Labor Day was the perfect day for more than 400 Massachusetts workers to come together, calling for fair wages, better treatment and more adequate health insurance.
It was the perfect day for local janitors to make their first appearance at the annual Greater Boston Labor Council Labor Day breakfast, hours before they met at the negotiating table to demand decent wages and better health care.
It was also the perfect day, two weeks before the Democratic primary elections, for politicians from across the state to come together and show their commitment to the large population for voting workers and laborers anxious to have their voices heard in government.
The annual Greater Boston Labor Council Labor Day breakfast was well attended by politicians eager to demonstrate their support for the teachers, postal workers, janitors and countless other men and women.
Downtown business owners are “treating these people like dirt,” said spokesman for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO Lou Mandarini as he addressed the crowd.
“This day isn’t just about celebrating past accomplishments,” he said. “It’s also about looking forward–there’s still a lot to be done.”
Thirty-year-old Hugo Perez, who has worked as a janitor in Boston for eight years, is a member of the Service Employees International Union Local 254, the group of janitors threatening to strike if they don’t receive more comprehensive health care coverage, full-time status and better wages.
He stressed the importance of government support in the SEIU’s struggle.
“I’m happy we have the support we have; I know we will get through to where we want to be with their support,” he said.
Conversely, gubernatorial candidates will get where they want to be with the support of workers.
Certain aspirants for public office this fall will be more effective and helpful in achieving organized labor’s goals, Mandarini said, referring to such AFL-C IO-endorsed candidates as Thomas Birmingham for governor and John Slattery for lieutenant governor.
Democratic candidate Birmingham, who grew up in a triple-decker apartment in Chelsea and worked as a labor lawyer after college, counts himself as “a member of the family of labor.”
The crowd stood from their breakfast tables three times during Birmingham’s speech, in which he promised to stand up to “corporate predators” and stand up for “the ones who make Massachusetts work.”
“When I’m governor,” he said, “every day will be Labor Day.”
Tying minimum wage to inflation, an issue that significantly affects most workers, has been a top priority for Birmingham, the current state senate president. In his tenure, he has also extended health care to all children under 18 and drafted an educational reform law to help working families.
The remaining Democratic candidates, Shannon O’Brien, Robert Reich and Warren Tolman were not content to let Birmingham hog the labor spotlight. All three were in attendance, greeting workers and voicing their concern for labor issues.
The breakfast, O’Brien said, was an opportunity for her to “reconnect with a number of men and women who are politically active,” and to rally behind such causes as “good wages, a healthy economy, affordable housing and health care.”
These issues, rather than the antagonistic campaigning of recent weeks, deserved the attention of gubernatorial candidates, O’Brien said.
“The problems the state is facing are so significant that voters don’t want people to be lobbing grenades,” she said.
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