In 2025, our Building Action Teams (BAT) in every school have been doing the hard work of creating communication networks, updating members on ongoing actions and campaign news, and creating the types of democratic work places that we know we deserve. The BATs also helped build our bargaining platform, which included multiple 10-minute meetings at every school, feedback from hundreds of members, and work in small groups at an HTA general meeting.
BAT members organized a super majority petition with 95% of eligible unit members signing (0ver 600 people) and dropped this off to Mayor Joshua Garcia on September 8th. HTA members then spoke at the school committee meeting later that day, imploring elected officials to come back to the table and bargain in good faith. On October 8th, after having not heard back from the Mayor yet, around 35 HTA members surprised him at his annual bike ride, and told him that we are ready to bargain. A week later, the DLR replied to us with a strong message: go back to the bargaining table.
This is a substantial victory for the HTA, and was a direct result of our organizing and putting pressure on those in power.
-Nick Cream
