On August 12 Maeg Yosef told the Valley Post the 80 or so workers at the Trader Joe's supermarket in Hadley, Massachusetts are deciding on “their bargaining priorities so we can make sure everyone’s voice is heard.” On July 28, the federal government announced the results of a union election at the store. The workers won. Hadley borders Northampton. Yosef is a leader in the union. She has worked at the store for nearly 20 years. The workers have a web site at https://traderjoesunited.org

About 800 people attended an abortion rights rally in Northampton on May 14, Debby Pastrich-Klemer told the Valley Post. The rally was organized by Pastrich-Klemer, Planned Parenthood, and the Valley Women’s March. The biggest cause of climate change is over-population. That's according to:

www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/climate

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On April 22 a spokesperson for the union for Northampton public school teachers told the Valley Post that about 80 members of the union attended a rally outside Northampton city hall. The goal was fair wages for workers known as “educational support professionals.” The rally was on April 14. The union has a web site at www.nasemta.org.

On April 2 about 30 people were at a rally in Montague, Massachusetts. Montague borders Greenfield. The goal was to get politicians to “stop the massive destruction of fish and related river life by the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station,” on the Connecticut river near the Vermont – Massachusetts border. An April 4 mass email from the Wendell State Forest Alliance reported on the rally.

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In the middle of a major snow storm about 25 people attended a rally in Northampton on Martin Luther King day. The goal was to get congress to pass voting rights bills. Congressman Jim McGovern and Northampton city councilor Garrick Perry were at the rally, Debby Pastrich-Klemer told the Valley Post. She is a leader in the Northampton Democratic party.

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Green Mountain National Forest is near Brattleboro. Activists who have a web page at

www.facebook.com/xRebellionVT

are organizing a January 29 march in Burlington to stop logging in the forest.

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About 50 people marched in Northampton on December 4 to protest mass incarceration. No nation keeps such a high percentage of its people in prison as the USA. Europe's rate is a third of ours. "We took over Main street from Smith college to the post office and back. We got a ton of positive honking responses and handed out lots of fliers along the way,” Yoav Elinevsky told the Valley Post. Elinevsky lives in Amherst and is on the board of Massachusetts Peace Action. That's one of the groups that organized the march.

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At least six people from the Pioneer Valley, and at least one from Brattleboro, were among 655 people arrested for non-violent civil disobedience outside the White House between October 11 and October 15. The protests were to call on Biden to do more about climate change. The six Pioneer Valley residents are Paki Wieland, Priscilla Lynch, Marty Nathan, Sofia Perrotto, Sue Donaldson, and Russ Vernon-Jones.

About 950 people attended women's marches in Northampton, Brattleboro, and Keene on October 2. The goal was to protect abortion rights. About 800 people marched in Northampton. That event was organized by Deborah Pastrich-Klemer, Planned Parenthood, and a group called the Valley Women's March.

About 125 people marched in Brattleboro. That event was organized by Tracy Donahue and others.

The number one cause of climate change is overpopulation.

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More than 200 people attended a rally in Amherst on September 24. “We're asking the UMass administration to disband Theta Chi (fraternity) due to the countless stories that have shown their violence towards UMass students,” Anna Morel-Paletta told the Valley Post on September 26. She organized the rally. Morel-Paletta said, “Additionally, we're asking for the Survivor's Bill of Rights to be enacted to ensure that UMass starts taking claims of sexual assault seriously. Multiple people have claimed that UMass didn't do anything when they reported an experience of sexual assault.”

In Brattleboro on September 13 there will be a health care rally. It will be from 4 p.m. until 6 p.m. outside 1154 Putney Road. The organizers said, in the USA, “over 600,000 people have died from Covid during this pandemic, many of them because our country denies health care to the poor. This pandemic has revealed more clearly than ever before that the 140 million poor and low-income people in the United States are united by the fact that we, our families, and our communities are in a life-and-death fight for health care. We take action together to say that urgent action is needed now.