About 350 workers in Springfield, Massachusetts had a major victory when they voted to approve a new union contract. “I feel great,” Iris Rivera-Medina told the Valley Post in a voice phone interview on February 9. “We fought hard. Everyone is happy with the contract.” She has worked making breakfast and lunch for children at the public schools in Springfield for seven years. Rivera-Medina works for Sodexo corporation. “We won a raise of $3.50 an hour over the three year contract. New hires make $15.92 an hour now. People who have worked here for a long time make more.”

Despite snow falling, six African American people attended an outdoor rally in Springfield on January 12. A white man who allegedly killed a black woman in the city is free. “If a black man had killed a white woman, first degree murder, he would not be free,” Charles Stokes told the Valley Post in a voice phone interview on January 13. He was at the rally with the victim's family. Police say Frederick Pinney killed TayClair Moore in 2014. In 2021 he was released from prison.

About 40 people attended a rally in Springfield on May 31. The goal was to stop a proposed fossil fuel pipeline that would go about six miles from Springfield to Longmeadow, Massachusetts. The pipeline would cost around $40 million.

Naia Tenerowicz is a spokesperson for the two groups that organized the rally. On June 1, she told the Valley Post that the groups were the Longmeadow Pipeline Awareness Group, and the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition.

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About 50 people attended a rally in Springfield on April 12. The goal was to get politicians to provide high quality homes for homeless people. The group that organized the rally has a web site at www.SpringfieldNoOneLeaves.org.

The most recent data for how many people in the USA are homeless comes from January 2020. At that time about 580,000 people were homeless. That data is from:

https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statist...

A dozen people attended a Greenfield rally February 14. They were calling on Biden and congress to do more to help poor people in Afghanistan. It was very cold in Greenfield that day, Patricia Hynes told the Valley Post. She was at the rally and she's on the board of a group that has a web site at www.traprock.org.

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The leader of a group in Springfield that has organized well-attended Black Lives Matter rallies told the Valley Post she questions a February 8 Associated Press article headlined, “Study Finds No Evidence Of Racial Disparity In Massachusetts Traffic Stops.” On February 9, Tanisha Arena told the Valley Post, “They conducted this (study) during 2020 when the world was shut down. Does that impact this data in any way? ... I find it hard to believe that there was no disparity in Hadley (near Northampton).

About 80 people were at a rally in Springfield on January 22. The goal was to get congress to pass voting rights legislation, Lydia Wood told the Valley Post. She runs a group that has a web site at https://wmalf.org.

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About 40 people were at rallies in Greenfield and Northampton on January 22. The goal was to ban nuclear weapons. Pat Hynes told the Valley Post about 25 people were at the Greenfield rally. She's on the board of a group that has a web site at https://traprock.org.

About 40 people attended a rally in Greenfield on January 8. The goal was to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. Paki Wieland was at the Greenfield event. She works for a group that has a web site at www.CodePink.org. She told the Valley Post that about 40 people were at the rally. The group that organized the event has a web site at http://WitnessAgainstTorture.com.

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On January 6 in Northampton about 175 people attended a rally to demand Congress pass three voting rights bills. “People were somber and serious but also hopeful. It was uplifting. So many people care about getting these voting rights bills passed,” organizer Larry Pareles told the Valley Post in a voice phone interview. He said people should go to www.IndivisibleNorthampton.org for more information. The below photo shows the rally. It was taken by Pareles. To enlarge the photo click on it, then scroll down and click "see full size image."

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Seven hundred nurses won a strike at a hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts. Worcester is 50 minutes by car from Springfield. Worcester is 25 minutes by car from the Pioneer Valley town of East Brookfield. On December 17, the Texas-based corporation that owns the Worcester hospital, and the elected leaders of the nurses' union, announced a deal to end the strike. The deal will be final if the 700 or so nurses vote to approve it. That vote is set for January 3.