Press Release: 6/24/2026
SEIU 32BJ & MassBudget release health coverage study on effects of racialized extreme inequality
Despite the region’s remarkable prosperity, study shows, affordable quality healthcare is out of reach for many Massachusetts workers
Press Release from SEIU 32BJ on June 18, 2026:
On the eve of Juneteenth, over a hundred security officers, Logan Airport workers, community activists, elected officials, and others will gather in Copley Square to release a report entitled “Healthcare – Who Can Afford It?” Co-produced by 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MassBudget), the report examines Greater Boston’s extreme racialized inequality that has led to a healthcare crisis. As nearly 6,000 security officers and airport workers prepare to enter contract negotiations, the study underscores the need for economic engines like major airline, real estate, financial, and biopharma firms to better support the majority Black and brown workforce that have made their economic success possible.
While Massachusetts’ economic prosperity has been accompanied by a state-sponsored revolution in healthcare coverage — so that today only two percent of state residents lack health insurance — the report uncovers deep fissures at the base of this success. A stunning 15 percent of contract security officers and 30 percent of contract airport service workers reported they had no health coverage in a recent union survey. Their lack of insurance underscores a growing public crisis that is being further aggravated by the Trump administration’s massive cuts to healthcare. That crisis can only be addressed adequately, the report shows, if top-tier economic drivers support better and more affordable coverage for the largely Black, brown and immigrant workforce that clean airplane cabins, check visitors into office buildings, and provide other essential daily services.
As the report explains, airlines and corporate businesses created conditions for the crisis by turning basic service jobs over to contract companies, which in turn struggled to remain competitive by slashing wages to the bone and often eliminating benefits entirely. The study’s analysis further shows that those already at the top of the economic ladder gained the most in the region’s ensuing economic boom, making them fully capable of better supporting workers at the bottom, who gained the least.
“We felt it important to join with MassBudget and release the findings of our joint health coverage study on the eve of Juneteenth in Copley Square, a center of the region’s prosperity that is kept safe and functioning by many of our security officers,” said Kevin Brown, 32BJ SEIU Executive Vice President and the head of the union in Massachusetts. “As we prepare to enter negotiations next week for new contracts for over 3,200 security officers and later this summer for 2,500 airport workers, it’s time for the region’s economic powerhouses to support quality, affordable healthcare for these workers. There are concrete solutions for each industry: Massport should pass a healthcare standard this year that covers Logan, while building owners and major tenants need to send a message so that security contractors can be ready to bargain for better healthcare. Massachusetts led in the American Revolution. We led in healthcare reform. Now it time for the region to go further, to fulfill this nation’s promise of liberty AND justice for all.”