Dear Neighbor,
A quick note - to be followed by thoughts on the last day of session.
CEREMONIAL SIGNING OF PAY TRANSPARENCY
Yesterday a huge crowd of enthusiastic supporters gathered for a ceremonial signing of our pay transparency bill. The new law will be an important step in reducing the pay gaps for women and people of color, as I reported last month. Senators Feeney and O'Connor, in the photo, were on the conference committee with me. While it was frustrating that it took so long to reach agreement, the bill got better and helped more people even in the last days of negotiation. I'm grateful that ours was the last conference committee to reach agreement before the difficult last day of session, when only three of the twelve conference committees reached agreement.
Representatives Christine Barber and Jay Livingstone, also in photo,were among sponsors of bills incorporated into this one. Former Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Murphy, also in photo, is leader of the Wage Equity Now (WEN coalition), which built important public support, especially in the business community, for the bill.
Knowledge is power in negotiating pay; we know posting pay ranges will help reduce the pay gap. But there's a lot more work to do, and the industry reports required by the law will empower us in that work.
Representation matters: I'm the first woman to chair the Labor and Workforce Development Committee, most of our state constitutional officers (governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer), the Senate president, the leaders of both Associated Industries of Massachusetts and the AFL-CIO are all women; and Evelyn Murphy was our first woman lieutenant governor. You can watch Evelyn talk about the bill here.
An alert reader sent this article, A Simple Solution to Tackle the Wage Gap, about the the national movement for transparency. and why it matters. It includes a chart of the industries with the largest pay gaps; maybe surprisingly, the greatest gap is among judges, magistrates and other judicial employees.
REMINDER: SAVE THE DATE
Our traditional winter soup party changed last year to a salad party so we could be outdoors (weather permitting).
Please plan to join friends and supporters on Saturday, September 14 for salad and maybe soup. Thanks to the hospitality of residents at Cornerstone Cohousing in Cambridge, we'll gather at 175 Richdale Avenue. Watch for more information in September.
CORRECTION AND UPDATE
Apologies for an incorrect link in last newsletter about the new gun safety bill: here is the story about the fatal Somerville shooting, one of seven shootings in our district listed with links. A list of six incidents, including three of those linked earlier is here. Another one I missed was a shooting that led to a car rollover in Somerville in April.
An alert reader pointed out that we don't know for sure if the new law would have prevented or led to more charges in any of these shootings. But, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, "Massachusetts has among the strongest gun laws in the country and one of the lowest rate of gun deaths."
NEXT NEWSLETTER: THE LAST DAY OF FORMAL SESSION
You have certainly seen numerous accounts of the last night of formal sessions for this year, which ended at 10 am the next morning, after suspending the rules to go past midnight. Many important bills were left on the table. I'll write about the many frustrations and successes of that last session in another, longer newsletter soon.
SONG OF THE WEEK
Fifty -Nine Cents, written in 1981 about the pay gap by one of my favorite songwriters, Cambridge's Fred Small
Happy summer, and stay in touch,
Pat Jehlen