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Fenway workers strike, but that doesn’t stop Aramark
On Friday, UNITE HERE Local 26 and Aramark failed to reach an agreement before the noon deadline, and the union went on strike as promised. This means that Fenway Park’s concession workers stood outside of the stadium rather than within it, making their demands known to attendees as they headed toward the stadium.
The strike continued over the weekend, and, as the Boston Globe reported on Sunday, there are two major points to pull from the three-game set. First is that Aramark and the union did not have a single discussion over the weekend — the food service giant decided the strike wasn’t going to be their problem at all. And it’s easy to understand why they’ve approached things this way when you hear the second bit: they decided to utilize scab workers to replace the striking ones.
Some fans bought concessions from outside of the stadium, or ate lunch before Sunday’s game rather than in Fenway, doing as Local 26 asked: the union did not suggest boycotting games at Fenway Park, but did say that fans should refuse to buy concessions inside the park. While some obliged, this was not universally accepted, which is why the Globe story has names of and quotes from scabs who manned the concession stands inside the park within it. I know it can be hard to find work out there, but scabbing is some real class traitor shit, and not the kind I’d like to praise.
Members of Local 26 are looking to be paid comparably to other concession and hospitality workers in the city, and for AI-powered self-checkout machines to not take over inside of Fenway, since they “reduce fan interaction, cut tips in half, and risk their job security.” Reasonable enough requests, you’d think, but Aramark… well, let one of the striking workers fill you in there.
Gio Houle, 20, who lives in Mission Hill, attended the strike on Sunday. Houle is a busser at the premium club restaurant, and this is her first season working in Fenway.
Houle said she thinks her $15 wage is unfair, and she will continue to strike with her colleagues and demand fair wages.
“We go, ‘Hey, can we get maybe five dollars more?’ and they go, ‘five cents?’ And it’s like, what’s the point there? That’s just insulting,” Houle said.
Of course Aramark is “disappointed” that Local 26 rejected the latest proposal. They were looking for a serious bargain, and they got a strike instead.
Manfred’s salary cap plan seems to be backfiring
Rob Manfred has been doing a clubhouse tour, meeting with players and trying to tell them the good news about salary caps. While we haven’t received a ton of specific detail about how that plan is working out, early returns suggest that the players are not being fooled here even with former players standing around in the background giving their silent blessing of Manfred’s words, and that they see it as a way to drive a wedge between union members in the lead-in to next year’s collective bargaining.
Things apparently got “heated” in the clubhouse visit with the Phillies and their team full of veterans, according to Hannah Keyser, which, you love to see it. Nick Castellanos expressed that things got “passionate” enough that some players basically told Manfred a version of “well, in that case, you can leave” in response to what he tried to say about the salary cap.
Manfred’s plan is pretty clear here, and it doesn’t appear to be catching on, so that’s a positive, at least. I won’t be fully convinced that nothing has taken root here until we actually move into bargaining and see that for a fact, but as said, these early reactions from players are promising. The problem is that Manfred did cite some actual issues with the current system, and worded the right way, a cap might sound like the proper solution — I point you to the NBA currently dealing with second apron nonsense for proof of how this could happen to a union that should know better. It is Manfred saying it, though, and he’s not exactly popular with the players in the first place, so the proper amount of skepticism seems to exist here.
I wrote a couple of Hall of Fame features over at FOX Sports in the last week. One was a look at active players in their 30s with a chance at Cooperstown, and what they need to do to convince voters that they deserve enshrinement someday. Why players in their 30s and not just anyone on a possible trajectory? Well, you don’t need me saying that Paul Skenes is a shoo-in if only he continues to be amazing for another 15 years, you know? Juan Soto is probably on the path, but he’s also still 26, so that discussion can be had later. That sort of thing.
The other was on Ichiro Suzuki, and how he had already put up a Hall of Fame career before he even left Nippon Professional Baseball for MLB. There’s a link there to a Guardian story that you should also read, from when Ichiro reached 3,000 hits. You will not be disappointed in what you find.
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