Forward-Thinking Invitation: Share Your Vision at Listening Post
Dear Editor,
As a resident who cares deeply about Winthrop’s future, I want to encourage my neighbors to participate in our “Listening Post” sessions. These sessions occur on the last Wednesday of each month through June from 6:00-7:00 pm. in the Harvey Hearing Room. They offer a place for us to gather, either in person or via Zoom, to discuss the road ahead for our community. Our fourth session is May 27.
This is not a venue for rehashing Town Council debates or dwelling on old grievances. Instead, it is an invitation to be forward-thinking. We want to hear your freshest ideas:
What could we do differently? What new concepts would truly invigorate our town?
Most importantly, how can we, as residents, be more helpful in making those visions a reality?
Winthrop’s potential is best unlocked when we step back from the day-to-day friction and look at the bigger picture. Whether you’ve lived here for decades or just moved in, your perspective is vital to building a vibrant, energized future. All ideas are welcome. If one out of 20 are further considered, I would call that a success.
When I think about examples of interesting ideas—Should we seek a sister town in Italy or Spain? Do we want to have an architecture group in Winthrop consider envisioning what we want our town to look like? How can we better leverage our “seaside charm” to attract small-scale tourism or leisure activities? Who knows what we come up with?
Please join us to share your “what-ifs” and your “why-nots”. Let’s focus on the possibilities and work together to help Winthrop thrive.
Suzanne Swope, VP Winthrop Town Council, Precinct 4 Council Member
Support for Harvard Workers
Dear Editor,
The following is a letter sent to Harvard University leadership regarding the ongoing contract negotiations with its academic and student workers from 34 elected across the state of Massachusetts.
“Dear President Garber and Provost Manning,
We, the undersigned political leaders of Massachusetts, call on the Harvard administration to bargain in good faith to come to fair agreements with the Harvard Academic Workers-UAW (HAW-UAW), the union of non-tenured teaching faculty and researchers at Harvard University, and the Harvard Graduate Student Union-UAW (HGSU-UAW), the union of graduate and undergraduate student workers, that sufficiently address their workplace concerns and attend to the high cost of living in the region.
Unions everywhere fight for safe working conditions, and HAW and HGSU members deserve the industry standard protections of grievance and arbitration procedures for issues of discrimination and harassment in the workplace, as well as codified protections for their international workers. It is also crucial that the democratic rights of members are respected and that these workers are not arbitrarily carved out or excluded from participation in their union.
We understand that both unions have been negotiating a contract with Harvard University for 20 months and 13 months, respectively, and have each called for a strike authorization vote and potential strike action in the event a resolution to negotiations cannot be found. As one of the largest private employers in the region, Harvard has a responsibility to the workers in Massachusetts to treat them with respect and dignity. These workers are the backbone of education and research at Harvard, and they deserve fair recognition of their work that sustains the critical mission of the University.
We urge you to do everything in your power to ensure that these workers receive the contract that they deserve.
Lydia Edwards