Marriott hotel workers are striking in Boston, San Francisco, and San Jose this week. Unite Here Local 26, the union representing the striking hotel workers in Boston, has organized its members around the slogan One Job Should Be Enough, and after months of negotiating with Marriott, last month 96 percent of Local 26 members voted to authorize a strike. The strike began bright and early Wednesday morning.
The Yankees, who ruined a good thing Wednesday night by advancing over the Oakland Athletics, apparently booked their players at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton, Boston for the first leg of their ALDS series against the Red Sox. It’s probably too much to ask that a professional baseball team keep a close eye on the condition of labor relations in various east coast cities, but when the Yankees pulled up in front of the hotel Thursday they were greeted by a raucous picket line of striking workers, chanting “Don’t check in! Check out!” Unfortunately, the Yankees appear to have checked in.
It’s easy to pick out Dellin Betances and Brett Gardner in the video—at one point demonstrators step aside to make room for Gardner and his luggage. Boston Magazine talked to Local 26 President Brian Lang about the hated Yankees crossing his picket line, and he sounds pretty pissed:
“We understand that there’s a very intense rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, but quite frankly we’re a little outraged they would take it out on working class people who are out here sacrificing to improve their livelihoods. This is a slap in the face to all Bostonians.
“The Red Sox would never spit on their fans the way the Yankees are,” Lang says. “We believe just like David Ortiz said, ‘This is our city,’” he adds (paraphrasing, of course). “We’re proud of it, and who are they to be coming in and spitting on a message that we’re trying to bring through for all the people of Boston?”
As if you needed another reason to root against the Yankees. They’re anti-labor! Baseball players should appreciate the value and importance of a worker strike more than any other American professional athletes. WCBV in Boston even heard from the MLBPA:
“From what we understand, these workers have been trying to negotiate a fair contract for more than six months,” a spokesperson for the Major League Baseball Player’s Association said. “They deserve to be heard and deserve our support.”