Massachusetts

Should Massachusetts expand eligibility for unemployment compensation benefits to striking workers? – The Boston Globe

Published

1 year ago

July 28, 2023

Should Massachusetts expand eligibility for unemployment compensation benefits to striking workers? – The Boston Globe

Joseph Zahn

The purpose of the proposed legislation, Massachusetts bills H. 1947 and S. 1172, is to prevent strikes. The legislation would do so by encouraging private corporations to expeditiously start collective bargaining in good faith early in the process.

Under the proposed legislation, workers on strike would be eligible for unemployment compensation benefits after a 30-day waiting period. This forces corporations to take a more serious approach to bargaining instead of waiting weeks to gauge the temperament of the workers on strike because they will have to start paying benefits after 30 days.

The 30-day window is important since most workers on strike lose their health insurance after 30 days. For workers with serious health issues like cancer, this is devastating and life-threatening.

Workers do not want long, drawn-out strikes. With the high cost of living in Massachusetts, many workers live paycheck to paycheck. It is very difficult to survive without any pay and it impacts people’s lives dramatically.

The Massachusetts Nurses Association strike at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Worcester lasted nearly 10 months. It began March 8, 2021, and was the longest nurses’ strike in the nation in more than 15 years and the second-longest in state history, according to the union. Nurses lost their cars and their homes and marriages suffered. Long drawn-out strikes take a serious emotional toll on workers, their families, and the economy at large.

Historically, the availability of unemployment benefits for striking workers has been dependent on the support of the governor. Families cannot rely on the support of whoever is sitting in the corner office. The proposed legislation takes away the political decisions and makes striking workers eligible by law.

This is not unique to Massachusetts. Striking workers can become eligible for New York benefits after 14 days. This April, New Jersey reduced the waiting period before striking workers can become covered under unemployment insurance from 30 days to 14 days.

Now is the time to make striking workers eligible by law. We have tried to get similar legislation passed for years without success, but post-COVID, there is a greater appreciation for the many workers who never stopped working during the pandemic. From my own experience at Verizon, we worked continuously to make sure everyone who was working and learning from home had internet service.

Striking is a last option, and this proposed legislation will help prevent future strikes.

Christopher Carlozzi

State director, National Federation of Independent Business

To say that the pandemic strained the Massachusetts Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund would be an understatement. The fund pays temporary unemployment benefits to workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own and is subsidized by payroll taxes on employers.

Now, despite billions in fund debt paid for by a special COVID tax added to employers’ unemployment insurance bills, lawmakers have proposed several pieces of legislation to expand eligibility, including allowing striking workers to receive unemployment. This legislation will make our UI system — ranked dead last by the Tax Foundation — even more costly, further damaging the Commonwealth’s competitiveness.

Massachusetts began 2020 with a positive UI fund balance of $1.6 billion — typically more than enough to cover a year of benefits. By the summer of 2020, the fund was depleted when Massachusetts experienced the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 17 percent. Due to state-ordered closures, jobs were lost, and unemployment claims skyrocketed. To continue paying benefits, the state borrowed money from the federal government, but still ended the year with a negative $2.24 billion balance.

When the pandemic subsided, the state needed to repay $2.7 billion in principal and interest to the federal government. While Maryland, Georgia, Ohio, and Illinois allocated billions in aid to shore-up their funds, Massachusetts lawmakers provided just $500 million for a $2.7 billion problem, leaving employers to cover most of the tab. Business owners are now forced to pay a decade-long COVID assessment on their UI bills for layoffs that were beyond their control.

My point in recalling this timeline is to highlight the considerable and unprecedented strain the fund is under. The discovery by auditors that Massachusetts overwithdrew $2.5 billion in federal unemployment money compounds its insolvency, and federal officials haven’t determined whether employers will be responsible for this error on top of the existing $2.7 billion.

Now is not the time to further stress an unstable unemployment fund by expanding eligibility, including for striking workers. Unemployment was not designed to cover workers opting to strike; that is why union dues and strike pay exist. Striking workers receiving unemployment creates an imbalance that will place Massachusetts employers at a disadvantage. Both sides should negotiate in good faith with a willingness to reach a mutually beneficial agreement to resume work.

Small businesses oppose extending unemployment benefits to striking workers resulting in further damage to an already fragile UI fund.

As told to Globe correspondent Linda Greenstein. To suggest a topic, please contact greensteinlm@gmail.com.

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Massachusetts

Disciplinary hearing for suspended Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor continued to 2nd day

Published

7 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

Disciplinary hearing for suspended Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor continued to 2nd day

Suspended Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor’s Trial Board disciplinary proceedings will go on to a second day.

Proctor’s trouble publicly began when he testified during the murder trial of Karen Read last summer. During a tense examination by the prosecution and even more intense cross examination, Proctor admitted to inappropriate private texts that he made as the case officer investigating Read.

“She’s a whack job (expletive),” Proctor read from compilations of text messages he sent to friends as he looked at Read’s phone. The last word was a derogatory term for women that he at first tried to spell out before Judge Beverly Cannone told him to read it the way he wrote it.

“Yes she’s a babe. Weird Fall River accent, though. No (butt),” he continued under oath on June 10, 2024.

He also texted them “no nudes so far” as an update on the search through her phone. He also testified that he told his sister that he hoped that Read would kill herself.

On Wednesday, Proctor sat through a full day of trial board proceedings at MSP general headquarters in Framingham. When that concluded in the late afternoon, the board decided to continue for a second day on Feb. 10. Neither Wednesday’s proceeding nor the second day is open to the public.

Proctor was relieved of duty on July 1 of last year, which was the day the Read trial concluded in mistrial. He was suspended without pay a week later. The State Police finished its internal affairs investigation last week and convened the trial board to determine the next step in the disciplinary process.

The trial board makes disciplinary recommendations to the superintendent, who determines the final outcome.

“A State Police Trial Board shall hear cases regarding violations of Rules, Regulations, Policies, Procedures, Orders, or Directives,” states the Department’s Rules and Regulations.

“In the event that the Trial Board finds guilt by a preponderance of the evidence on one or more of the charges, the Trial Board shall consider the evidence presented by the Department prosecutor pertaining to the accused member’s prior offenses/disciplinary history, and shall make recommendations for administrative action,” the rules and regulations state.

Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing the death of O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer when he died at age 46 on Jan. 29, 2022. Read’s second trial is scheduled to begin April 16.

Originally Published: January 15, 2025 at 6:56 PM EST

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Massachusetts

Local startups recovering from the burst tech funding bubble – The Boston Globe

Published

15 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

Local startups recovering from the burst tech funding bubble – The Boston Globe

Tech startups based in Massachusetts finished 2024 with a buzz of activity in venture capital fundraising.

In the fourth quarter, 191 startups raised a total of $4.1 billion, 20 percent more than startups raised in the same period a year earlier, according to a report from research firm Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association. For the full year, local startups raised $15.7 billion, about the same as in 2023.

The stability ended two years of sharp declines from the peak of startup fundraising in 2021. Slowing e-commerce sales, volatility in tech stock prices, and higher interest rates combined to slam the brakes on startup VC activity over the past three years. The 2024 total is less half the $34.7 billion Massachusetts startups raised in 2021.

But local startup investors have expressed optimism that VC backing will continue to pick up in 2025.

The fourth quarter’s activity was led by battery maker Form Energy’s $455 million deal and biotech obesity drugmaker Kailera Therapeutics’ $400 million deal, both in October, and MIT spinoff Liquid AI’s $250 million deal last month. Two more biotech VC deals in October rounded out the top five. Seaport Therapeutics, working on new antidepressants, raised $226 million and Alpha-9 Oncology, developing new treatments for cancer patients, raised $175 million.

Massachusetts ranked third in the country in VC activity in the quarter. Startups based in California raised $49.9 billion and New York-based companies raised $5.3 billion.

Venture capital firms, however, had an even harder time raising money in 2024 compared to earlier years. Massachusetts firms raised $5.9 billion, down 7 percent from 2023 and the lowest total since 2018. That mirrored the national trend, as VC firms across the country raised $76.1 billion, down 22 percent from 2023 and the lowest since 2019.

Only one Massachusetts-based VC firm raised more than $1 billion in 2024, a more common occurrence in prior years, according to the report: Flagship Pioneering in Cambridge raised $2.6 billion in July for its eighth investment fund plus another $1 billion for smaller funds. The firm, founded by biotech entrepreneur Noubar Afeyan, helps develop scientific research for startups in addition to providing funding.

The next largest deals were Cambridge-based Atlas Ventures’ $450 million biotech-focused fund announced last month and Engine Ventures $400 million fund investing in climate tech startups announced in June.

The decline comes as VC firms have had trouble getting a return on their investments, because so few startups have been able to go public. Just six biotech companies based in Massachusetts and no tech companies went public last year.

Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.

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Massachusetts

Mass. gives noncompliant towns more time to meet MBTA zoning regulations

Published

24 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

Mass. gives noncompliant towns more time to meet MBTA zoning regulations

The Healey administration filed emergency regulations late Tuesday afternoon to implement the controversial law meant to spur greater housing production, after Massachusetts’ highest court struck down the last pass at drafting those rules.

The Supreme Judicial Court upheld the MBTA Communities Act as a constitutional law last week, but said it was “ineffective” until the governor’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities promulgated new guidelines. The court said EOHLC did not follow state law when creating the regulations the first time around, rendering them “presently unenforceable.”

The emergency regulations filed Tuesday are in effect for 90 days. Over the next three months, EOHLC intends to adopt permanent guidelines following a public comment period, before the expiration of the temporary procedures, a release from the office said.

“The emergency regulations do not substantively change the law’s zoning requirements and do not affect any determinations of compliance that have been already issued by EOHLC. The regulations do provide additional time for MBTA communities that failed to meet prior deadlines to come into compliance with the law,” the press release said.

Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state’s attorney general has the power to enforce the MBTA Communities Law, which requires communities near MBTA services to zone for more multifamily housing, but it also ruled that existing guidelines aren’t enforceable.

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The MBTA Communities Act requires 177 municipalities that host or are adjacent to MBTA service to zone for multifamily housing by right in at least one district.

Cities and towns are classified in one of four categories, and there were different compliance deadlines in the original regulations promulgated by EOHLC: host to rapid transit service (deadline of Dec. 31, 2023), host to commuter rail service (deadline of Dec. 31, 2024), adjacent community (deadline of Dec. 31, 2024) and adjacent small town (deadline of Dec. 31, 2025).

Under the emergency regulations, communities that did not meet prior deadlines must submit a new action plan to the state with a plan to comply with the law by 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2025. These communities will then have until July 14, 2025, to submit a district compliance application to the state.

Communities designated as adjacent small towns still face the Dec. 31, 2025 deadline to adopt compliant zoning.

The town of Needham voted Tuesday on a special referendum over whether to re-zone the town for 3,000 more units of housing under Massachusetts’ MBTA Communities law.

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Like the old version of the guidelines, the new emergency regulations gives EOHLC the right to determine whether a city or town’s zoning provisions to allow for multi-family housing as of right are consistent with certain affordability requirements, and to determine what is a “reasonable size” for the multi-family zoning district.

The filing of emergency regulations comes six days after the SJC decision — though later than the governor’s office originally projected. Healey originally said her team would move to craft new regulations by the end of last week to plug the gap opened up by the ruling.

“These regulations will allow us to continue moving forward with implementation of the MBTA Communities Law, which will increase housing production and lower costs across the state,” Healey said in a statement Tuesday. “These regulations allow communities more time to come into compliance with the law, and we are committed to working with them to advance zoning plans that fit their unique needs.”

A total of 116 communities out of the 177 subject to the law have already adopted multi-family zoning districts to comply with the MBTA Communities Act, according to EOHLC.

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