Labor Center at UMass Amherst

Two days each year we ask our alumni and friends to make a donation that supports the work of our Labor Center. It's .

https://umass.scalefunder.com/gday/giving-day/111216/department/111510

is surging in a way we haven't seen in a generation. New units are certifying every week and we want the degree that offers the skills to fuel the to be accessible to as many workers as possible. Every donation you make will directly impact student experience during their education through scholarships and programming.

Support what you love today!
https://umass.scalefunder.com/gday/giving-day/111216/department/111510

Do you work?
Have you had a job?
Will you have a job someday?

Come visit Labor Center staff and faculty on Goodell Lawn from 2-4pm today (4/29) for and play some games to learn about your .

And in news closer to home...

Baystate Franklin nurses authorize strike over staffing, wages Registered nurses at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield voted by a 98.2% margin on Tuesday to authorize a limited-duration strike.

We love when education worker unions strike and WIN! If you're an active educator-unionist, it's time to check out our Union Leadership and Activism Master's of Science in Labor Studies for Classroom Educators. This one-of-a-kind program was created to fuel the growing power of education worker unions everywhere.

https://www.umass.edu/labor/academics/graduate-programs/ula-educators

Overwhelmed by Strike, San Francisco Schools Found the Money for Top Union Demands Six thousand San Francisco educators won fully funded health care, sanctuary schools, and an up to 8.5 percent raise over two years by walking out for the first time in nearly 50 years. After just four days on strike, February 9 to 12, they won their top demands—some of which the district had prev...

Unionize your workplace!

Come to the Hampshire-Franklin Assembly to learn about organizing new unions with EWOC!

The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is is a volunteer-run network of hundreds of workers, organizers, and supporters who together are building a stronger, worker-led labor movement. We support and train any non-union worker in any industry who wants power and agency at work. Along with unions and other labor organizations, we can build the militancy and strength of the working class and effectively organize the millions of unorganized workers in the United States.

Learn how to unionize YOUR workplace, or get involved as a volunteer if you're already a union member!

RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/march-hampshire-franklin-assembly-learn-about-ewoc-and-unionizing-your-workplace

Master's Degree in Labor Studies
Zoom Open House Dates

Register at Link in Bio to learn more about our 3 tracks to earning your Master's Degree in Labor Studies at the UMass Amherst Labor Center. This 36 credit Master's of Science degree is a purely worker-side program at the intersection of work, labor, and social justice.

📅 March 11 @ 6:30pm
📅 March 25 @ 7:30pm
(All Eastern Time on Zoom)

🔗 REGISTER AT bit.ly/UMALCSpring26

"In 2025, 16.5 million workers in the United States were represented by a union—an increase of 463,000 from 2024 and the highest number of unionized workers in the U.S. in 16 years."

Read the full article:

Workers’ resolve drives increase in unionization in 2025 In 2025, 16.5 million workers in the United States were represented by a union—an increase of 463,000 from 2024 and the highest number of unionized workers in the U.S. in 16 years. These 16.5 million unionized workers account for 11.2% of all wage and salary workers, up from 11.1% in 2024. The inc...

Solidarity and Radical Transformation During End Times

🗓️ March 2
🕰️ 6-8pm
📍 Old Chapel, UMass Amherst

Free and Open to the Public
Register to attend: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScKN_BvAMqE8sUN1GxViCcyAWtJfmmx25qwO8JWXEVwVG3pBg/viewform?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMjU2MjgxMDQwNTU4AAGnOpsDGdcV8lyTFPEQ2CjPAqZqUugFsYmUOE8bUuOztQaNmb4qerb_VGN3x30_aem_Ac0PHKNn7LEvr4aSLYBOrw

BSE is organizing this panel happening in a few weeks. Registration required. More to come!

Free and Open to the Public
Monday March 2, 6-8pm
Old Chapel, UMass Amherst
144 Hicks Way, Amherst MA

SOLIDARITY AND RADICAL TRANSFORMATION DURING END TIMES
Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson and author of Jackson Rising Redux: Lessons on Building the Future in the Present and

Ethan Miller of Land in Common and author of Reimagining Livelihoods: Life Beyond Economy, Society, and Environment

Michelle McCormick of Cooperation Vermont and General Manager of Marshfield Village Coop.

White-supremacist, patriarchal regimes are further consolidating power through naked state discipline and power; spectacles of and libidinal overtures towards violence; and techno-feudalist machinations. Intensifying extractivism is rapidly destroying life-sustaining relationships between humans and non-human others. At the same time, the social-symbolic order that has held colonial capitalism together is coming undone; more and more communities are rejecting the world as they have come to know it, and searching for and embracing other ways of being in the world, other modes of life to fight for and bring more fully into being. In this conversation, Akuno, Miller, and McCormick introduce their work, and then discuss intersecting strategies towards building resilience and power through relational ways of being with each other, and non-human others. What is the role for solidarity economy movement and practice in building relationships of interdependence and care; in building power to defend communities and fight against fascism and colonial capitalist extractivism; in imagining, organizing around, and advancing other worlds?

Massachusetts Teachers Association president and Massachusetts Society of Professors - UMass Amherst member, Max Page, on the MA FairShare agreement in Labor Notes.

We’re Making ‘Tax the Rich’ More Than a Slogan | Labor Notes Fair Share campaigners led by the Massachusetts Teachers Association knocked on a million doors to pass their “tax the rich” referendum. Now the money is rolling in, providing free tuition, school meals, free regional buses, expanded child care, and more. Photo: MTA