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Take Action on Destination Resort Casinos
Dear Labor Supporter,
I write you today to urge you to take action in the campaign to bring destination resort casinos to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO supports destination resort casinos because they will bring tens of thousands of high quality jobs and much needed public revenue to our state. We believe the construction and operation of destination resort casinos is an essential step for the economic well-being of working families, and for positive economic development in the Commonwealth. There are a number of ways in which you can take action to support destination resort casinos in Massachusetts and positively influence the future for working families in our Commonwealth. The most important is to take the time to express your support to your legislators. You must let your legislators know that you want them to support the good jobs and substantial public revenues that will be created by destination resort casinos in Massachusetts.
On Tuesday March 18th the Joint Standing Committee on Economic Development will hold its hearing on destination resort casinos at 10 a.m. in Gardner Auditorium. Please consider sending a message to your local legislators asking them to offer supportive testimony at the hearing. You can personalize our sample message included here and have it automatically sent to your State Representatives and Senators simply by clicking "send this message." In addition to sending this message, I also urge you to contact the members of the Joint Standing Committee by snail mail or phone and urge them to give destination resort casinos a favorable report. You can find members of the Committee and their contact info by clicking here, and a sample letter by clicking here. I also hope that you will join the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and many other labor supporters at this important hearing on Tuesday March 18th, and at a rally in support of destination resort casinos prior to the hearing at 9 a.m. on Boston Common near Beacon Street, across from the State House.
To learn more about the issue of destination resort casinos in Massachusetts, please visit http://www.massaflcio.org/destinationresortcasinos.
I thank you for your support on this timely and important issue.
Sincerely,
Robert J. Haynes
President
| Sample Letter for Campaign |
Subject: Please Support Destination Resort Casinos
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,
I am a registered voter in your district. I want to make it clear to you that my family and our Commonwealth desperately need the jobs and the long-overdue benefits of the public revenue which destination resort casinos will provide. I hope you are supporting this proposal, and I urge you to appear in person or to submit written testimony to the Joint Standing Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies in support of destination resort casinos. I plan on working hard in our community to gain support for it and make sure that it is passed in the Legislature.
More than half of the adults living in Massachusetts do not have a four-year college degree. There are simply not enough good jobs for working people to support our families. We must take advantage of this opportunity to give tens of thousands of skilled workers good, permanent jobs with which they can support a family, while also putting tens of thousands of construction workers to work so that they can support their families during these tough economic times. Countless laid-off workers need the opportunities presented by destination resort casinos.
In addition to the tens of thousands of construction and permanent jobs that will be created, the substantial public revenues taht will result from destination resort casinos make the establishment of this important new indusrty worth passage in the Legislature. My children and my neighbors' children are in crowded classrooms where there are not enough books to even take home to do homework. Hundreds of thousands of us can barely afford our property taxes. There are firemen and police officers who are working alone or in under-staffed crews on dangerous scenes because their local departments are cash-strapped. We all know someone who has gotten a flat tire in one of the thousands of potholes across the state, and we can only pray that something like what happened when a major bridge collapsed unexpectedly in Minnesota this past summer doesn't happen here. The destination resort casino proposal would create new resources to address these many challenges.
It is time to give workers that have been marginalized simply because they could not afford a college degree a fair chance at a family-sustaining job that actually offers potential for growth and dignity. It is time to give our state's budget the boost it desperately needs in order to sustain and enhance the programs and services we rely on as residents of the Commonwealth. My family and countless members of my community strongly encourage you to support destination resort casinos in the Commonwealth. Thank you.
Sincerely,
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Campaign Launched:
March 13, 2008
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Announcement of Massachusetts AFL-CIO Official Endorsement of Destination Resort Casinos
February 7, 2008
NATICK, MA... .Prior to an afternoon conference to discuss the organization’s entire legislative agenda and plans for advancing numerous issues, the Executive Council of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, the largest labor organization in the Commonwealth with upwards of 400,000 members from over 700 local unions, today announced the official endorsement of the principles set forth in Governor Patrick’s destination resort casino economic development proposal. The Executive Council unanimously supported the following statement:
“Governor Patrick’s proposal to establish destination resort casinos is an important economic development initiative that the Massachusetts AFL-CIO believes is essential to the economic well-being of working families and communities around the Commonwealth. This economic development initiative is a key piece to a much broader agenda about creating good jobs and growing public revenues. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO does not support ‘casinos for casinos sake;’ rather we believe strongly in high road economic development and the need to find new sources of public revenues. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO believes that the construction and operation of destination resort casinos in our Commonwealth has the potential to create tens of thousands of high quality construction and permanent jobs, as well as significant sums of direly needed public revenues. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO has long supported the economic development benefits of expanded gaming. Today, we affirm our support for a proposal that not only creates destination resort casinos, but does so in a way that citizens and communities can be confident will result in high quality economic development. Destination resort casinos will reach the high standards of economic development we expect if they include the following: job quality standards; employer-financed training opportunities for workers; Project Labor Agreements for construction of the facilities; responsible procurement policies; favorable conditions for workplace fairness in terms of unionization; and a seat at the table for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO for any advisory board of this new endeavor. Massachusetts needs a jolt and we believe destination resort casinos will go a long way to jumpstarting our economy for working families. Therefore, we endorse the principles set forth in the proposal to establish destination resort casinos and will work to impress upon the state legislature our strong support for and desire to see the establishment of destination resort casinos in this Commonwealth.”
Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Robert Haynes, said, “I applaud the Patrick-Murray Administration and I look forward to working with the legislature on this and other key issues. We need to be proactive in creating family-sustaining jobs with good wages, benefits, and working conditions. We need to develop industries with workplace training and career ladder programs to ensure that workers can move their way up and establish a nice career for themselves and their families. We need to create more public revenues to keep our communities strong. This is an important piece of that agenda of good jobs and economic growth. The establishment of destination resort casinos, if done properly, has the potential to provide model economic development in terms of the quality of jobs created, as well as its potentially sizable impact on our public revenue streams. We are not a one issue organization or Labor Movement. We never have been. But every so often an issue arises that requires us to advocate a little harder and mobilize our grassroots network to impress upon our elected representatives just how important certain issues are to us. The proposal to establish destination resort casinos is one such issue. We look forward to working to convey the merits and benefits of destination resort casinos to the members of the General Court. Speaker DiMasi, Senate President Murray, and our state representatives and state senators have been tremendous allies and advocates for working families, most notably for the sixteen years of anti-labor Republican governors. Just as they have been tremendous fighters for workers over the years, we are confident that when confronted with the facts and presented the merits of destination resort casinos, state legislators will see why we took such a strong position and respond favorably.”
The Massachusetts AFL-CIO will work with the legislature to request that public hearings are held in a timely manner and that a vote be taken on destination resort casinos legislation that meets the principles of quality job creation, high road economic development, and creation of substantial amounts of new public revenues. Working with regional Central Labor Councils and hundreds of local union affiliates around the Commonwealth to mobilize the union families that form a substantial grassroots network, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO will work to educate members and the public, and mobilize them to contact legislators in writing, by phone and in person to convey the sense of importance and urgency felt by working people in Massachusetts. By focusing on the merits and the policies of destination resort casinos, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO hopes to secure the support of state legislators in order to take an important step in improving the economic conditions of the citizens and communities in the Commonwealth.
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