Mass Opportunity Alliance in the News
Mass. Ballot Questions to Cut Taxes Pit Powerful Union Against Business Groups
A political battle is taking shape between a powerful union and local business groups over proposed ballot questions to lower the state income tax and trigger more tax refunds.
Executives behind the two measures argue that Massachusetts is losing a competitiveness war with other states that are improving their business climates and attracting people with lower costs of living and reduced personal income tax rates.
But the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, contends those ballot questions will benefit the wealthy and reverse the gains of the “Millionaires Tax,” the 4% surtax on incomes over $1 million that has generated billions of dollars for state transportation and education projects.
SEIU represents 120,000 members in Massachusetts across multiple local chapters, including workers in health care, public services and property services, according to Harris Gruman, executive director of the SEIU Massachusetts State Council.
He said business groups pushing the tax-lowering ballot questions are “threatening this very disastrous level of tax cuts in order to force the state to give tax cuts to the wealthy.”
Nine other states have enacted or put into effect lower personal income tax rates, according to Christopher Anderson, an organizer of the ballot initiatives and president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council.
“Massachusetts has been, for the last couple of years, seeing the outmigration of our workforce and people who are making decisions about creating jobs,” Anderson said in an interview. “So there’s a sense of urgency around our business climate — how welcoming it is to investors and job creators.”
Anderson’s coalition of business groups has already spent $1.6 million to support the ballot questions. One would lower the income tax from 5% to 4%. The other reworks the formula used to determine how much tax revenue the state can collect each year before refunds are issued to residents.
The potential ballot question to cut the income tax has generated a stir on Beacon Hill. State lawmakers responsible for crafting the yearly budget have criticized the idea as irresponsible, especially as the state loses significant federal funding under President Trump.
During a budget hearing last month, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, a North End Democrat and the top House budget writer, offered a take similar to Gruman’s.
“These questions would only benefit high-end earners and would require either dramatic spending cuts or other tax increases in order to maintain the commonwealth’s fiscal stability,” Michlewitz said.
If the income tax reduction measure makes the November ballot, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue said the state could lose between $4.2 billion and $4.8 billion in tax revenue.
But Anderson said that overstates how much money the state could lose and does not take into account the three-year phase-in of the income tax cut.
Gruman filed paperwork last week to create the “Protect Massachusetts’ Future” campaign, the official opposition group to the two potential ballot questions.
It comes as lawmakers have until May to decide whether to take action on a record number of potential ballot questions this election cycle, or return them to advocates to collect thousands more signatures to be eligible for placement on the ballot this fall.
SEIU’s entry into the tax debate is the latest example of a local union flexing its political muscles.
Unions have been responsible for major victories at the ballot box over the past several elections, and labor groups have shown they’re willing to spend millions of dollars on their campaigns.
Various local chapters of SEIU helped pass the “Millionaires Tax” during the 2022 election. The “Fair Share Massachusetts” campaign that backed the question spent a record $27.9 million on the measure, according to state data.
SEIU was also behind the successful ballot question last year to give app-based drivers the option to unionize, and was part of the coalition that successfully defended a law in 2022 granting residents without lawful proof of presence a pathway to a driver’s license.
Other unions have also waged successful political campaigns. The Massachusetts Teachers Association spent millions of dollars during the 2024 election to successfully remove the MCAS as a high school graduation requirement.
Jerold Duquette, a political science professor at Central Connecticut State University, said unions have a built-in, permanent political infrastructure and the ability to mobilize thousands of members to protect or advance a cause.
Those advantages are two reasons why labor groups have found success on the ballot issues, Duquette said.
“Unions have people who work for them who are 24/7, 365, involved with organizing for advancing the political interests of the union. And they’re in constant communication about that with all union members,” Duquette said in an interview.
Gruman said the local chapters of SEIU are often at the forefront of political causes because “we’re the only organizations in the state that are 100% funded by working class people.”
“We have a very direct sense of the absolute necessity of a fair and adequate tax system,” Gruman said. “Teachers, of course, obviously understand this as well. Nurses understand this. Other unions that we work with understand this.”
Chris Van Buskirk is the state politics reporter at WBUR, covering everything from the daily happenings of the governor to the way taxpayer dollars are spent, how the Legislature runs and elections in Massachusetts.