September 2026

Hi, happy start of fall!

Though I tend to open these newsletters with negative developments on the national and international stage, this one marks a bit of a change: I spent the first half of the month traversing Portugal, Spain and France, with a trip organized around two of the world’s largest communist festivals: Avante!, organized by the Communist Party of Portugal (PCP), and the Fête de L’Humanité, organized jointly by the Communist Party of France (PCF) and the daily newspaper L’Humanité. Each drew hundreds of thousands of attendees. You can read our (English-language) coverage of the events at the links above, and see more with the photos below. First, from Avante!:

Then from the Fête:

While I’ll spare many of the details, I share these scenes as windows into the world that is possible for all of us. It is built not only on hope, but on the power — and labor — of working people. It is a lesson in how we organize that power, on the basis of broad and principled unity, through the advance of our democratic rights and in pursuit of truth.

When we open these windows, we conquer the space to be with each other and to think critically, collectively and for ourselves. We claim our rights to work, to love, to dance, to play sports, to meander through art galleries and sleep in the shade. I want to emphasize, as the festivals do, that these are inherently political acts. We have a long way to go, but we will win these rights here too, through struggle for living wages, universal education and healthcare, paid time off and countless other unmet needs.

Recalling one of the murals above, everyone remembers their first carvalhesa because it draws these threads together. It is a moment of collective catharsis, unity and perseverance that celebrates every moment of progress leading to now, and the countless lives dedicated to making the view from the window into reality for everyone. It is, above all, a lesson in the politics of working-class unity and militancy that will get us there.

In more local news…

With a bit of free time in airports and at coffee shops in Madrid, we wrote a critical examination of the September 1st primary results for the People’s World, which drew a heated rebuttal from state auditor Diana DiZoglio’s director of operations within two hours of its publication. With midterm elections less than five weeks away, spending has ramped up on ballot questions, and corporate interests aligned with the far right have their eyes on a few campaigns that are critical to charting their rise to power in our (for now) deep-blue state. DiZoglio and her MAGA allies are at the center of it — more on that below.

In Northampton, city business has come back into full swing with the end of summer vacation, return of biweekly city council meetings and growing public discourse around the prospect of a Proposition 2½ override proposal. I attended the first informal hearing of the override commission (“FACT Force”) on September 19th, joining other advocates for school funding and laying out the Communist Party’s analysis of the municipal budgeting crisis in Massachusetts. The commission’s third and final public hearing will take place on October 27th, 5-7pm at the senior center; childcare will be provided. (Note that, though a public body subject to Open Meeting Law, the commission’s recommendations are strictly advisory. Members of the commission have no formal authority under the city charter to change fiscal policy.)

The city hosted Toole Design, the private company contracted for the Main Street redesign, for a second informational session on September 23rd. As I argued in an appearance on Occupy The Airwaves on the 27th, the Sciarra administration and its allies — not Toole Design — are responsible for the current politics of this project, including any planned allocations of municipal revenue. Given the prospect of an override in coming months, and the potential for catastrophic damage to public services if it fails, it is imperative that city officials fully justify their plan for funding the minimum $12M local cost of the Main Street redesign.

Recent council business

• As I’ve hinted in previous editions, the Stop L3Harris coalition is advocating for a proposed zoning amendment to prevent the expansion of the arms industry in Northampton. If passed, the ordinance will ban expansion of Northampton’s two existing weapons manufacturers, prevent the conversion of existing civilian industries to arms production, and keep all other companies out. You can read the full text of the proposal at this link, and sign the petition in support of it here.
  • Though state law prevents retroactive actions against existing weapons manufacturers, it provides ample latitude for cities and towns to control future land use. These same local controls are also being leveraged by the anti-data center movement to prevent new construction, which is especially salient given the central role of AI technologies in surveillance and imperialist war.
• On a related note, the city council is seeking applicants to a select committee to study data center impacts. Though we already have a substantial body of peer-reviewed research and meta-analyses on the subject, including efforts (such as this one from the state of Colorado) funded at a much greater scale than our city can muster, we can hope that this body will come to similar conclusions about the disastrous impacts of the industry on human and environmental health. We also have legislative precedent from Holyoke, owing to pressure from progressive forces in a campaign against a proposed data center earlier this year. Applications to the select committee are open here.
  • A public hearing on a proposed one-year moratorium on data center construction will take place on October 29th. This meeting will jointly convene the Planning Board and Legislative Matters committee of the city council.
• The council received its fourth-quarter financial report on September 17th (full meeting video here), as well as a legislative report from state Sen. Jo Comerford.
  • Among many notable elements in the Q4 financial report, the city has over $26M in encumbrances — in other words, money which has been appropriated for use but not yet spent. This is down from over $46M in June.
    • Critically, the mayor’s office does not keep centralized records of capital spending, meaning the elected and appointed officials responsible for keeping track of infrastructure improvements are unable to readily disaggregate the $23M in encumbered funds for capital improvements.
    • Various elected officials and leaders in the override process have requested information on encumbrances and current balances in stabilization funds, and found it to be difficult or impossible to access. It is alarming that this legally public information is not available in the context of a likely upcoming override vote.
  • While I appreciate that Sen. Comerford’s report details the basics of the legislative process — the state legislature governs many aspects of our day-to-day life, and is both geographically and politically distant for Western Massachusetts — it is urgent to reiterate that Chapter 70 and Chapter 90 reforms alone cannot resolve the root crisis of municipal budgeting in any city or town across the state. We must abolish Proposition 2½ to protect our services, and simultaneously change the state’s tax structure to shift the burden away from local property taxes and onto corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

Recent labor news

• After 13 months of bargaining, nurses at Baystate Franklin Medical Center have secured a tentative agreement for a contract! If ratified, the contract will protect many existing benefits, substantially increase wages and expand staffing coverage. Additionally, BFMC nurses will not have to pay more than other nurses in the Baystate system for the same health insurance — taken together, the contract will not only set new precedents for Baystate nurses and other workers in the region, but also have a strong positive impact on the existing disparities in rural healthcare. Congratulations!
  • The contract campaign featured an overwhelming (98% in favor) strike authorization vote in April, as well as a rejection by the same margin of Baystate’s previous last, best and final offer. Hundreds of community members signed a petition supporting the union, turned out for pickets, showed up for the city council resolution and sent letters to Baystate’s board of trustees.
• On the other side of the state, the struggle for a just contract for nurses at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston continues, with 93% of nurses voting to authorize a second, indefinite strike on September 24th. The company has refused to return to the bargaining table, or to budge from its catastrophic proposals to cut real wages and expand hours for temporary, non-union nursing staff within the hospital.
  • Though Gov. Maura Healey attempted to mediate a bargaining session in her office prior to the one-day strike and four-day lockout beginning on July 8th, she has refused to do so again. She was scheduled to speak at a MGB- and finance capital-sponsored forum on AI development in medical settings on September 22nd, but later declined to appear.
  • MGB’s board of directors is largely composed of billionaire finance capitalists, who bankroll the MAGA movement. Scott Sperling, chair of the MGB board, is also co-president of Bain Capital, one of the largest sponsors of the campaign in support of ballot questions 1 and 3 this year.
    • As discussed on the WMCP website and in the article linked above (and again here), questions 1 and 3 are a joint project of the extreme right, linking these billionaires with the wider legislative audit movement, Diana DiZoglio and Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue.
• Following last month’s coverage of the Springfield Education Association (SEA)’s struggle against AI-based curricula, Springfield’s public schools have experienced a catastrophic cyber attack, causing the closure of all schools on September 10th and weeks of ensuing disruption and uncertainty.
  • On top of the breach of sensitive information, compromising students, families and educators, digital curricula, in-building printing and other essential resources have been impacted.
  • As noted in a statement by SEA president Riley Hernandez, the incident is a stark warning against further integration of AI curricula in schools, particularly when it is designed to replace normal instruction. For any Springfield readers of this newsletter, you can attend an SEA-led community forum on AI in the district at 33 Oak St. on October 14th — the RSVP form and further details are available here.
• The Western Massachusetts Area Labor Federation (WMALF) is discussing plans to campaign for payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreements with major institutions with tax-exempt properties across the region. This has been a focus for WMCP for this year — we look forward to continuing to build the coalition to shore up municipal budgets through pressure on the valley’s largest institutions.

That’s all for this month! As always, please feel free to reach out with thoughts or questions by email at lukerotello@gmail.com, or by phone at (413) 404-0405. Stay safe, stay healthy and stay in the struggle!

-Luke