“Some say the minimum wage is not high enough.
‘Sure it was a win, but it’s not enough,’ said Alicia Fleming, co-executive director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, said of the wage increase set to eventually reach $15 per hour. ‘People deserve and need so much more.’
Lily Huang, Fleming’s co-director at Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, echoed that sentiment in a recent statement from Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition that gathered signatures to get a $15 minimum wage question on the ballot.
‘While many white-collar workers have spent the pandemic sheltering in their home offices and seeing their savings accounts grow, hundreds of thousands of low-wage workers have spent the past nine months struggling to afford protective equipment, food, and rent while working on the frontlines to keep others safe,’ Huang said.”
Read More“HOLYOKE — The sound of drivers approvingly honking their horns filled the intersection of Beech and Northampton streets Thursday as protesters held signs with a simple message: “birthing access = racial justice.”
The protest was a response to Holyoke Medical Center’s plans to close its Birthing Center by Oct. 1, despite the fact that the state Department of Public Health has deemed those services essential to the community. The group Coalition for Birthing Care Access organized the demonstration to urge HMC’s leadership to reverse course and keep the Birthing Center open.”
Read More“HOLYOKE — When schools and museums announced they were closing to stem the spread of the new coronavirus sweeping the globe, that alarmed Anne Thalheimer.
As an art educator, Thalheimer said she is ‘the very model of the modern gig economy,’ cobbling together part-time jobs to make ends meet. But some of those jobs have now dried up, leaving her without a large portion of her income. Thalheimer also works as a personal care assistant, or PCA, but that job is one that puts people the most at risk for contracting the virus, according to Department of Labor data compiled by The New York Times.
‘The PCA gig means I’ll still be able to pay rent, but nothing else,’ Thalheimer said Tuesday. ‘Which is horrifying.’”
Read More“Alicia Fleming had worked as a server at restaurants in Massachusetts for a decade and a half. She enjoyed the work, but after she had her son at the age of 32, she found it impossible to stay in the job.
‘The restaurant is looking at their bottom dollar,’ Fleming said, ‘and won’t schedule you unless they absolutely need you. And then you don’t know until a few days before whether or not you’re even going to be asked to work.’
The result was that — as a single parent without close family nearby — Fleming was often scrambling to find childcare. When she wasn’t able to do so on short notice, she’d have to miss a shift. Her income fluctuated from week to week, and even though she was still employed at the restaurant, she was struggling to make ends meet.”
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