Labor

BOSTON/Downtown Crossing - Over 200 people attended a protest picket outside the Hyatt Regency Boston hotel on Thurs. July 22nd to demand that the Hyatt Corporation reinstate the jobs of 98 former members of their housekeeping staff. The event was part of a nationwide day of protest by the UNITE HERE hotel workers union. Similar protests were held in several other cities.

BOSTON/Boston Common and other locations in downtown Boston - Over 1000 people - primarily members of dozens of area unions and allied community organizations - participated in a "Rally for Jobs" last Thursday around downtown Boston. The goal of the public action, according to organizers from the state's main labor federation Mass.

Cambridge, MA - Over 100 unionized Harvard University workers, students and supporters held a campus rally on Thursday in protest of the mass layoff of 275 employees earlier this week - representing 2 percent of Harvard's 16,000-person workforce. Organizers said that as the richest university in the world, with billions of dollars in its endowment, Harvard "owes more to community residents than mass layoffs."

BOSTON/Chinatown - Sunshine Travel Services bus drivers took to the streets of Chinatown again on Monday to get the word out about poor labor and safety conditions they have endured on the job. This after Sunshine brought a lawsuit against the Chinese Progressive Association - the community organization that has been assisting the workers - charging the non-profit with defamation. The company also tried to get an injunction to attempt to stop the drivers from publicizing their grievances.