Green background strip running across the page.
Green background strip running across the page.
Photo of WMLA Office Central, a big, brown wood, two-story house with a red metal roof with solar panels on it, with a map of Berkshire County in the background

About WMLA

Green background strip running across the page.

WMLA By the Numbers

Since 1974, WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS LABOR ACTION (WMLA) has been building a free and voluntary unincorporated private membership association comprised of seasonal workers, service workers and other low-income part-time and temp workers, regardless of current employment status.

100%

Volunteer run

$0

Government funding

45k

Members signed

WMLA’s Goals

WMLA is a vehicle for workers to participate and direct actions in line with their long-term interests, as well as fight to hold the government accountable to their demands. Concerned residents, students, professionals, small businesses and clergy work together with WMLA members to pursue permanent solutions to the problems of low-income workers in Western Massachusetts in general and Berkshire County in particular.

  • Two male WMLA volunteers speak with two community members about becoming WMLA members

    History

    Learn about WMLA’s more than five decades of organizing in Western Massachusetts and winning victories for low-income workers.

    Learn More
  • A group of WMLA volunteer working as a team to solve a benefit case for a member.

    Purpose

    To end poverty for working people, WMLA is building a strong organization to attack its root causes.

    Learn More
  • A march of WMLA members and volunteer with signs that read "We Need Affordable Utilities" and other similar messages.

    Accomplishments

    WMLA members and volunteers have delivered measurable, material victories for working people in Berkshire County.

    Learn More

Here Until Poverty Isn’t!

A historical photo in black and white of a groupf of WMLA volunteer with clipboards on a snowy street preparing to canvass.
A green ruler with year marks and pins showing various milestones in WMLA history.

History

WMLA was founded in 1974. As Berkshire County confronted widespread job losses and falling incomes, many residents saw that direct services or poverty programs, while alleviating some symptoms of poverty, were not addressing the root causes of the problems faced by working people. A group of these residents — low-income workers and friends of labor alike — decided to launch a new strategy for labor that could unite workers from the bottom up to fight for change.

See Our Milestones
A group of WMLA volunteer working as a team to solve a benefit case for a member.

Purpose

WMLA unites Berkshire County’s lowest-paid seasonal and service workers with their allies to fight to end poverty conditions and the government policies that create them. We recognize that in order to organize, we must take collective action to ensure our day-to-day survival through a self-help benefit program under membership control. WMLA’s Benefit Program performs neither acts of charity nor isolated acts of goodwill, but rather helps members to obtain what is rightfully theirs in a context that promotes their best interest on all levels.

A march of WMLA members and volunteer with signs that read "We Need Affordable Utilities" and other similar messages.

Accomplishments

WMLA has:

  • Signed tens of thousands of members throughout Berkshire County.

  • Built a members-helping-members 11-Point Membership Benefit Program that includes emergency food, clothing, legal advice, non-emergency dental care, information and referral and more.

  • Organized seasonal distributions from Back-to-School supplies to holiday food baskets.

  • Trained hundreds of volunteers in Systemic Organizing, a unique method of building grassroots organization.

  • Published an independent, membership newspaper to tell the truth about the struggles of low-income workers in Western Massachusetts.