A regional Anti-Deformation League of B’nai B’rith official has confirmed that construction workers have ended a walkout against work on a 40-story office building in Boston because the Orthodox Jewish developers halt construction work on all their projects on Jewish holidays.
Leonard Zakim, New England ADL executive director, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, in a telephone interview, that the Toronto-based real estate firm owned by the Reichmann family reached an agreement to settle the dispute which had led to more than three months of demonstrations against Olympia and York, of Toronto.
Angered at being forced to stop work during the Passover holidays, the construction workers, members of Ironworkers Union, Local 7, formed an informal “Boston Committee Against Religious Harassment.” The union workers contended that “hundreds of workers were losing wages due to religious tyranny.”
NATURE OF AGREEMENT
Under the agreement which ended the work stoppage and the demonstrations, the Reichmann policy of no work on Jewish holidays on their projects continues but “ample time” will be allowed workers to make up such lost time through overtime work.
Tom Evers, business agent for the local, said the men were not happy with the agreement because, while they have been given the option for make-up through overtime work, the agreement “legitimizes 12 holidays,” adding “there are six holidays in September alone.”
He also said any future action on such problems would be done “by collective bargaining” and not by action by the union members.
Zakim also confirmed that during the demonstrations, concern had developed in the Jewish community regarding the possible development of anti-Semitic actions by the strikers. In leaflets disbursed at the work site, the strikers claimed they were victims of “Jewish tyranny” and demanded “an end to religious harassment of Christian workers.”
Zakim confirmed he had asserted that the distribution of such material “was neither a productive, ethical, or accurate way to best achieve a settlement” of the holiday dispute. He added that the denunciations were not anti-Semitic but that “we were concerned that, because of the tensions at that time, such an approach might have gotten out of hand.” He said construction was now proceeding normally on the office building.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
