Dear Coalition Partners
This past weekend should have been a victory, with thousands of inspired activist ready to make change. We united youth groups with peace groups, LGBT groups with labor, civil rights groups with immigrant rights groups. Coalition partners put countless hours and extensive amounts of their own resources into building this amazing process. You know what you did to get your members out and saw what others were doing. We truly came close to the vision of One Nation.
But that did not happen fully. When it came time to depart, thousands of our brothers and sisters were left stranded. Many of you were left to ask- what happened. Here is what we know.
1199 NY contracted with a bus "broker" who was supposed to line up buses (500) and send them where asked regional coalitions asked. We identified 68 buses for Massachusetts, 38 SEIU buses and 30 community buses. As of Friday morning, we were moving bus around a little to accommodate over-subscribed areas, but everything was supposed to be fine.
At 4pm Friday, 1199 New York told 1199 Massachusetts that something had gone wrong and there may be no buses for MA. 1199 MA called dozens of bus companies to try and get buses, trains, and planes. No buses were available locally in MA at that time. At 6pm 1199 MA was sent a list of 44 bus locations including most of the community sites (Chelsea, Somerville, Roxbury, Greenfield, Amherst, etc.). They assumed this list was the buses that would continue, but some buses might be a little late. We knew that the Dorchester location would be short half of its buses.
At 10pm we were called by 1199 NY saying there were only 22 buses. The explanation was that the list of 44 was the buses CANCELED, not those proceeding. 1199 NY lost many buses in NYC and Buffalo meant for their members. Many hundreds of 1199 members in MA were also left behind.
We are in the process of refunding money and repairing relationships. For those who went, it was a great event but that is small comfort to those left behind.
Centro Presente has offered their space for a One Nation Steering Committee meeting on the issue of buses but also a report back from the rally at 6 PM on Wednesday, October 13th. Centro Presente is located at 17 Innerbelt Rd, Somerville (near Sullivan T Station/Behind the Holiday Inn). We hope this event that can bring us together to discuss what happened and make sure that we can regroup and move forward together.
Thanks for your patience and understanding.. We hope that we can figure out a way to use this set back to build something good for the movement.
Sincerely
Jose Perez, Coordinator
1199 SEIU NE
Jennifer Doe, Organizer
Massachusetts Jobs with Justice
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