Massachusetts

Massachusetts Organizers Fight For A Sanctuary State

February 14, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Resist! ICE, Immigrants, Massachusetts, Sanctuary

Grassroots organizers in Massachusetts are demanding that their state stand with immigrant communities in declaring Massachusetts a sanctuary state—ensuring that state officials will not collaborate with Trump’s policy of mass immigrant detentions and deportations. Spearheaded by the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the campaign outlines a set of four demands of the Massachusetts state government: ending law enforcement collaboration with ICE, stopping racist demonization against immigrants, stopping any new restrictions on housing assistance, and keeping ICE out of the state’s public schools and other institutions.

Removing Obstacles For Small-Scale Manufacturers In Boston

February 13, 2025 Ilana Preuss, Next City. Create! Boston, Manufacturing, Massachusetts, Small Businesses

Jen Faigel stood in the production line watching a rush of mini-pies bake to a golden brown. Around her, 10 people stood at different spots, each responsible for a different process: pouring in the apple and blueberry filling, sprinkling a generous helping of crumb topping, sliding the pies in to bake, pulling pies off the cooling rack and into custom-designed packaging. After seven days of baking, it smelled like her grandma’s kitchen. Teresa Maynard, owner of Sweet Teez Bakery, and her team were busy filling the largest single order they had ever received: 42,000 pies, going to 25 Whole Foods stores.

No More Research For Genocide At MIT

December 22, 2024 MIT Coalition For Palestine, Mondoweiss. Resist! Campus Movement, Censorship, Israel, Massachusetts, MIT, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Repression

On November 7th, we published an op-ed titled “Daniela Rus, The People Demand: No More Research for Genocide” in the MIT Tech. Our piece detailed how Prof. Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, uses Israeli Ministry of Defense money to develop algorithms with applications in “multirobot security defense and surveillance.” Rather than engage with these publicly verifiable facts, the Tech’s editorial board (under the guidance of Prof. Rus) retracted our op-ed. MIT sent several of us “no contact” and “no harassment” orders for Prof. Rus, disciplining one student for simply writing our Op-Ed’s title on a public chalkboard!

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Targeting Pro-Palestine Activists

November 25, 2024 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Resist! BDS Movement, Campus Movement, Divestment, Gaza, Genocide, Israel, Massachusetts, MIT, Palestine, State Repression, Student Activism

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has taken severe measures to suppress the voices of two prominent pro-Palestine activists on campus: PhD student Prahlad Iyengar and Dr. Michel DeGraff, a professor who has taught linguistics at the university for over 28 years. Iyengar has been banned from campus, which is also his place of work, without due process. He has also been denied union representation by MIT’s administration, despite himself being a union steward. He faces imminent threat of suspension as well as expulsion. MIT prohibited Dr. Degraff from teaching a course on Palestine, suspended his annual pay raise, and had his official status at the university changed from “Professor of Linguistics” to “Faculty-at-Large,” also without due process.

Want More Equality Of Opportunity And Social Justice?

November 6, 2024 Omar Ocampo, Inequality.org. Create! Education, Equality, Massachusetts, taxation, Wealth Tax

This past summer, the Governor of Massachusetts Maura Healey signed a budget bill that guaranteed universal access to in-state community colleges. No matter age or socioeconomic background, irrespective of the degree or certificate sought, the tuition and fees at these fifteen institutions of higher learning are waived. The $117 million public investment allocated to the MassEducate program was made possible two years ago when, in an exercise of direct democracy, Bay State voters defied the tenets of neoliberal ideology. They approved a landmark progressive tax bill – known as the Fair Share Amendment – that imposed a four percent surtax on annual incomes above one million dollars.

Striking Hotel Workers Fight BlackRock

November 3, 2024 Will Hodgkinson, Workers World. Resist! BlackRock, Boston, Hotel workers, Massachusetts, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Boston, Massachusetts - For almost two months, UNITE HERE! Local 26 hotel workers have been striking to demand the living wages and expanded benefits that management has denied them for years. The strike wave began on Sept. l when over 1,000 Boston and Greenwich, Connecticut, hotel workers walked off the job. Rolling strikes in nine other cities — including Baltimore, Honolulu and San Francisco — have followed. UNITE HERE! demands include: increased wages to offset rampant inflation, fair staffing schedules and an end to the staffing cuts made during the first wave of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Over 5,000 hotel workers have gone on strike across the U.S since September.

Boston Rally Demands: Indigenous Peoples Day Now!

October 18, 2024 Will Hodgkinson, Workers World. Resist! Boston, Indigenous Peoples Day, Indigenous Rights, Massachusetts, Worker Rights and Jobs

Boston, Massachusetts - Nearly 200 Indigenous protesters and their allies gathered outside Park Street Station in Boston on Oct. 12 to demand that Massachusetts immediately designate the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day. An Indigenous-led coalition of United American Indians of New England (UAINE), the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB), Cultural Survival, the New Democracy Coalition, Workers World Party-Boston and Italian Americans for Indigenous Peoples Day organized the Oct. 12 action, which bolsters the longstanding effort to demolish the cult glorifying Christopher Columbus, whose lifework was characterized by conquest, slavery and genocide.

BU Graduate Students Reach Deal End Seven-Month Strike

October 13, 2024 Diti Kohli, Portside. Resist! Boston, Graduate Students, Higher Education, Massachusetts, Strikes, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Boston University and its graduate student union have agreed on terms for a new contract that would raise the graduate students’ pay, benefits, and job protections and end the longest such strike in American history. The agreement, announced jointly on Friday afternoon, concludes seven months of sparring between the administration and the union that represents 3,000 graduate students. Many teach classes, grade papers, and conduct research, and argued the school severely underpaid them for essential work. Now the first-of-its-kind contract includes provisions to raise the annual stipend PhD workers receive to at least $45,000, or $20 an hour for graduate students, which would be as much as a 60 percent bump for the lowest paid PhD students.

Boston Coalition For Palestine Shuts Down Highway

October 9, 2024 Will Hodgkinson, Workers' World. Resist! Boston, Hotel workers, Lebanon, Massachusetts, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity

Some 5,000 protesters turned out Oct. 6 on Boston Common in a massive show of support for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance to the genocidal Zionist state and its U.S. sponsor. Organized by the Boston Coalition for Palestine — whose 45 member organizations include Palestinian House of New England, Palestinian Youth Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace and Workers World Party — Sunday’s action observed the one-year anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood, when Hamas fighters broke out of besieged Gaza and attacked Israeli settlements on October 7, 2023. On that day, rally emcee Lea Kayali of the Palestinian Youth Movement explained the people of Gaza “broke down the prison doors” and exposed the weakness and complacency of the Zionist apartheid regime.

Nearly 50,000 US Dockworkers Strike And Flex Collective Power

October 2, 2024 People's Dispatch. Resist! Boston, Dockworkers, Florida, Houston, International Longshoremen's Association’s (ILA), Maersk, Massachusetts, Miami, New York (NY), Strikes, Texas, Worker Rights and Jobs

At midnight on October 1, nearly 50,000 dockworkers across the US’s East Coast walked off the job, shutting down ports across the coastline across cities including Boston, New York, Miami, and Houston. This is the International Longshoremen’s Association’s (ILA) first strike since 1977. ILA dockworkers are a lynchpin of the US economy. Ports affected by the strike include the Port of New York and New Jersey, the nation’s third largest port in terms of the volume of cargo. “When my men hit the streets from Maine to Texas, every single port will lockdown,” said ILA President Harold Daggett. “Everything in the United States comes on a ship.”

Self-Charging E-Bikes Bring Mobility To Low-Income Communities

October 1, 2024 Maylin Tu, Next City. Create! Bike-Share, EBikes, Massachusetts, Poverty, Transportation

Buying an e-bike is expensive. Starting last year, a local startup is providing low-cost, self-charging e-bike libraries to low-income communities in eastern Massachusetts. Funded by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center as part of a three-year pilot, the Cambridge-based company Metro Mobility provides income-qualified residents with an e-bike for as low as $1 per day. Working directly with cities, housing authorities and non-profit housing providers, the company installs e-bike docks for residents who live in subsidized housing and low-income communities. There are currently 85 docks in 10 communities across Boston, its Dorchester and Mattapan neighborhoods, and the nearby cities of Medford, Malden, Quincy and Lawrence.

MIT Divests From Israeli Arms Firm Funded Program

September 15, 2024 Al Mayadeen. Resist! BDS Movement, Boston, Campus Movement, Divestment, Higher Education, Israel, Massachusetts, MIT, Palestine

The MISTI-"Israel" Lockheed Martin fund has been shut down after continuous pressure from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) staff and faculty, the MIT Coalition for Palestine announced on Friday, marking a major divestment win for the university's Scientists Against Genocide (SAGE) movement. "Under pressure from students and scientists of conscience at this Institute, the MIT administration has discontinued MISTI-Israel's Lockheed Martin Seed Fund and will not renew its contract," the organization said in a statement. "This was a major target of our divestment action. The program ends after months of protest against it last fall, including letter deliveries, sit-ins, and public information campaigns," it highlighted.

Man Lit Himself On Fire Outside Boston’s Israeli Consulate

September 14, 2024 Michael Arria, Mondoweiss. Resist! Boston, Gaza, Israel, Massachusetts, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Self-immolation

On Wednesday night a man reportedly lit himself on fire outside the Israeli consulate in Boston. They were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with severe burns, and their current condition is unknown. Boston police told reporters that they are investigating the situation. A witness said the man poured gasoline over himself before lighting himself on fire and surveillance footage shows him walking back and forth covered in flames. He is the third person to self-immolate outside an Israeli consulate since Israel began its brutal assault on Gaza nearly one year ago.

Elbit Seems To Have Stopped Work In Cambridge

August 18, 2024 Sue Reinert and Marc Levy, Cambridge Day. Educate! Elbit, Israel, Massachusetts, Palestine, weapons

The Cambridge office of KMC Systems, a subsidiary of Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems, is virtually empty because “99.9 percent” of employees work from home, police say, and there are other signs that the company is leaving the city. The building at 130 Bishop Allen Drive near Central Square that houses KMC has been targeted by pro-Palestinian demonstrations for months. Despite workers going remote, protesters show up every Wednesday, Cambridge Police superintendent of operations Pauline Wells said Tuesday. They are scheduling further weekly actions at the site. “We will continue organizing until Elbit Systems leaves Cambridge.

Shut Down Elbit! No Military Tech For Israel!

July 4, 2024 Will Hodgkinson, Workers.org. Resist! Elbit, Genocide, Israel, Massachusetts, Weapons Maker

Cambridge, Massachusetts - Over 100 activists, including members of Workers World Party Boston, gathered on June 29 at Harvard Square to shut down Elbit Systems. Organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement and BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement) Boston, Saturday’s action expands the campaign targeting the Israeli-owned arms maker, which continues to supply the weapons and surveillance tech Zionist occupation forces are using in their ongoing genocide of Palestine. Since these actions began, Elbit stock has fallen by over 30%. JPMorgan Chase, a major shareholder, has reduced its investment by 70%, from $54 million to $16 million.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 »

Daily movement news and resources