A federal appeals court today upheld a lower-court judge's decision to toss a suit by a cardiac ICU nurse who claimed the way Boston Medical Center fired her in 2021 rather than let her keep working, unvaccinated, with the sort of intensely sick patients who would wind up in an ICU. Read more.
A school psychologist for Newton Public Schools today sued over her 2022 firing for refusing Covid-19 shots, saying she had a legitimate religious reason to avoid the shots: Her Greek Orthodox church is against the use of substances derived from aborted babies, which she claims Covid-19 vaccines are from. Read more.
A federal judge ruled today that Boston Medical Center had no way to safely accommodate a neonatal intensive care nurse's profession of faith against both Covid-19 shots and face masks and so had the right to fire her for refusing to get vaccinated. Read more.
A cameraman for WCVB's "Chronicle" show may have had legitimate religious reasons to reject Covid-19 vaccinations, but the cost of providing separate accommodations for him to keep working meant the station had the right to fire him, because employers have the right to listen to federal public-health officials offering "objective medical evidence" in a pandemic and they didn't have to wait for a court to conclude vaccines were reducing the spread of the disease, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. Read more.
A Boston Public Schools janitor with a grudge against two other custodians beat them and a school security officer so badly at the Mildred Avenue K-8 school in Mattapan in October that they all suffered broken bones, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. Read more.
Boston College is fighting back against a worker who's suing it for disregarding what he claims is his religious right to not get a Covid-19 shot in a way that other organizations facing similar suits cannot: It argues it has its own religious rights under the First Amendment to require workers to get vaccinated. Read more.
A federal appeals court today agreed with a lower-court judge that the manager of the Coolidge Corner Trader Joe's had a legitimate reason to fire a 77-year-old worker, because she had been caught buying beer for her 19-year-old grandson, who also worked at the store at the time. Read more.
A federal judge ruled yesterday that a fired landscaper at Boston College can continue his case that his 2021 firing for refusing Covid-19 shots violated his religious rights under the First Amendment. Read more.
UNITE HERE Local 26 reports that it has reached a tentative deal with the owner of the Hilton Boston Logan Airport and Hilton Boston Park Plaza and has suspended its picketing outside the two hotels.
If workers vote to ratify the deal, they will return to work at 4 a.m. on Friday, the union says, adding the deal also applies to workers at the DoubleTree Hilton Boston-Cambridge and the Hampton Inn & Homewood Suites Boston Seaport, who walked off the job for three days last month.
An annoyed resident filed a 311 complaint at 7:52 a.m. about the striking Park Plaza workers, who now strike up the band, um, buckets and loudspeakers, starting at 7 a.m.: Read more.
Councilors with UNITE HERE 26 members in Council chambers.
The Boston City Council voted unanimously today to continue support of UNITE HERE Local 26, currently on strike against the Park Plaza and Airport Hilton after reaching a deal with the Omni Parker House and Boston Seaport hotels. Councilors urged Boston residents to stay away from events at the Park Plaza and Airport hotels.
UNITE HERE Local 26 reports that unionized workers at the Omni Parker House and Omni Boston Seaport hotels today ratified new contracts and voted to return to work tomorrow. Read more.
A doctor who spent 29 years in the emergency room at Tufts Medical Center yesterday sued the hospital for at least $6 million for rejecting her request for a religious exemption from Covid-19 shots in 2021 because she believes the vaccines were derived from aborted fetuses and that goes against her Christian beliefs. Read more.
WBZ reports on the impact on both businesses that get and ship their goods by sea and on the local workforce:
There are only 160 dockworkers in Boston, but the strike is expected to affect about 12,000 jobs in the area, including tugboat and truck drivers and delivery workers.
A New Jersey man who quit a job with Boston-based DraftKings to move to Los Angeles for a job with one of its online-betting archrivals, only to get sued by his former employers under the Massachusetts non-compete law, will have to make his case under Massachusetts law rather than California law, a federal court ruled yesterday. Read more.
Miles Grant notes the odd exclusion in a Globe list of "10 movies about work to stream this Labor Day weekend" - they have "Monsters, Inc.," but not anything like, oh, "Norma Rae" or "On the Waterfront." Fortunately, people of a more labor-ish bent on Labor Day have Deadline's list of "15 Movies About Labor Unions And Strikes."
A former Boston cop who sued the city over his firing in state court in 2022 last week filed a similar suit in federal court - but added the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association to his list of defendants he says did him wrong. Read more.
Some 4,500 workers at 35 Boston hotels voted overwhelmingly this week to authorize a strike, according to their union, Unite Here Local 26. Read more
Kathleen Stone, who says she was forced to resign as women's hockey coach at Harvard last year, this week sued Harvard and former players and parents over her ouster, alleging they made up crap about her in interviews with a Globe reporter, that she was being punished for behavior that male coaches at the school are allowed to get away with and that she was long paid far less than her male counterparts, despite being the winningest college women's hockey coach - and a one-time coach of the US Olympic hockey team. Read more.
A firefighter on Tower Ladder 10 at the 746 Centre St. firehouse in Jamaica Plain today sued the city and Fire Commissioner Paul Burke for the four-day suspension he says he got after the department had done nothing about the poor condition of the sidewalk and driveway outside the station and he wrote directly to the city's chief of streets. Read more.
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