Wednesday, April 16, 2025
Chair Oliveira, Chair McMurtry, and Members of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development:
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth.
We urge you to give a favorable report to H.2185 and S.1365: An Act to provide fair wages to employees of public institutions of higher education.
We commend the recent work from the MA Legislature to strengthen our Commonwealth’s commitment to public higher education, such as making community college free and expanding aid and scholarship programs for students attending our four-year public colleges and universities.
As we work to ensure more students are able to benefit from high-quality public higher education, we must also work to ensure that quality, and that means properly compensating faculty and staff.
Faculty and staff at MA’s public colleges and universities are paid less than their peers in private colleges and universities and in colleges and universities in nearby states. When we compensate faculty less, then we make our public colleges and universities less attractive to the best teachers and researchers when they are weighing various opportunities. We increase the burnout of those that we are able to attract, and we create a scenario where faculty and staff may have to take on side jobs to make ends meet. They lose out, and our students lose out too.
Not being competitive in compensation is especially concerning given that MA stands out in our high cost of living. We have among the most expensive housing, health care, and child care. Our state has much to offer, but so often that is only if you can afford it.
These bills would ensure that future wages of public higher education employees are at or above the national average when adjusted for cost of living and require the Commonwealth to pay for the full cost of fringe benefits and collective bargaining agreements. They help us to continue to deliver on the promise of public higher education and its role as a creator of opportunity, a bastion of critical thinking, and an engine of our state’s economy.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts
