Markey, Ballantyne discuss green new deal at Somerville high School

by Carly Cohen Staff Writer

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne spoke at Somerville High School on April 24 to discuss the Green New Deal and its local implications.

The Green New Deal is a resolution aimed at mobilizing every aspect of American society toward a 100% clean and renewable energy system by 2050.

Mayor Ballantyne opened the meeting by describing the climate action progress that Somerville has already begun and the city’s goals for the upcoming years.

“We can make Somerville a national leader, a national model for climate resilience, connecting our environmental efforts with the city work on housing with the economy and social justice,” Ballantyne said.

She described how Somerville is already ahead of the curve, being “one of the first communities in the country to set a goal to be carbon negative by 2050.”

Ballantyne also described the goals she has for the city in the coming year. Her administration is laying out an action plan in 2023, which would — according to Ballantyne — focus on those residents of the city that are the “most likely to bear the brunt of climate change impacts.”

Ballantyne believes that a specific reduction factor crucial for reaching this goal is green transportation.

“We need to continue making sustainable transit the safe, easy choice for getting around,” Ballantyne said.

With the Green Line Extension up and running, she noted that 85% of Somerville residents are within a 15-minute walk of a T station, which is a large improvement from recent years.

Along with transportation targets, she said she hopes for

Somerville to join a state-run project that allows municipalities to prohibit fossil fuels in new constructions and major renovations.

“In Somerville, buildings account for two-thirds of all greenhouse gas emissions,” Ballantyne said. “To achieve carbon-negative status, we’ll need to make our buildings carbon-free. We’ve begun restructuring some of the city’s housing see GREEN, page 21

SMFA part-time faculty face pay cuts under Tufts’ proposed contract

SMFA continued from page 18 a step system, where every four years the lecturers move up a step in the pay scale. The addition of the flat rate pay for the review boards was the same for all lecturers regardless of time served, which led to an increased pay cut (9.8% versus 7.7%) for lecturers who had taught at SMFA the longest.

“We were appalled,” Ros said. “We told them, ‘Wait a second, you’re actually saying that the people who have given you the longest service are actually going to make even less money.’ That became a huge issue.”

In the opinion of SMFA parttime lecturer Lizi Brown, the offers made by Tufts signify a lack of respect.

“We expect respectful and thoughtful negotiations with Tufts.

We’re very disappointed that we haven’t seen this in our talks this spring,” Brown wrote in an email to the Daily. “An example: both of their offers have been regressive, involving pay cuts. They also don’t recognize all the work Part Time Faculty do, minimizing the efforts of SMFA Faculty, while at the same time increasing our reviewboard responsibilities.”

Ros said that not all professors would be able to participate in review boards, meaning that they would receive the larger pay cut. This emphasis on review board participation for a competitive sal- ary and the pay cut disparity based on time served gave negotiators a lot to address heading into their April 26 meeting.

Ros said the first offer the union made was to couple the review board and course pay into a comprehensive single salary for the part-time lecturers that was “stepped” appropriately by years served at the SMFA.

“We wanted to keep review boards as part of our per-course salary,” they said, “but [Tufts] came back rejecting our proposal. … They are very serious about wanting to uncouple review boards.”

Tufts held firm on a 16.6% pay decrease for the base per-course pay of lecturers and changed the review board rate from a flat to a stepped model, where those who had taught for longer would receive a higher payment per review board completed, addressing the union’s previous complaint. However, to make up the 16.6% difference and avoid a pay cut, lecturers would have to complete eight review boards rather than five, which, according to Ros, would be impossible for all parttime lecturers to do, as there simply “aren’t enough review boards to dole out.”

While disappointed about failing to secure the coupling of the review board and course pay, Ros made clear what their bargaining unit wanted at the end of the day.

“We need to see a salary increase, is our bottom line.

Period,” they said, “regardless of what that structure looks like.”

Ros also emphasized the massive amounts of uncompensated labor that they and other parttime lecturers are forced to complete, including preparing for the negotiations.

“Part-time lecturers … created a system [ahead of recent negotiations] that said, ‘This is how we could do review work,’” Ros said. “As part-time lecturers, all the part-time faculty on our side of the table are volunteering our time to be in these meetings. All the Tufts admin are getting paid to be at that meeting, and the fact we have to correct these issues that shouldn’t be our issues to begin with is really telling about what’s going on.”