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Social Action | Worker & Immigrant Rights Globe Coverage of Shule Sweatshop Protest
From the Boston Globe - read it below or click here.
Children lead protest for fired Hyatt workers
Brookline school organized rally
By Adam J.V. Sell
Globe Correspondent / December 14, 2009
Workers fired from the Hyatt hotel in downtown Boston last summer got some unexpected support yesterday as dozens of children from a Sunday school in Brookline marched to the hotel on their behalf.
The protesters, fifth-grade students from the Workmen’s Circle Jewish Cultural School, gathered outside the Park Street MBTA station with homemade signs, T-shirts, and handouts explaining their grievances. Organizers took turns using a bullhorn to rally supporters before marching from Boston Common to the Hyatt hotel in Downtown Crossing, chanting denouncements of Hyatt’s firing of 98 housekeepers in August. Upon reaching the hotel, the leaders of the march read a statement to hotel workers before handing over a petition.
“It’s wrong they would treat people this way,’’ said Nell Stoddard, an 11-year-old from Somerville. Stoddard sported a white T-shirt she decorated that morning in support of the Hyatt workers. “We think it’s wrong Hyatt fired them without notice,’’ she said. Stoddard was joined by about 25 of her classmates and peers, and roughly 100 parents, supporters, and members of the school community at the afternoon protest.
Students also helped write the chants the group sang on the short walk from the Common to the hotel. “Come on Hyatt, don’t delay! Do what’s right this holiday!’’ they shouted.
Several of the young protesters filed into the Hyatt clutching scripts for their statement as well as the petition they had assembled. No manager was available to receive the students, but a Hyatt hotel worker heard their statement and promised to pass along their petition, signed by nearly 200 people, to the hotel’s manager.
Calls to the downtown hotel and the national Hyatt chain weren’t returned yesterday.
Following the short meeting inside the hotel, the fifth-graders debriefed the assembled crowd and posted a letter on a trailer opposite the hotel.
Darya Mattes, the teacher who organized the protest, said civil activism is a tradition at Workmen’s Circle.
“The school places an emphasis on worker’s rights,’’ she said. “We would love to make sure Hyatt knows we care.’’
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
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