The summer heat has begun and farm workers and other outdoor workers desperately need a federal heat standard. With the way the government has shifted to the right, the need is more urgent than ever. An example occurred on June 17. Texas is first in work-related heat exposure deaths and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott just made it worse. He signed a bill to nullify local laws mandating water breaks for construction workers. Farm workers will surely face the same risks if conservative values overrule common sense protections in state and local government. The only real solution to save lives is federal action. Demand OSHA enact immediate heat regulations. Heat risk is real. Climate change is happening and outdoor workers are more and more in danger every year. Extreme temperatures could make thousands of workers seriously ill -- and even suffer heat stroke and die. Farm workers are as much as 35 times more likely to die from heat than any other civilian occupation. Only a handful of states -- California, Oregon and Washington -- have policies on farm work in extreme heat. This lack of regulations puts farm workers in an impossible situation where they are forced to choose between making a living and taking care of their health. Currently, OSHA is relying on the "general duty" clause that says the general duty of an employer is to provide safe working conditions. That's not enough. Instead, workers need more robust enforcement, including criminal proceedings. The men, women and children working in our fields can't wait. A Department of Labor committee just recommended OSHA pass permanent rules, but that can take years. Workers need immediate heat standards to be put in place NOW -- before people die due to political gamesmanship like Gov. Abbott's move. Leaders in Congress have been working on this, but to date, nothing has been passed. Heat deaths are preventable tragedies. The prevention is nothing complicated: shade, cool water, rest, education and monitoring. Sign our petition today and demand OSHA enact immediate heat regulations NOW!

Members of the community should sign the petition to protect our library because it is a vital resource that promotes education, fosters a sense of community, and enhances the quality of life for everyone. Signing the petition sends a strong message to the Village Board, urging them to prioritize the preservation of our library, its services, and the values it represents. Together, we can make a difference and ensure that future generations have access to a thriving library in our community.

Time and time again, the far-right majority of the Supreme Court puts special interests and politics ahead of people and above delivering justice under the law. But we will not be silenced. Millions have had to wait in economic limbo for nearly a year—we will not accept a return to the failed status quo. It’s up to President Biden and his administration to ensure we finally receive promised relief another way. Student debt fuels economic, gender, and racial inequality. Our persistent racial wealth gap means that students of color, especially those who are Black and brown, are more likely to have student debt, borrow in higher quantities, and face more struggles in repayment. A higher education should be the key to a better future, instead of a lifetime debt sentence that limits borrowers’ ability to buy homes, start small businesses, and save for retirement, cutting into opportunities for wealth-building over their lifetimes. This is why student loan cancellation is so important. Republicans and Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices cannot have the last word. We won’t let them win. We have to push back and be in solidarity with each other. Together, we can keep getting loud to show the Biden administration that we need them to use every single tool in their toolbox to give millions of Americans the relief they need.

After interviewing more than three dozen BIPOC elders 50 to 80 years of age, we found most low and moderate-income elders are struggling desperately. Their living conditions, in public senior housing, assisted living, and not-quite-affordable market housing is very often deplorable: These are tiny living spaces, no storage, often dirty/stained, and with infestations (at no fault of their own), with poor air quality, and absolutely no green spaces. The health of these elders had become compromised, suffering from joint problems, asthma, hypertension, depression, anxiety, loneliness, despair, and at times, suicidal ideation. Not due so much to their age, but due to the deplorable living conditions, and lack of relationship or community. The above conditions can manifest as Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, along with manifestations of physically terminal and debilitating illnesses. This should not be, and we want to remedy this forgotten population and create community, relationships, and healthy living environments for them. When Gov. Healey spoke about opening state-owned land to build affordable housing, the Grandmothers’ Village Project attempted to schedule a meeting with her. Twice she canceled the meeting and the third time she just didn’t bother to respond. Viewing her posts on social media, I often wondered if she will only meet with an organization if there is a press photo opportunity. If this is true, it’s very sad that she will not meet with her constituents without the photo op! What needs to happen: We need a new and vibrant method of building affordable housing in Massachusetts. This housing should be off-grid electrified using solar, hydrothermal or geothermal methods of energy. We know about the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act), the Biden Justice 40 Initiative, and other programs that are now available from the Federal government to afford the average, individual person a way to greenify and electrify their homes. This money is available for organizations and businesses as well. So, my question to Gov. Healey is this: Why not allow smaller organizations to build this desperately needed housing in a way that will never burden low-income folks financially. Nor will it cause illness through toxic building materials. Nor be so small that people are forced to downsize to a place of having nothing left that is meaningful to them. Gov. Healey cannot allow just the big developers to come in and build their status quo, cheap, toxic materialed housing where they pile as many people inside as possible. Their housing developments will be fossil-fueled creating a deeper burden financially for low and moderate-income residents. The Grandmothers’ Village Project would like to see all new housing built to be green and off the grid. We want to build it! We need your support! Please Sign this petition!

Starbucks workers will not be silenced. Just this weekend, Starbucks Workers United striked over Starbucks’ hypocritical treatment of LGBTQIA+ workers and their illegal union-busting campaign. 21 stores temporarily closed, including the flagship Reserve Roastery in Seattle. This is historic – there has never been a strike on queer and trans workers rights. Starbucks has built its business on claims of being a progressive company. Yet all too often, its actions don't live up to these proclaimed values. Reports and videos of managers refusing to allow rainbow flags are not the first attacks on the queer workers and customers who help drive their stories. Let's hold Starbucks accountable and make it clear that we're not buying their empty claims to be a good company.

Trader Joe's is a company that carefully cultivates a progressive reputation. But over the past few years, we have seen the company culture shift from a workplace with incredible pay, benefits, and atmosphere, to a company with increasing turnover, declining benefits, and stagnating wages. The pandemic put those changes into stark relief as “essential” workers everywhere were asked to risk their health in order to keep the economy going. These two factors—the company’s internal changes and the pandemic—made it clear that we needed to have a say in our workplace, and that a union was the only answer to that need. A union could also bring Trader Joe’s back into alignment with its own core values, the values that had made it a great place to work and shop in the first place. Even though we have won elections in four stores, Trader Joe’s continues to union bust and refuse to bargain in good faith. Recently, Trader Joe’s fired Steve Andrade, one of the crew members in Hadley, MA for completely frivolous reasons. In his termination paperwork, management claimed that a power tool belonged to Steve, and its presence in the store created a safety issue serious enough to warrant firing him. The catch? This tool didn’t even belong to Steve. In fact, the tool was at the store long before Steve started working in Hadley nine years ago. Since we won our first union election, we’ve heard from hundreds of crew members across the country eager to unionize their stores, and we are helping many of them organize right now. But instead of allowing the free and fair elections they promised their workers, or bargaining in good faith, Trader Joe’s has hired a union-busting law firm and is fighting us every step of the way. Trader Joe’s has fired union supporters, threatened and coerced workers, and continues to drag their feet at the bargaining table. We can only win when we stand together in solidarity. Can you take a moment to sign our petition to demand that Trader Joe’s stop union-busting and reinstate workers fired for organizing?

Did you know? UPS CEO Carol Tome made $19 million last year. A part-time worker who would have to work for 1347 years at $15.50 to earn that much! UPS made over $26.2 billion in profits during the last years of the COVID pandemic at the expense of more than half of UPS’s 350,000 employees, who make poverty wages as part-time workers. UPS, the largest trucking company in the U.S., pays part-timers just $15.50 an hour to do back-breaking working loading and unloading trucks and sorting packages. These jobs come with a lot of pressure, back-breaking work, harassment, surveillance, and getting injured on the job is always a looming possibility. UPS workers, and all workers, deserve better pay and safer working conditions.Workers' lives and livelihoods are not a game. This is why UPS customers, workers and the public are uniting to make UPS deliver for working families.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently announced a new tax filing software that went live for 12 states in 2024. This question-based software will allow people to send their returns electronically to the government for free! If broadly available, this software would allow Americans to avoid profit-hungry companies that act as middlemen when we e-file our taxes. But the tax preparation lobby strongly opposed IRS free direct filing software, and it was difficult to even get the 12 states we had in 2024 in a pilot—so we need your help to demonstrate overwhelming support for the program! Image Credit: Orange County Register

We believe that these changes will significantly reduce the financial burden on residents and workers while still ensuring that the town has sufficient resources during the peak tourist season. It is time to reclaim the spirit of "Public" in our Public Landing and reaffirm its role as a community space that is accessible and welcoming to all.

We’re breathing in dirty air right now which will decrease our life expectancy. We have a fundamental right to a healthy environment. With the current AQI levels in and around the state of PA, many of us are experiencing health issues because of the Canadian Wildfires. Scientists have expressed to us that events like this will continue to happen more frequently due to Climate Change inaction. We deserve a future and that is why we should all sign this.

Background work can often involve working very long hours, working in unfavorable weather conditions, and working with very little food, and all of this for very close to minimum wage pay. Yet, background actors tend to have their performances devalued. Often, they are treated more like props than like actors. Some industry professionals are so disrespectful toward background actors that they label extras, “props that eat”.

If allowed to pass, this proposed bill would put real families out of work, the wine selection for the consumer would suffer and local winegrowers would be forced to downsize.