Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Chair Oliveira, Chair McMurtry, and Members of the Joint committee on Labor and Workforce Development:
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group with chapters across the state committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.
We urge you to give a favorable report to S.1311/H.2078: An Act uplifting families and securing the right to strike for certain public employees and S.1327/H.2086: An Act protecting labor and abolishing barriers to organizing rights. These bills would protect and expand rights for workers in the Commonwealth.
Unions and working-class people are under attack from the federal government, as President Donald Trump and his oligarchic pals in Big Tech and Big Finance seek to unravel decades of labor, civil rights, consumer, and environmental protections to enrich themselves further.
Massachusetts should voice a loud and clear NO to that agenda and do that by strengthening and protecting the rights we have in this state.
First, a word on strengthening. The right to strike is a critical labor right that ensures that workplace negotiations happen in good faith. But this right is not sufficiently protected or respected in Massachusetts because public sector workers lack that right.
To be clear, banning strikes does not mean that strikes do not happen. We have seen many such examples across the Commonwealth in recent years. The ban means unreasonable penalties and fines, not the lack of strikes. A right to strike, by contrast, treats a strike as what it should be: an available tool for workers to use if negotiations occur in bad faith and a mechanism for structuring the timeline of negotiations to encourage both parties to come to an agreement. The current situation tips the scales against workers; restoring this right would create a level playing field.
Moreover, current law is worse than just penalizing strikes. Current law penalizes even talking about strikes, a gross violation of the First Amendment. This legislation would end that.
But, as noted earlier, as we expand labor rights, we also need to ensure that the rights that exist are protected. The Protect LABOR Act would ensure that labor protections continue to exist in Massachusetts even if Trump and his corporate buddies eliminate them at the federal level.
Trump and his Cabinet of Project 2025 authors has made clear that they want to eviscerate the National Labor Relations Act, under which private sector labor rights are established. Decades of labor protections could disappear if they succeed.
This bill offers a necessary bulwark against that by ensuring measures like Department of Labor Relations certification of pre-existing federally recognized unions; a presumption of employee status to ensure all workers, regardless of industry, have guaranteed access to wage, hour, and benefits protections; a ban on captive audience meetings; protection right anti-union “right to work” laws; and more.
Massachusetts has had a great track record of strengthening labor rights, especially when they are under attack federally. Let’s continue that legacy.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts
