This year the Boston labor movement showed some surprises around Labor Day. Labor Day parades died away in Boston back in the mid '80s. Labor Day was reduced to the “Greater Boston Labor Council Breakfast,” where union officials and Democratic Party candidates hug, stuff their faces and do their dirty deals. Rank and file union members are not invited to this spectacle (we just pay for it).
In the Boston area the recession continues, with over 30% unemployment in the building trades, over 10% real unemployment in Massachusetts, and state budget cuts. These are some of the concrete reasons the labor movement made some noise in Boston this Labor Day.
A couple of weeks before Labor Day, word got out that SEIU 615 was initiating a rally “to show support for real health care reform” and “to honor working people” on Labor Day. Well over a thousand people, union members and health care advocates, showed up for this rally. Members of Socialist Alternative participated in this rally, pressing for “Single Payer” health care: a government-run, free health care system for all.
Also on Labor Day, leaflets circulated announcing what was expected to be a much bigger labor rally in downtown Boston on October 1. This rally, initiated by IBEW and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, addressed the number one problem facing working people: layoffs. And it went beyond the demand to “stop layoffs” and called for “jobs and a real economic recovery” and “for an economy that works for everyone.” Companies like Verizon, Harvard University, and Hyatt Hotels were targeted as examples of profitable corporations using the recession as an excuse to cut jobs and throw workers out on the streets.
The October 1 rally and march had many hundreds of workers in attendance. There were some loud moments, like when it stopped in front of Verizon and also the Hyatt Hotel (which recently fired over a hundred cleaners who had been made to train their sub-contracted replacements). Socialist Alternative members participated in the rally and march, selling our newspaper Justice and distributing a leaflet calling for a “fight for a public works program” and explaining the need to break with the Democrats and help form a workers' party.
There was a key moment in the October 1 rally where the march gained energy and more people at its last stop in front of the Hyatt Hotel. There were enough of us there to attempt a direct action of some sort: maybe marching into the hotel lobby, occupying it for awhile, shutting down the hotel by blocking entrances and exits, etc… Instead, there was no lead given in this direction. The crowd just shouted “Boycott Hyatt!” Some of us found this a bit ironic since there are few working people who could afford a night at the Hyatt anyway.
In small but important ways, these rallies show the struggles of Labor Day, and more importantly, May Day (International Workers' Day), could be forced to surface again. Socialist Alternative will continue to participate in these struggles, including the fight for a strong and democratic labor movement.
