Some state Senate staffers are considering organizing a labor union to resolve long-standing conflicts around salaries, job descriptions and hiring decisions.
For the most part, Democrats on Beacon Hill are strong supporters of workers' right to organize, especially when it comes to public sector unions. As an institution, the Legislature is resistant to oversight and protects its prerogatives. Neither House nor Senate staff can bargain collectively. And in the Senate, there is a growing frustration about how staff says they are treated by leadership.
Several senior Senate staff members tell WGBH News they have serious concerns over how Senate President Karen Spilka has communicated implementation of the state's new wage equity law and Spilka's clamp down on Senators' discretion to alter salaries for their own staff through a salary freeze for existing workers.
"They want fair compensation. They want the kind of a system in place that makes sure that as long as you're there, your compensation goes up based on your work performance, based on your professional development, based on how long you've been there," said Mohammed Missouri, a former communications director for Sen. Jamie Eldridge who spurred on the pay equity and unionization debate among staffers before leaving state employment for another job last month.
Missouri said an employee union is a way to bring fairer treatment to the senate staff "and that it's not an arbitrary system based on 'did your boss have a good enough relationship with so-and-so' or 'are they in leadership.'"
According to Spilka's office, since taking over in July 2018, Spilka has brought Senate payroll into compliance with the state's wage equity law, conducted a workplace climate survey and given pay raises to all staff hired before November 2018, bringing the minimum staff salary to $43,000.
“The Senate President appreciates the hard work and talent of the nearly 300 dedicated people who make up the Senate staff. She therefore remains committed to creating a modern and professional workplace for everyone," Spilka spokeswoman Sarah Blodgett told WGBH News in a statement.
Creating a new Legislative staffer union would break new ground. Neither the House or the Senate currently allow bargaining with their employees, who are state workers paid by the Legislature itself and hired by individual lawmakers.
Issues like equal pay, clearly communicated job expectations and more transparent wage standards have come to a head in the Senate, where the 40 members control their own staff, typically of five or more aides. The Senate has had four presidents over the last five years, contributing to a sense of instability in the chamber and strengthening longtime staffers' resolve to put clearer employment policies in place.
According to Blodgett, Spilka plans to explore the possibility of standardized job title descriptions and pay scales, implement an evaluation system for staff and have the Senate pay employee's share of the cost of the new paid medical and family leave system that goes into effect in October.
While veteran staffers with years or decades of Beacon Hill experience are behind the recent unionization effort, a junior Senate staff position is often an entry-level job.
Staff say that many of their direct bosses, the elected senators themselves, support unionization, but can't yet openly push for it because it may create conflict with Spilka. The Senate President's office declined to comment on whether Spilka herself supports Senate staff unionizing.
"I don't think it's a good look," Missouri said. "I think it's a terrible look that we say one thing and then within our own house we don't do that."
