A number of Boston City Council candidates backed by Local 888 came out on top on Election Day — including former Local 888 member Kendra Hicks. Now she and other new city councilors are preparing to take on their new jobs.
“Local 888 was quite successful in helping elect council candidates who are pro-labor,” said President Tom McKeever. “It’s to the benefit of our members to have elected officials who understand the needs of working people.”
Hicks, a former program coordinator with the Boston Public Health Commission, played up her organizing roots as she campaigned for the District 6 seat.
“One of the things I’m particularly good at is bringing folks along, creating a shared vision, anchoring us in shared values, and working together to bring that vision” to life, she told The Boston Globe. “Representing a district that includes so many different people, and a district where folks have very different political leanings, it’s going to be so important to exercise that muscle and meet folks where they’re at.”
The City Council’s District 6 covers Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury. Hicks was also endorsed by the Boston Teachers Union, SEIU 32BJ and the Greater Boston Labor Council.
She told the Globe, that she has strong “roots in district as an organizer and follower of other leftist folks who have put in the work to make the city more equitable for everyone.” Currently, Hicks serves as the director of radical philanthropy at Resist, a Boston-based foundation co-founded by Noam Chomsky, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor.
In terms of policy, Hicks calls for guaranteeing people’s rights to housing — which during the pandemic has increasingly become a public health issue. She calls affordable housing the top issue that the council must tackle looking ahead.
She also vows to fight for environmental and racial justice and for equity in education.
Local 888’s Committee on Political Action also endorsed several successful candidates for at-large positions on the Boston City Council. They were:
• Michael Flaherty, an incumbent councilor and one-time candidate for mayor.
• Ruthzee Louijeune, a former SEIU Local 1199 member who went on to serve as a senior counsel for the Democratic Party presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
• Erin Murphy, a longtime teacher and Boston Teachers Union member.
Louijeune said her No. 1 issue is affordable housing. “We can make serious headway on that” by beefing up rules governing developers, she told the Globe.
In addition Local 888-backed Tania Fernandes Anderson cruised to victory in the race for City Council in District 7, which covers Roxbury and parts of Dorchester and the South End. Anderson is the executive director of Bowdoin Geneva Main Streets, which aids local small businesses in Dorchester. She grew up in District 7 as an undocumented immigrant living in poverty.
“On the new council, 11 of the 13 members will have been supported by Local 888 in this election or previous ones,” said McKeever. Some did not request the union’s endorsement this time around because they ran unopposed.