On May 13 in the Pioneer Valley town of South Hadley, about 100 janitors, dishwashers, other workers, and supporters held a rally. “I've worked as a cook at Mount Holyoke for seven years – it will be eight years in August,” Rich Sugrue told the Valley Post in a voice phone interview on May 16. He is one of 170 workers at the college who are members of a union, SEIU Local 32BJ.
Sugrue said, “About one-third of my coworkers are immigrants from east Africa and other parts of the world. Next month our union contract will expire. We're negotiating a new contract. One thing we're fighting for is legal help for the immigrants. The entry wage for dishwashers is about $17.50 an hour. That is not enough to live on in this area. Other local colleges pay more. We want to increase wages.”
As of 2023, the college's endowment was more than $1 billion.
Rich Sugrue told the Valley Post, “I have lived in western Massachusetts all my life. I now live in Holyoke.” The workers have a web site at www.seiu32bj.org.
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In the Pioneer Valley town of Westhampton, population 1,600, on May 10, townspeople voted 108 yes, to zero no, in favor of buying 235 acres of forest land. “There is not a plan yet for the land, but it will be used for public benefit,” Kayla Diggins told the Valley Post on May 13. She is the town clerk.
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In 2014, the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor closed permanently because thousands of people marched in Brattleboro, and because hundreds of people were arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience in Brattleboro and outside the reactor three miles from Massachusetts and a stone's throw from New Hampshire. Deb Katz was one of the main organizers of these protests. She lives in the Pioneer Valley and runs a group that has a web site at www.NukeBusters.org.
On May 15, 2025, Katz told the Valley Post that Massachusetts governor “Healy is supporting legislation that embraces nuclear power and undermines the democratic process by repealing a law that requires a referendum on nuclear power before any reactor can be built in the state. Healy doesn't want the voters to decide what a 'clean' energy future looks like. It's a slap in the face to Massachusetts communities that have borne nuclear power's assault on their lives, undermined their waterways, air, and land. Our communities are stuck with high-level radioactive waste dumps, vulnerable to acts of malice and climate disruption. This is a meltdown in democracy. Please contact your legislators and demand that they oppose any attempt by the Healy administration to repeal the 1982 act. We need a clean energy future, not a radioactive legacy for generations to come.”
Nuclear power plants are so dangerous that no insurance company will cover them. The federal government gives the industry insurance. Nuclear waste is the most toxic material on earth and stays that way for 1 million years. Sources for this information are at:
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