Top political stories

On Friday, February 11th, Neighbor To Neighbor held its first meeting with State Representative Michael Kane to ask for support on our 2005 agenda. Neighbor to Neighbor members were pleased with the meeting, and felt that the Representative was responsive to many of their needs, including supporting our proposals for health care expansion and restoration of MassHealth benefits, raising the minimum wage to $8.25 an hour, and protecting welfare for the families with the greatest barriers to employment.

The president was re-elected by the narrowest of margins. He has
not won a mandate for his proposed assaults on basic security,
basic decency and our basic values. We won't accept his effort
to privatize Social Security, cut taxes for the wealthy and
raise them for workers, slash investment in schools and health
care, roll back environmental protections, free corporations
from accountability and pack the courts with ideologues intent
on turning back the rights of women and others.

Speaking before a Regional Employment Board function on Friday, Congressman Richard E. Neal said he feared that the threat from cheap labor overseas could soon have a negative impact on our economy.

City Councilor Rosemarie Mazza Moriarty went to bat for Springfield's city workers and retirees, telling the control board in a letter that "we need to balance the budget, but not on the backs of the employees." She admonised them for "making decisions that affect us all behind closed doors" and requested that citizens have more input in the decision making process.

The Pioneer Valley AFL-CIO would like to thank Coucilor Mazza-Moriarty for going to bat for Springfield's workers and citizens. Click below to read her letter.

A bill has been filed that would dramatically change how elections are held in the Commonwealth. If you are interested in better Democracy, read on!

As your representative on the Governor's Council, I want to know your opinion about Governor Romney's latest judicial nominee, Daniel J. O'Shea. Currently, O'Shea is a judge in the Department of Industrial Accidents (DIA). The key role of a DIA judge is to decide Workers Compensation cases.