News from AFT Massachusetts and President Jessica Tang

Even during what is shaping up to be a very busy campaign season, AFT Massachusetts is all hands on deck for our locals and to ensure workers across the Commonwealth get the benefits, respect, and protections they deserve. We are excited to announce that we have some new AFT Massachusetts union siblings: employees at the Peabody Essex Museum are unionizing with AFT MA! Last week, Peabody Essex Museum Workers United delivered a petition to recognize their union to Acting Executive Director & CEO Kurt Steinberg, signed by a supermajority of staff. Over the last year, workers have built power through conversations with every single PEM staff person across multiple worksites and cities. We are proud to support PEM workers in their efforts to unionize for a stronger, fairer workplace. Click here to learn how you can support PEM Workers United!

We’re also maintaining our active presence on Beacon Hill—speaking with elected officials, staff, and policy leaders about key priorities that we must get over the finish line before next session. Those discussions continue to be fruitful, as we saw when the close-out budget passed by the House last week included $1 million we’ve been advocating for to support and expand our Community Schools (known in Boston as Hub Schools) throughout the state. This follows the announcement for Boston Mayor Wu at her State of Schools speech that BPS will be expanding Community Hub Schools to five more schools

Fall is officially here, and it brought a chill to the air and a late nor’easter. Despite stormy weather, we do have some sunny news to share that will hopefully brighten your day:

AFT Massachusetts is excited to announce that our newly-organized Berklee College of Music & Boston Conservatory at Berklee Staff Union negotiated a “voluntary recognition”—a critical step in the process toward unionization. That means it’s official: AFT Massachusetts is now recognized as the exclusive collective bargaining representative for these 500  dedicated employees! This is an exciting time for everyone at Berklee involved in this fight, and we’d like to congratulate our organizing team on the ground for making this happen! Want to show our newest members from BCMBCBSU some love? Give them a follow on Instagram!

We’re also excited to congratulate the members of the Milton Library Staff Association for reaching a tentative agreement that includes wage increases over a four year period along with the creation of new steps in the contract. Off to ratification it goes!

Welcome back to all of our school- and college-based union members returning for a new school year! Thank you to everyone who was able to join us for our Back To School Town Hall last night. If you missed it, you can view it here!

While many of our local unions are just starting to ramp up for the fall, several of our locals have continued to stay busy throughout the month of August. We’re excited to see a number of newly ratified contracts—including all five units of the Pittsfield Federation of School Employees (paraprofessionals, clerical, custodial, cafeteria, and bus operations) and two units of the Massachusetts Library Staff Association (Weymouth and Braintree). Each of these agreements span three-years and bring increased wages and stronger benefits, including greater clothing allowances, increased parental leave, and, for some of these members, the ability to accrue sick time for the first time ever! August has also been an important month for our locals in terms of contract preparations, with a number of contracts set to expire in June 2027, including those in Boston, Chelsea, and Salem—just to name a few!

Strong unions facilitate strong contracts-no matter the season-and in the Merrimack Valley, we are happy to report that our Lawrence Federation of Paraprofessionals recently ratified a new agreement that includes a 9 percent wage increase over the three years of the contract! It also includes an increase in stipends and substitute assignment rates, enhanced vacation days, and a nearly 40 percent increase in tuition reimbursements! Our Lawrence Administrative Support Staff Association (LASSA) also ratified in late June, receiving a 3 percent wage increase across the board wage increase and additional snow days for school based-members.

Out west, all five of our units within the Pittsfield Federation of School Employees now have ratified or tentative agreements in place. Units gained strong wage increases, important language around parental leave, and an increase to sick leave accumulation. Once all the units ratify their agreements, the contracts will go to the Pittsfield School Committee for approval.

Summer is here, and we are continuing to turn up the heat to win big in our communities and across the state! 

We have some new contract ratifications to celebrate, including:

• Hathorne Teachers Federation – members at Essex Tech will see a 2.75% increase each year over the course of their contract and 10 days of parental leave for the first time; 
• Chelmsford Federation of Teachers – Chelmsford custodians ratified a 16% increase over three years and got additional money for their clothing allowance;  
• Assabet Valley Federation of Teachers – teachers and paraprofessionals both ratified their respective contracts with an average increase of 3% and held the line on proposals from management that would have been a concession in the contract; and
• Pittsfield Federation of School Employees – all five units (paraprofessionals, clerical, food services, bus drivers and monitors, and custodians) in Pittsfield have now settled contract negotiations and ratification will be scheduled once teams review the settlement language.
• There are other TAs that we are hearing about and working on the ground on, so make sure and check out the July Communicator for the next group of wins and ratifications!

At the state level, it continues to be a busy time on Beacon Hill. Earlier this month, we were thrilled to join Senate President Karen Spilka and Senate allies to announce that the Senate would be bringing our R+ legislation to the floor for a vote! After years of advocacy, the bill finally passed the Senate 39-0 on June 4! We are now waiting for the bill to be included in the budget, for it to be engrossed for a vote, or a conference committee to be named to reconcile the differences between the Senate bill and the version passed by the House last July. We are checking in daily on the status. 

The end of May means summer is just around the corner! But our collective work has not slowed down in the slightest.

Locals across the state have been at the table winning key benefits, with several locals reaching tentative agreements this month. Stay tuned for updates on newly ratified contracts in our June newsletter!

From bargaining strong contracts, building strong school-site union structures and taking our movement to the streets or voting booths leading up to November—we must be ready to take action. To that end, we’re excited to announce this year’s Summer Organizing Institute will be held at the Boston Teachers Union on Monday, June 29 and Tuesday, June 30! Make sure to reserve your spot today. We’ll have tracks specifically geared toward developing skills in contract bargaining, mobilizing, serving as a building rep, and more! An agenda for this two-day program can be found here. 

It’s been a big month of organizing, action, and active bargaining here at the AFT Massachusetts!

On the last day of March, staff at Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory at Berklee went public with their petition for voluntary recognition of their union. These staff have spent the last two years organizing and empowering their fellow workers, and we are so proud to have supported them along the way. Now we’re continuing to support the BCM & BCB Staff Union as they move through the next stages of forming a union and becoming the newest official members of AFT Massachusetts! If you know a worker interested in unionizing, encourage them to fill out our intake form to get started.

Our locals saw some tremendous wins this April. Highlights include: big contract wins for the Paraprofessional Unit and the Library Unit within the Peabody Federation of Teachers; the Fairview Nurses Federation in Great Barrington recently settled on a three-year agreement that includes an average wage increase of 3.75% each year; the Secretarial Unit of the Holliston Federation of Teachers secured new parental leave benefits and a 10% increase over three years in their recently settled contract. *And,* this month the UMass Dartmouth Maintainers’ Graduate Student Union ratified their first contract after two years of bargaining and organizing! 

The North Reading Federation of Paraprofessionals just inked a new three year contract that includes an 11% wage increase, new step movements, and family sick bank language. Congratulations to the bargaining team for all of their hard work and effort in securing a new deal in a reasonably short amount of time!

Both units of our UMass Faculty Federation are also seeing their agreed-upon contracts move through the necessary process to receive state funding. The most recent supplemental budget passed by the House fully funded these contracts, and the bill now goes to the Senate for action. Both the Faculty Federation and Employee Staff Unit (ESU) will finally receive their negotiated wage increases from this winter's contract settlements this spring.

As you all know, this year’s budget season is a difficult one at the local and state levels, exacerbated by loss of federal funding. On Monday, the Joint Committee on Ways and Means hosted a FY27 budget hearing as it relates to education and local aid at Lawrence High School, where I joined Lawrence Teachers Union President Kimberly Barry to deliver testimony on what we’re seeing at the local level and the extensive needs of our communities.

It’s been a blizzard this past week in Massachusetts–literally and figuratively! We hope you all have safely weathered the storm and the extended clean up efforts underway.

The first two months of 2026 have a whirlwind as well, particularly for our locals in active negotiations. Leaders in Pittsfield, Essex Tech, our MLSA chapter at the Waltham Public Library, and others across the state are working hard to secure contracts that are fair for their members and good for the students and communities they serve.

After two dozen negotiation sessions, the educators and support staff at Neighborhood House Charter School in Boston have reached a tentative agreement with administrators on their very first contract. If ratified next month, the three-year contract will provide guaranteed annual wage increases, a defined process for employees to address issues within the workplace, and strong job protections, while clearly laying out expectations, rights, and responsibilities for over 140 educators who will become members of the Boston Teachers Union. Congratulations to the BTU and all involved in securing a contract that is good for everyone!

January is always a busy month, and this January has been no exception!

At the AFT MA Town Hall this past Wednesday, we shared highlights from recent contract wins and heard from local leaders about new strategies and lessons learned in their recent campaigns. We reviewed state legislation, gave updates on health care changes, and heard from Senator Ed Markey about the federal landscape. We also shared out highlights and learnings from a recent visit to Minneapolis with President Weingarten.  If you missed it, you can still view it and find resources from this town hall here.  

Earlier this month, we had the usual kick-off to the budget season–including advocacy to the Governor about key areas we need addressed this fiscal year, responding to the State of the Commonwealth, and combing through the Governor’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget suggestions. This is the very first step in the process of what will be a very difficult budget season. Together, we will need to spend the next five months advocating for our schools, working families, and students across the Commonwealth. The Governor’s draft was a baseline, and will be imperative for us to continue to advocate through our allies in the House and then with those in the Senate to build upon it.