One day before the House Ways & Means Fiscal Year 2019 budget was slated to be released, The Caring Force brought more than 500 people to the State House to advocate for student loan repayment and fair pay for human service workers.
The Seventh Annual Caring Force Rally on Tuesday, April 10 featured hundreds of attendees in gold shirts calling for legislation that would strengthen the human services workforce in Massachusetts and recognized two of the sector’s legislative champions.
Sen. Sal DiDomenico of Everett and Rep. Trisha Farley-Bouvier of Pittsfield were presented with the 2018 Caring Bear Award for their support of the community-based human services sector in the Commonwealth. Additionally, former Caring Bear recipient Rep. Jeffrey Roy of Attleboro introduced eighth-grader Brian Solis, who spoke about how the Council’s student loan repayment bill would help human services employees and their clients.
The Caring Force members also heard from two of their own – Taylor Powers, an employment specialist at Bay Cove Human Services and Jasmine Davis, a youth service coordinator at Roxbury Youthworks – who shared their stories and urged legislators to support legislation that would establish a student loan repayment program for qualified human services employees.
Rallying for the first time as a force of 25,000 plus members, the crowd was also seeking support for a bill that would establish fair pay for comparable work, creating salary equity between workers in the private sector with state workers doing similar jobs. After hearing from the speakers, rally attendees fanned out through the State House to meet with their individual legislators to seek support for the bills. More information on the Providers’ Council’s legislative agenda can be found here or you can also join The Caring Force.
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