Updates
2017-2018: During the #MeToo movement, excellent reporting by journalists including Yvonne Abraham shed light on the history of sexual harassment and assault in the State House, including the story that then-Senate President Stan Rosenberg's husband had harassed and assaulted four people, including a staffer. After these scandals, Senate staff began to collect union authorization cards and invited IBEW 2222 to help them organize the building.
During a moment of racial reckoning, a collective of staffers of color called Beacon BLOC formed to address a culture in the State House that eight members of the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation described in a letter as a toxic work environment filled with “hostile moments of thinly veiled (if not overt) racism.” Commonwealth Beacon wrote that Black staffers in the building reported being made to feel “ill-equipped and not fit to be there” and that “micro and macro aggressions are happening to Black staffers and staffers of color on an almost daily basis.”
When Beacon BLOC conducted a survey of over 200 legislative staff, it showed that 9 in 10 staff felt they were not paid fairly for the work they were doing and 1 in 6 staff reported being food insecure while working at the State House.
After several years of organizing, Senate staff reached a supermajority of card signers on March 30. IBEW 2222 informed the Senate President (SP) of the card signer supermajority via hand delivery and email and requested a meeting to discuss recognition of the union. The email gave the SP time to release a public statement in advance of the State House Employee Union’s notification to the public. The SP did not respond, and has never met with IBEW 2222 or staff about the union despite multiple invitations. House staff also began to organize in earnest.
Less than three months later, the SP announced that she was implementing a compensation plan which had been “in development” for 4 years. Senate staff received a 10% raise and improved compensation structure. The House, woefully behind on compensation, announced a nearly 25% raise several months later to catch up. Shortly after boosting pay, the SP publicly announced that she was not prepared to recognize the union, citing a “complex legal area” as the reason.
In January, IBEW 2222 and staff worked with sponsors in the House and Senate to introduce bills that would clear up any legal complexity and allow legislative staff to unionize, just as the law allows executive branch and judicial branch employees.
In June, two days after Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley helped publicize our ongoing union drive by speaking at a legislative briefing in support of the State House Employee Union’s bills, Senate staff got another 7.5% pay bump.
Only a few months later, after organizers distributed a staff experience survey as well as hundreds of soda cans to protest the lack of annual COLAs (cost-of-living adjustments), Senate leadership announced a further compensation adjustment.
Just a week after organizers sent an email to all staff about the long history of sexual harassment in the State House, House leadership announced an “early” 6% minimum COLA and the re-introduction of mandatory harassment prevention training for House staff. A timeline for these trainings was not given until nearly a year later, in the following session.
Organizers released the results of the 2024 State House staff experience survey completed by hundreds of staffers which showed significant salary dissatisfaction and financial anxiety, high rates of preventable turnover, and a widespread culture of demoralization. These results mirrored the 2021 Beacon BLOC survey results.
After the House and Senate failed to pass legislative bills clarifying the right of staff to unionize, Rep. Carol Doherty and Sen. John Keenan refiled S.1343/H.2093, An Act relative to collective bargaining rights for legislative employees. Following Rep. Doherty's passing, Rep. Rodney Elliott took up sponsorship of the House bill.