Hi, my name is Robyn. I'm a Somerville citizen. I'm a 911 dispatcher for quite many years. I'm here for the Mayor because she helped women get paid the same amount as everyone else, equality. I've dealt with her with other situations. She's always tried her best. And I just think we need someone like the Mayor, a great human. Thanks.
When SEIU Local 888 endorsed Mayor Ballantyne for re-election, President Thomas M. McKeever wrote that she was “the candidate who has dedicated her life to fighting for all members of our community and our members in labor.” Her administration had conducted wage studies that found pay disparities between emergency responders. As McKeever noted, the city then “reached a historic agreement for the 911 Emergency Dispatchers and Telecommunicators. This agreement serves as a model for other municipalities to honor, respect, and fairly identify their workers who make their city and its residents safe.” Our city workers deserve fair, equitable pay and she considers this one of her major accomplishments.
It’s easy to say you’re committed to bettering the lives of working families, but that’s just cosplay. There’s talking the talk, and then there’s walking the walk. As your mayor, Mayor Ballantyne has done the latter. It’s why she has also earned the support of the 20 unions comprising the Greater Boston Building Trades Union representing 35,000 working families. “Mayor Katjana Ballantyne is the workers’ Mayor. In a time of uncertainty, she’s been the steady, proven leader we need — fighting every day for workers and their families. Under her leadership, workers’ rights have been reestablished in Somerville, from the right to organize to safe working conditions and fair pay. She’s taken real, concrete steps to make sure working people are treated with dignity, respect and are able to make it in Somerville. If you care about protecting and strengthening labor rights and a strong, vibrant Somerville, re-electing Mayor Ballantyne is the clear choice,” said Chaton Green, GBBTU Business Agent.
In January she approved a new contract with the Somerville Municipal Employees Union United B.
SMEU Union President Ed Halloran said that, “as a 32-year veteran working for the City’s DPW, this may be the best contract the members of this union have ever received.”
It is a contract that is an arrow right at the heart of long-standing bias—that's gender bias, class bias, and educational bias that is pervasive in our society, taking a hard look at benefits that needed updating as well for these critical workers.
Ed Halloran, president of the Somerville Municipal Employees Union, said at a City Council meeting, this, "game changer” of a contract for Somerville city workers was funded with $1.5 million going to pay for average raises of up to 17 percent and better paid family and medical leave benefits.
“This is not your usual contract,” Mayor Katjana Ballantyne went on to tell councilors in requesting the appropriation, noting it was based on a first-ever wage compensation study done with the city union that “allowed us to account not just for inflation and the market rate paid to certain professions, but to evaluate wage discrepancies due to bias and to correct them.”
