Jay Mobile Home Residents Win Workers' Solidarity Award at Workers' Memorial Day Dinner

PHOTO: JoAn Gray, Tanya Dwyer, Robert Valles and Deborah Dalat receive the Solidarity Award.

The Jay Mobile Home Park Residents were presented with the Workers' Solidarity Award at the Western Maine Labor Council's annual Workers' Memorial Day/May Day Dinner on Sunday April 25. The Jay Mobile Home Part Residents are a collective of working people and families organizing across the mobile home parks in Jay to fight back against corporate land owners and to secure stable, affordable housing. Park residents, including those who accepted the Worker Solidarity Award — JoAn Gray, Tanya Dwyer, Robert Valles, and Deborah Dalat — have been leading a grassroots effort to confront rising lot rents and protect their communities from the corporate owners' runaway greed.

In a town shaped by struggle and resilience from the days of the International Paper mill strike, these residents are carrying forward a proud tradition of working-class solidarity. The same forces of corporate power and greed that devastated the mill and the community decades ago are now showing up in a new form, threatening the stability of homeowners in mobile home parks.

With the WMCLC's Solidarity Center serving as the central hub for organizing, residents have built unity across three parks among working people from all backgrounds and generations. Their work is a testament to the enduring power of working people standing together and a reminder that in Jay, solidarity is a proven tool to fight back and win power.