A march to regain jobs
Longtime Marriott workers picket Copley hotel
Diane Sealy worked for the Boston Marriott Copley Place for 35 years as a senior housekeeper before she was furloughed and eventually terminated last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now if she gets rehired as the hotel regains more guests, she’ll be treated as a new employee.
“I was very hurt after so many years working here,” Sealy, 63, of Dorchester said as she picketed outside the hotel Tuesday with about 100 other people who were terminated last year. “I was thinking, at my age, where else am I going to get a job? It’s not right the way they let a lot of people go. A lot of us have worked here for a long time.”
Pending legislation would allow hotel workers to return to their positions once the COVID-19 crisis is over, if and when the jobs return.
After surviving on unemployment since last March, Sealy and 229 other Marriott Copley Place workers were stunned to learn their furlough was made into a termination in September. They were not offered the chance to return to work after the height of the pandemic, several said, but instead were told they could reapply, losing decades of service they put into Marriott. Many also were offered less than half of the severance pay they had expected, they said.
“The Marriott Copley is cynically using the pandemic to terminate hundreds of workers who were in Boston,” said Carlos Aramayo, president of the hotel workers union UNITE HERE Local 26, which is supporting the Marriott workers even though they were not union members. “Workers who were terminated simply are demanding the right to return to their jobs after the pandemic if, and only if, those same jobs are recreated.”
So far, more than 30 hotels, including the Park Plaza, the Lenox and Copley Plaza, already have made that commitment, Aramayo said.
The Marriott did not respond to requests for comment.
With more than 8,000 union and non-union Boston hotel workers unemployed, Aramayo said, members of UNITE HERE Local 26 are working with state Sen. Joe Boncore and Rep. Marjorie Decker to pass legislation to allow workers back into their jobs if and when the positions return.
Under the bill, an employer would be required to offer any position that becomes available to a qualified laid off worker who held the same or a similar position at the hotel or who can become qualified for the position through the same training that would be provided to a new worker hired for the same position, Boncore said.
Workers not given that opportunity could seek damages in Superior Court within three years. If the court sides with the laid off worker, the court could order hiring of the worker, with or without back pay; and award him or her lost pay and benefits, or $1,000 in damages, whichever is greater, he said. The court could also award punitive damages.