BOSTON/Roxbury - Incumbent District 7 City Councilor Chuck Turner faced off with challenger Carlos "Tony" Henriquez - the president of the board of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative - at a debate in front of an audience of over 80 community members at Hibernian Hall in Dudley Square on Wednesday.
BOSTON/Boston Common and other locations in downtown Boston - Over 1000 people - primarily members of dozens of area unions and allied community organizations - participated in a "Rally for Jobs" last Thursday around downtown Boston. The goal of the public action, according to organizers from the state's main labor federation Mass.
BOSTON/Roxbury - Over 80 people rallied on Cobden and Cardington Sts. on the Roxbury side of Egleston Square Sunday to demand that giant banks that own several properties in the neighborhood stop all post-foreclosure evictions immediately and sell the properties to residents that live there or to a non-profit willing and able to set up a resident's coop. The event was organized by the housing advocacy non-profit City Life/Vida Urbana and the Bank Tenants Association - an organization of residents in foreclosed properties.
BOSTON/Downtown Crossing - Over 500 people - primarily members of several local unions - picketed outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel at One Lafayette Place on Thursday at a protest organized by UNITE HERE Local 26 to demand the reinstatement of 100 Boston-area Hyatt hotel employees that were summarily fired on August 31st and replaced with workers from Georgia-based outsourcing company, Hospitality Staffing Solutions. Many of the workers had been with Hyatt for over 20 years.
BOSTON/Roxbury - Ten of the fifteen candidates running for At-Large City Council seats this fall participated in a public forum sponsored by Open Media Boston this past Wednesday at Roxbury Community College. The preliminary election – to be held across Boston on Tuesday, September 22nd – will narrow the field to eight candidates. Four At-Large seats are up for grabs - and two incumbents are in the race. So, at least two new candidates will be elected to office after the final election in November.
BOSTON/Boston Common - Over 5000 members of labor unions, Democratic Party chapters and health care advocacy organizations gathered on the Boston Common for a Health Care Rally on Labor Day. The event was called to shore up regional support for a public health care option - though not a single-payer option - in the proposed national health care reform plan being pushed by President Barack Obama and Democratic Party leaders.
BOSTON/Boston Common - A rush hour picket in support of the democratic resistance movement against the Honduran coup d'etat was held on Tuesday by about 25 activists from several area organizations with connections to Central America - including Proyecto Hondureño, Centro Presente, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, and others. Participants leafleted passers-by and set up a table where people were encouraged to sign petitions to the U.S. government demanding that help reinstate elected Pres.
Somerville MA - Over 60 people filled a lecture hall at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University on Thursday to hear a panel of Honduran social movement leaders speak about the growing resistance movement against the recent coup d'etat in their country. On June 28 2009 Manuel "Mel" Zelaya the elected President of Honduras was detained and beaten by elements of the Honduran military under Gen. Romeo Vásquez and forcibly flown to Costa Rica.
BOSTON/Government Center - A large conference room at the 100 Cambridge St. headquarters of the Mass. Department of Energy Resources was packed by over 125 people on Tuesday - most of whom were members of several of the labor and community organizations that make up the Green Justice Coalition, a new grassroots formation aiming to ensure that the rising "green economy" in the Bay State will create quality jobs in disadvantaged communities.
