Labor chief cites staff needs to react to “increase in illegal strike activity”
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MARCH 11, 2025…..A state labor agency is poised to get a budget bump to address a spike in teacher strikes and implement the new voter law allowing rideshare drivers to unionize.
Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Lauren Jones highlighted Gov. Maura Healey’s recommended funding increase for the Department of Labor Relations during a budget hearing Monday. DLR, which received $3.5 million in fiscal 2025, would receive around $3.9 million in fiscal 2026 under Healey’s pitch, which faces a legislative redraft in the coming months as the House and Senate dive into their own budget proposals.
“DLR’s proposed funding increase is necessary for the department to address new requirements as a result of Ballot Question 3, in addition to maximizing operational efficiencies and to support staff capacity to address the recent increase in illegal strike activity at schools across the state,” Jones said.
Teacher strikes roiled school districts last year in Newton, Marblehead, Beverly and Gloucester, where the Joint Committee on Ways and Means held their second budget hearing Monday. The strikes are illegal but have become an increasingly common approach, leading to court fines but also new contract agreements.
The DLR — which encompasses the Joint Labor Management Committee and the Commonwealth Employment Relations Board that handle labor disputes — is also now tasked with implementing the voter law that gives rideshare drivers, including those who work for Uber and Lyft, the right to unionize, Jones said.
She called the ballot law a “first-in-the nation initiative” that will allow workers to “collectively bargain with transportation network companies.” Around 54% of voters in November backed the referendum.
Jones used her testimony to also highlight upcoming work at the Department of Unemployment Assistance, which she said is federally funded and not part of the state’s operating budget.
“So in May of 2025, as I mentioned, we’re launching a modernized system, a new overhaul of our UI online system, that will provide a more customized system that will be user-friendly,” Jones said, referencing unemployment insurance benefits. “And we’ve been investing in this. We saw great success on the employer side, and we’re going to see, hopefully, success on the claimant experience come May.”
The overhaul is expected to expand self-service options for residents seeking benefits, including reporting wages, tracking work search activities, answering eligibility questions, and filing appeals, according to a state webpage. Jones called the portal a “proven product that other states have also deployed.”
“Because we were planning for that in May, including an increase in staffing to support that launch, we moved up the opportunity to increase customer service on the phones from really the end of April to literally just last week. And we were able to increase, adding 140 more customer call staff to our department,” Jones said. “That’s been through an emergency contract — that we look to have an RFP to then have a long-term support for the EMT (Employment Modernization and Transformation) launch in May, and for hopefully six months after that.”
Rep. Russell Holmes argued that new workforce won’t solve persistent problems at DUA, which he said “has been falling apart since we got here.”
Jones told Holmes that state officials accelerated the timeline to add new workers through a vendor after “recognizing the backlog and the severity and long wait times that individuals were experiencing.”
“We know that there is still a need to go through that backlog, which is why we’re continuing to stay at the table to identify creative resources that we can use with the federal funding that we do have,” she said. “And we’re having close conversations with A&F to provide for those kinds of opportunities.”
