Labor

Legislative imperatives:

  • Passing PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) legislation in Massachusetts, which would ensure that workers understand their rights,  and preventing employers from delaying, interfering, or retaliating against workers involved in concerted activity

  • Guaranteeing fair pay and a truly liveable minimum wage for all workers, regardless of immigration status 

  • Eliminating corporate greed by taxing companies whose executives make significantly greater than the median salary of their employees, and by implementing the millionaire’s fair share amendment - requiring corporations and wealthy individuals are taxed appropriately

  • Protecting the Massachusetts Prevailing Wage Law

My platform:

The heart of our democracy is democracy in the workplace. I stand with workers fighting for fair wages and respect and dignity in the workplace every day. As a state representative, I will always stand with workers over management. Too few workers have unions, and I will do everything in my power to foster new organizing and uphold strong unions. I will work against encroachment on union power, fight for the labor movement that we have, and work to restore our labor movement to the strength that it once was. 

Profit-driven capitalism has time and again prioritized efficiency, cost-cutting, and dividends over the wellbeing of workers. Corporations, representing the interests of the wealthy few, hold disproportionate political and economic power - suppressing the voices of everyone else in our society. Critical to creating economic and social justice is holding these powerful businesses accountable, and fighting to ensure that our workers, the backbone of the economy, are protected.

Organized labor is of personal importance to me. I was raised by a single immigrant mother who worked as a flight attendant for Trans World Airlines (TWA). Her union ensured she was paid a living wage and I was able to pursue my dreams. I am who I am today because of organized labor. I intimately understand how strong unions change people’s lives for generations, and I will do everything I can for other people to receive the same benefits my family did. 

Now tragically, that is not the reality for many working families. Since the 80’s corporations have been carving out the American worker, busting unions, and gaslighting our politicians and the American people into believing that insatiable economic growth is more important than people living with dignity. Our wages have remained stagnant while executives and investors line their pockets with excessive profits by co-opting our basic human rights like housing, healthcare, education, and a liveable climate. I watched as a child, as year after year, my mom and her co-workers received worse and worse contracts and how my mom was asked repeatedly by her employers to retire early to enable them to hire 2 or 3 flight attendants in her place. Workers should be treated with dignity and respect by their employers - not as numbers to be manipulated and slashed to maximize profits.

We will fight for:

  • COVID-19 Protections

    • Securing hazard pay for essential and frontline workers in both the private and public sectors.

    • Guaranteeing paid-sick time, and the assumption of occupational contraction for essential and frontline workers who test positive for COVID-19.

    • Passing legislation that mandates safe patient limits and safe working conditions, including access to PPE and sanitization for healthcare providers.

  • Guaranteeing fair wages for all. Service workers who rely on tips for their wages are frequently subjected to sexual harassment and gender discrimination. We must pass fair wage legislation ensuring that tipped employees are guaranteed payment of at least minimum wage to protect them from discrimination and to ensure that they are paid fairly.

  • Ending wage theft. Nearly $700 million are stolen from low-wage workers each year in Massachusetts. We must end this practice by passing an Act to Prevent Wage Theft, Promote Employer Accountability, and Enhance Public Enforcement.

  • Ensuring fair workweek hours, and passing the Fair Work Week Bill. As part-time and around-the-clock labor increases, workers must have control over the hours they work including:

    • The right to 14 days advance notice of hours 

    • The right to request specific hours without facing retaliation

    • The right to rest for 11 hours between shifts 

    • The right to any additional available hours before an employer can hire a new employee to fill them 

    • The right to collect unemployment benefits when an employer’s failure to comply with Fair Scheduling practices is the worker’s reason for leaving a job

  • Retirement Security for all workers with the passage of Secure Choice Retirement legislation. This would provide a vehicle for every worker in Massachusetts to save for retirement and will help secure a stable financial future for retirees state-wide.

  • Guaranteeing equal pay for equal work, and explicitly prohibiting wage discrimination against women, people of color, and minority workers. 

  • Ending executive pay abuse by taxing companies who pay their CEOs more than 100 times their median wage. This revenue could be used to fund public infrastructure, including the MBTA.

  • Guaranteeing all workers the right to unionize.

  • Ensuring a fair contract and liveable wages for Somerville Paraprofessionals.

  • Passing a PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act for Massachusetts.

    • Penalize employers who retaliate against or interfere with employee attempts to unionize.

    • Streamline the NLRB election process so workers can petition to form a union and get a timely vote without employer interference. 

    • Prohibits companies from forcing workers to attend mandatory anti-union meetings as a condition of continued employment

    • Protect strikes and other protest activity by repealing the prohibition on secondary boycotts and prohibiting employers from permanently replacing strikers.

  • Codifying protections from workplace violence by passing an Act Requiring Health Care Employers to Develop and Implement Programs to Prevent Workplace Violence. Healthcare and social workers are all too often subjected to workplace violence. We have a responsibility to reduce and prevent foreseeable, serious, and life-altering violence against workers in healthcare and social service occupations. 

  • Ending sexual harassment in the workplace and passing an Act to Require Sexual Harassment Prevention Training to enhance current anti-discrimination law  to require high-quality sexual harassment training in the workplace.

  • Promoting the creation and expansion of worker cooperatives in Somerville and state-wide. These are for-profit businesses in which the workers, rather than investors or capital possessors, are the owners. Worker-owners control a portion of the business, have input into business matters, and receive compensation for their labor.