Letter From APA Executive Board – Association of Professional Administrators

November 21, 2023

Hello APA Members,

Yesterday was a great day for Massachusetts union solidarity. APA joined thousands of union workers across the state from many different state departments who showed up to make it clear that our contracts need to be funded. Our very own Susan McNeil, State-wide VP and MassArt Chapter President, did us proud with a passionate and powerful speech from the steps of the State House, and many news media outlets have quoted her (apologies for the paywalls):

After packing the gallery during, informal session, the APA and other Higher Education union members took roll call of the legislators that had shown up to finish the work of passing our raises. Afterwords, from the steps of the statehouse, our APA vice president, Susan McNeil delivered a warning to legislators:

“We will not forget those who advocated for us,” said Susan McNeil of the Association of Professional Administrators, which represents 1,350 public college and university employees. “And we will certainly not forget those who did not.”

APA Vice President Susan McNeil’s speech, 11-20-23 State House rally

There was amazing turnout at the rally yesterday:

Hundreds of angry public sector employees attended the Informal session and Rally/press conference at the State House. MTA, NAGE, SEIU 509, AFSCME, MOSES, and AFTMA and other affected unions were in attendance
We filled the House and Senate galleries to capacity and had overflow
We visited every Senate and Rep office in the State House in under an hour.
MCCC President Claudine Barnes, APA Vice President Susan McNeil, Christine Bozeman of the Classified Staff Union spoke passionately at the rally
A mobile billboard with the message “Lawmakers do your job!” circled Beacon Hill throughout the day

November 20, 2023 rally at the State House

We’re receiving lots of confirmation from legislators who support getting the contracts done.

Due to your activism, 24 legislators signed on to a letter urging the Conference Committee to report a bill that funds the contracts. But far too few have taken public action.

The more letters we can send to legislators to urge their action the better! Click here to add your support!

We need to keep the heat on until a supp has been passed. Next steps…

The Mass Afl-CIO Public Sector Task force met again this morning . Here are the next steps we outlined after that meeting:

Letters to the Editor and Op-eds: we’ll be looking to place letters in newspapers across the Commonwealth over Thanksgiving weekend. We can provide a template and help get them placed; we are looking for members who are willing to send one in or write their own. If you are willing or have a member who is willing, please connect them with me.
Social Media: we’re putting together a social media toolkit with the goal of targeting key legislators. There is a lot of social media traffic on Thanksgiving day, and we can capitalize on that.
Comms is looking into continuing the mobile billboard over the next week in key districts or at big events, and running social media ads in target districts over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Thank you for your continued support and we will forward on any news we have as we learn more.

In Solidarity,

The APA Executive Board