Boston Mayoral Candidates Back again Boycott Of Marriott Copley For Firing Employees
One after the other, the five important candidates for Boston mayor took the stage at a labor protest Monday to assistance the 230 staff fired by the Marriott Copley last tumble and endorse the connect with for a boycott of the resort.
With various hundred activists — and neighborhood politicos — gathered on the plaza across sort the resort entrance, performing Mayor Kim Janey was the initially of the candidates to throw down the gauntlet. “Shame on Marriott,” she mentioned. “I will generally stand with the resort employees.” She led the crowd in a connect with and response chant: “Are we going to boycott Marriott?” “Indeed!” the group yelled back again.
Marriott fired the workers very last drop as the pandemic obliterated the local tourism enterprise, and it created no assure to rehire then when small business returned. Employees say they have been advised they will have to reapply for their work with no assure of returning to the very same pay back.
Immediately after Janey, the other mayoral candidates — John Barros, Michelle Wu, Andrea Campbell and Annissa Essaibi George each took their convert bashing Marriot — and siding with the workers. “We have to have to Boycott Marriott,” Campbell mentioned Wu additional “the Marriott Copley has a long observe document of throwing staff less than the bus.”
Massachusetts AFL-CIO president Steve Tolman created crystal clear at the start out of the occasion that the Marriott fight was only the idea of a considerably even bigger issue about workers legal rights. He argued that the next significant battle will be stopping tech firms like Amazon and Uber from coming into the condition and categorizing its personnel as independent contractors, instead of entire-time workers entitled to overtime and other benefits.
“We’ve got these corporation giants from silicon valley,” he thundered, “They are coming to Massachusetts, individuals and they want to BS all of ya they want to run a marketing campaign to dupe ya.”
U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey also took turns at the mic and took turns bashing Marriott, but U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley had pershaps the most particular link to the resort: She employed to work there, she said.

Paul Singer/ GBH News
“When I very first arrived to Boston,” Pressley mentioned — she is a Chicago indigenous who arrived to Boston for college in 1992 — “I labored three part time employment to make ends meet. A single of all those work opportunities was at the Marriott lodge.” Pressley mentioned she labored on the wait around employees for banquets for 6 yrs. “So I know what it is to be component of an invisible workforce,” she reported.
Phone calls to the Marriott Copley and Marriott company headquarters ended up not returned Monday.