About 80 workers at the Hampshire Gazette and Valley Advocate newspapers are forming a union. The out-of-state corporate chain that owns both papers is fighting the workers. The workers are asking the public to attend a rally on November 27 at 11 a.m. at 115 Conz Street in Northampton. The workers are also asking people to sign a petition at:

www.massjwj.net/news/2018/11/19/stand-with-the-workers-at-the-daily-hamp...

When reporters have a union, they can fight for articles to get published. The following local newspapers are owned by out-of-state corporations: Amherst Bulletin, Brattleboro Reformer, Springfield Republican, and Greenfield Recorder.

In other news from the Valley, Brattleboro and towns throughout Vermont will benefit from a recent environmental victory near Burlington. “It's precedent-setting,” Shaina Kasper told the Valley Post in a phone interview on November 26. She lives in Vermont and works for a Boston-based group that has a web site at www.ToxicsAction.org. Last month, the state bowed to pressure from a group of volunteer activists and rejected a permit application that would have allowed the local government to inject pesticides into Lake Iroquois.

If the permit had been granted, swimming and drinking from wells near the lake would have been banned for at least 24 hours after every injection. Watering gardens with water from the lake would have been banned for 30 days after each injection. This is the first time the state has permanently denied a pesticide permit. “Vermont is still lagging behind New Hampshire and Massachusetts in pesticide regulation,” Kasper said. “But this is a victory.”