Northampton, MA – On Sunday, January 11, the River Valley chapter of FRSO co-sponsored a rally with local activist groups demanding an end to both ICE funding and presence in their communities.

FRSO member Roman Handlen opened the rally with a speech honoring the life of Renee Nicole Good, mentioning the New Year’s Eve ICE murder of Keith Porter in Los Angeles and the 32 lives lost in ICE detention centers in 2025 and citing Good as “the most recent casualty in a systemic failure by a government that revels in terror and unrest.”

Citing the government’s current $50,000 signing bonus for new ICE agents, Handlen shamed the Trump administration for “incentivizing American citizens living in the poverty designed by their government to engage in domestic terrorism against their own communities in the same ways the military grooms working-class people to fight in our wars abroad for imperial interests.”

A representative from LUCE Immigrant Network in Holyoke spoke to the crowd about their Defense Hotline and how to get involved with organizing for immigrant community safety, stating, “Our collective power, vigilance, and solidarity are how we build the safety our communities deserve.”

Massachusetts State Representative Lindsey Sabadosa encouraged citizens to contact their legislators and organizers led a moment of silence before over 1500 community members marched down Main Street with signs and chants against federally sanctioned violence, yelling “ICE out of our streets!”

#NorthhamptonMA #MA #ImmigrantRights #FRSO #LUCE #ReneeGood #ICE

Northampton, MA – On Friday night, April 12, over 20 Stop & Shop employees were gathered outside the King Street store for the second day of a strike called by United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) at stores across New England. Currently there are over 31,000 UFCW workers protesting proposed cuts to health care, take home pay and customer service.

According to the UFCW, “The proposed cuts by Stop & Shop, whose parent company earned $2 billion in profits in 2018, would devastate health care benefits, significantly increase health care costs, and decrease take home pay. Stop & Shop’s proposed cuts would also have a negative and severe impact on customer service, including the very cashiers, stockers, bakers, deli clerks, and butchers that Stop & Shop customers rely on.”

Employees and supporters stood in front of the main doors at sundown with signs reading, “Stop & Shop: Do what’s right” and “Unfair labor practice: Strike!”

Solidarity with the strike spread quickly, as the usually packed parking lot was almost empty. Potential customers were turning away one by one as the workers explained their situation.

Earlier in the day, one woman stood in solidarity at the picket line with a sign offering to drive people to the nearby Big Y for those unable to access another grocer by foot. Community members brought food and coffee to the picket line throughout the day.

“They’ve already started bringing scabs in through the warehouse,” a woman union member said. But in this same warehouse, trucks from Peapod (a non-union grocery service owned by Stop & Shop) have been sitting full for 24 hours while there are no experienced workers to unload the trucks.

A union cashier who is 18 and still in high school full time, explained that she works 30 hours per week at minimum wage ($12 per hour) to raise money to attend college without a scholarship. She and others expressed frustration at corporate management’s decision to cut hours for employees, to the dismay of customers who had to face longer lines and slower service.

“Despite being understaffed, all the work is done by us,” she said. “They paid $30,000 to put new robots in the store and all they do is alert us to spills in the aisle, but there are no spills. We’ve already cleaned them up. It was a waste of money that came from our paychecks.”

Lisa Rogers, another union cashier at the King Street location, complained that management says the workers are “overpaid.” “I’ve been here 18-and-a-half years and I make $14 an hour,” she said.

“Our hours have been so cut back that we have long lines, customers complain. But they’re the only hours we’re allowed to have.” She explained that sick time too has been cut, and unused time no longer rolls over or is paid back but instead disappears at the end of each year.

“We don’t want to be out here, we’d rather be in there working,” one union member, Shelby, said. “This is about fair wages, healthcare, benefits, the pensions they’re trying to cut. It’s not just affecting the people who’ve been here for ten or 20-plus years. It’s affecting everybody who’s going to be hired in the future. So the next generation, when they’re trying to get their first job, we’re fighting for them too.”

Teamsters Local 404 in Western Massachusetts and Northampton Firefighters Local 108 are supporting the striking workers. The strike is ongoing and solidarity is growing.

#NorthhamptonMA #PeoplesStruggles #UFCW #Strikes #StopShop #NewEngland

Northampton, MA – Western Massachusetts Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held a rally and speak out for transgender rights, October 26, in downtown Northampton’s Pulaski Park. Pulaski Park is a block from Smith College, and a short trip from Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College, and UMass Amherst.

This event was inspired by SDS actions in Tampa Bay and Tallahassee earlier this week. Joining a national SDS call for students to protest the Trump administration’s proposals to change Title IX to include an unwavering definition of gender, based on genetics and a binary idea of biological sex. These policies would roll back the small number of protections currently afforded to trans people in the United States. It will put 1.4million citizens at risk of losing their jobs; homes, medical care, and already weak ability to prosecute hate crimes.

Over 50 people, both students and community members, gathered together in the park at 11 a.m. Friday morning with signs reading, “Fire transphobes in our schools, police and government.” The rally called to, “Support the Yes on 3” campaign, a Massachusetts bill to provide legal protections to transgender people and the first of its kind for any state.

Organizers were clear in telling people that just voting wasn’t enough. “We are at a point where our identities alone are not revolutionary enough,” said Mod Behrens, an SDS organizer who gave the opening statements at the event. “Our existence is not revolutionary enough because they’ve shown us that if we don’t act, there’s a whole lot they can do to hurt us.” Donations of $50 for the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, a non-profit offering legal help for trans people, including those incarcerated, were collected at the event.

Anna Secino, an SDS member who helped organize the event, said after the rally, “Reversals on Senate Bill 2407 [Massachusetts Transgender Anti-Discrimination Legislation] and on Roe v. Wade would act in tandem to restrict individual autonomy on the most personal matters and to deny vulnerable groups equal access to public goods and services.”

Western Mass SDS invited Sky Karp, a Smith College student and member of the college’s Trans Diversity Committee who spoke about being transgender on a women’s campus. “The way we all felt when Trump’s new policy came out, is the same way I feel, on a smaller level, every day.”

Smith College, which only began accepting trans women in 2015, does not allow students to change their names on their IDs or in their student portals, and has refused to let students continue leading campus tours after they have begun transitioning. “Part of the reason Trump’s policy is so fucking scary for me is because I know I can’t count on Smith to stand by trans students,” they explained.

Other speakers included Lorelei Erisis, local activist and former Miss Trans New England, Karl Tonge with the “Yes on 3” campaign, and N Kohchi, a Trans Lifeline worker and member of PSL.

As the rally continued and people began chanting for trans rights now, even more people trickled in from the sidewalk, grabbing handmade signs and joining the crowd. “In SDS, we have a motto: ‘Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win,’” organizers told the audience through a megaphone. “Well when our rights are under attack, we say ‘Stand up, fight back!” The whole crowd shouted it back in return.

This event precedes other SDS rallies in Salt Lake City and Wisconsin, encouraging students to stand up against oppression from the Trump White House.

#NorthhamptonMA #WomensMovement #LGBTQ #PeoplesStruggles #TransRights