Gloribel Rivas: Why Mass JwJ

At Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, we are declaring August as our month of Movement-building and Movement-Giving. Even in the most uncertain times, you can be sure of Jobs with Justice, and that’s only because hundreds of activists like you have worked so hard over the last three decades to make our organization what it is today. As long as we have your solidarity, we will keep fighting-- and we believe that we will win. This month, we will be highlighting our campaigns, victories, and leaders that make Mass Jobs with Justice unstoppable and sustain and grow our movement.

Gloribel Rivas: At the beginning of the pandemic, I knew my community would be disproportionately harmed by COVID-19 and its economic blows. I grew up in East Boston after immigrating to the United States without documentation. I knew that life without a global pandemic already presented its struggles, especially for undocumented workers and their families. I worried about the cascading impact of sudden unemployment and illness on a community that was already neglected and oppressed. I reached out to Lily from Jobs with Justice because I figured she would know what to do, and because Jobs with Justice is dedicated to building unity and support for the struggles of working people, including those who are undocumented.

Jobs with Justice quickly set up Mass Undocufund-- a secure system to deliver direct cash assistance to undocumented workers and their families that protected and uplifted them. In my conversations with recipients, I have been reminded over and over again how lonely people feel when they have no basic protections from sudden unemployment, especially after paying taxes and contributing years of their lives and labor to certain industries.
What Jobs with Justice has allowed me to do is to remind them that we are not alone, and that we can fight for a better world together." Gloribel Beatriz Rivas

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