Sharon to demand better for their students and communities. Their fierce commitment to confront bullies in all forms – school committees, the Department of Labor Relations, the courts, lawyers who get up in the morning and say "We have to punish you teachers" (that’s a real quote from a management lawyer) – to embrace their union siblings in solidarity, to call on students and families to stand with them, was inspiring and moving. A lot of tears were shed, because members knew they were and are part of something special. Deb and I witnessed a level of camaraderie, of support, of pure joy in union solidarity.
Letters policy
MTA Today welcomes letters to the editor from MTA members. Letters should be no longer than 200 words. Each letter submitted for publication must address a topic covered in MTA Today, must be signed and must include the writer’s telephone number for confirmation purposes. Opinions must be clearly identified as belonging to the letter-writer. We reserve the right to edit for length, clarity and style. To submit a letter, mail it to MTA Today, 2 Heritage Drive, 8th floor, Quincy, MA 02171-2119, or email it to mtatodayletters@massteacher.org. For additional information, please refer to the guidelines posted on www.massteacher.org.
