Massachusetts CAP Advocates for Research Funding, PMFL, & UI for Academic Workers

Last week, over 30 union members and state legislators delivered powerful testimony at the Massachusetts State Legislature in support of access to paid family and medical leave and unemployment insurance for graduate workers at Massachusetts universities. Special thank you to Senator Paul Feeney and Representative Erika Uyterhoeven for sponsoring this urgent legislation, as well as UAW Local 2320 member Senator Lydia Edwards for testifying in support.

Student workers in Massachusetts are currently denied access to the state’s unemployment and paid family and medical leave benefits. Our union is part of a statewide coalition to end this exclusion and win these benefits for our student workers across Massachusetts.

UAW members from Locals 1596, 2320, 2322, and 5118 representing grad workers at UMass Lowell, UMass Amherst, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Harvard University, as well as other union members from SEIU Local 509, MIT GSU-UE, and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, shared their stories about how being excluded from these programs has impacted them and their families.

Earlier in October, UAW Region 9A Massachusetts CAP Council Chair Dan Rourke testified in support of DRIVE (H.4375 An Act to preserve and advance Massachusetts’ competitiveness in discovery, research, and innovation for a vibrant economy).

DRIVE is a $400 million investment, which includes $200 million from Fair Share Amendment funds specifically earmarked to backfill federal cuts made to public colleges and universities. The UAW appreciates the DRIVE initiative as an investment in union jobs, innovative research, and our collective future.