Activism

Marching mothers

by Kristen Lombardi

PROTEST SITE: mothers will march from the African Meeting House the day after Mother's Day.

The mothers are uniting again. For the sixth straight year, moms from across the state will gather at the African Meeting House on Joy Street -- the place where, more than a century ago, Julia Ward Howe first christened Mother's Day -- to honor women's labor and protest the pro-corporate policies that harm them.

This Monday, May 15, the day after Mother's Day, welfare-rights advocates, labor officials, and clergy, among others, plan to kick off the Mother's March for Economic Justice at 11 a.m. For three hours, the caravan will weave its way down Joy Street, past City Hall Plaza, and up Park Street, ending in front of the State House for "lively music, meditation, and inspiration."

Though the event boasts its share of show, complete with puppets and musicians stationed along the route, it is meant to be more than a mere publicity stunt. Organizers, in fact, are intent on getting legislators to back a proposed legislative package -- so much so that they're prepared to dole out milk and cookies to all the good politicians who become their friends.

Organizers want legislators to sign on to three pending bills. The first mandates equal pay for "contingent," or temporary, workers and full-time employees. The second extends the family- and medical-leave law to provide for paid leave. And the third raises welfare benefits by 10 percent so recipients don't have to live on funds that put them 60 percent below the poverty line.

The march, if anything, will send a message to those who've yet to fare well in this age of reform: people still care about poverty.