More Than 1,000 March in Boston for Jobs, Corporate Accountability

Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Robert Haynes speaking at Verizon’s New England headquarters in Boston.

After the new U.S. jobless figures came out Friday, union activists in Massachusetts took to the streets to demand jobs and corporate responsibility, an action highlighted here in this cross-post from the Massachusetts AFL-CIO.

On the same day it was announced that unemployment had reached a 26-year high, more than 1,000 union members, unemployed workers and community activists gathered on Boston Common and marched through downtown Boston to protest layoffs and continuing unemployment, call out rampant corporate greed and demand an economy that works for all.

Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Robert Haynes told the marchers, “Economic recovery isn’t a reality until we have an economy that works for everyone…and that means an economy in which everyone works. If people can and want to work, there should be a job available to them so they can support their family. This march and rally is about the simple notion that good jobs are the key to a decent quality of life.”

After a boisterous march from the Boston Common, the thousand-plus protestors gathered at the New England headquarters of Verizon, which announced in July that the company would lay off 8,000 workers nationwide, including hundreds of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and Communications Workers of America (CWA) members in Massachusetts. Dan Manning, a Verizon installation technician who faces an impending layoff, told the crowd, “I know these are hard times, but with Verizon there’s no excuse. There is still plenty of work for us to do. They have the money, too. Verizon management says it wants to provide high speed Internet for America. Yet now it’s orchestrating a slowdown by not marketing FiOS—just to get rid of us.”

Rich Rogers, executive secretary-treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council, called on corporations who benefited from the taxpayer-funded financial bailout to stem the flow of layoffs and for bailed-out banks to begin lending money again in order to create jobs. “We need an economy that works for workers; not just the bankers, the brokers and the CEO’s.”

From Verizon, the rally continued on to the Hyatt Regency Hotel; one of three Hyatt hotels in Boston that recently replaced their housekeeping staff with subcontracted workers who are being paid $8 per hour with no benefits—just half of what the previous housekeepers had made.

The housekeepers have organized together to demand that they be given their jobs back, and recently turned down an offer by the Hyatt to place them in jobs with a temporary agency. In solidarity with the workers, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO recently passed a resolution calling on the Hyatt to rehire the housekeepers and vowing not to patronize Hyatt hotels until they do so. In an impressive show of support, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, key legislative leaders and others have also pledged to avoid Hyatt hotels until the treatment of workers is rectified.

State Rep. Peter Koutoujian was scheduled to receive a prestigious award at an event scheduled for a Hyatt hotel, and he insisted the organization move its event, refusing to go in the aftermath of Hyatt’s treatment of workers. Representative Koutoujian also offered to pick up any additional cost to the event, which was moved to a union hotel.

“The Hyatt treated us with no respect when they fired us, and they insulted us even more by offering us temp agency jobs,” said Lucine Williams, who worked for the Hyatt in downtown Boston for more than 21 years until she was laid off on August 31. “We want our jobs back, nothing else. We will not accept temp positions that are designed to put others out of work. We will not do to others what Hyatt has done to us.”

“We’re calling out the corporate greed that ruined the job market,” said President Haynes. “We’re about good jobs and we won’t stop fighting corporate greed until we get them.”

To see pictures from the rally, click here.

Click here to see more media coverage of the rally.

Click here to read and listen to a story about the rally by the Public News Service.

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