In Northampton, a democracy rally is set for January 6. Organizer Debby Pastrich-Klemer has organized many successful marches and rallies in the city. “Even though some of the most prominent election conspiracists lost their midterms, MAGA Republicans are already looking to 2024 for ways to overturn the will of voters,” she said. The January 6, 2023 rally in Northampton will start outside city hall at 4 p.m.

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In Amherst, 17 acres of open space has been permanently protected from development. Part of a former golf course will be a park. The USA is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development every DAY. The Amherst deal was announced December 19 at a town council meeting. The minutes will be posted at:

www.amherstma.gov/Archive.aspx?AMID=206

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In Hadley, Massachusetts, which borders Northampton, workers at the Trader Joe's supermarket are negotiating their first union contract. The next bargaining session is January 31 through February 1, a union spokesperson told the Valley Post on December 27.

The Pioneer Valley was home to a strike by more than 1,000 Stop and Shop supermarket workers in 2019. The workers won. The Stop and Shop workers have a web site at www.ufcw1459.com. The Trader Joe's workers have a web site at www.TraderJoesUnited.org.

In Brattleboro, after months on strike, workers won a strike in 2015. They work for Consolidated Communications, then known as Fairpoint, still the monopoly provider of landline phone service in Brattleboro. The workers connect cell phone towers to wires and cables, which carry the data, a worker told the Valley Post on the picket line in January 2015 in Brattleboro. More on how cell phones need landline wires and cables to work is at:

http://networks.land/reference/physical

The workers have a web site at www.ibew.org.