Why a bunch of factory workers protested Fenway Park’s Big Air event
They were employees of the event’s primary sponsor.
Opening night for the two-day Big Air winter sports event at Fenway Park drew more than just ski and snowboard enthusiasts: Union workers at a storied Lawrence factory turned out to protest their employer and the event’s lead sponsor, Polartec.
Polartec is a Lawrence-based fabric manufacturer whose customers include REI, L.L. Bean, Lands’ End, and the U.S. Military. Most of its production is done out of the historic Malden Mills facility in Lawrence.
The factory burned down in 1995, and then-owner Aaron Feuerstein famously kept staff on the payroll while it was rebuilt. The company, then called Malden Mills Industries, went bankrupt in 2007 and was purchased by its current parent company, Versa Capital Management.
Late last year, Polartec announced plans to close the plant and shift manufacturing to two plants—one in Tennessee, the other in nearby Hudson, New Hampshire. The move was sharply criticized by union officials and Feuerstein.
On Thursday, about 100 people showed up to demonstrate outside Fenway’s gates, organizers said, with some holding signs reading “Polartec belongs in Lawrence’’ and banners saying “We are Polartec.’’ With temperatures hovering around 20 degrees, the demonstration only lasted about 30 minutes, starting shortly before the event’s gates opened at 6 p.m.
The demonstration was organized by the joint boards of New England’s Unite Here labor unions. Most of the people who stood in the cold are factory workers from Lawrence’s Unite Here Local 311, with family members in tow, organizers said.
“If they get our message, they will stay,’’ Alba Acevedo, who identified herself as a 13-year employee at the facility, said in Spanish through an interpreter. “But if the decision is final, we still want to tell the company that we do not think this is okay and they should not ignore the many years we have worked here.’’
Rivian Bell, a spokeswoman for Polartec, said the company would not comment on the demonstration.
But Bell said the shutdown of the plant would come in phases over the next 12 to 18 months and that some of the factory’s employees are expected to be retained to work at the New Hampshire factory. Plans for the closure have not yet been finalized, she said.
According to Unite Here, about 350 union employees work at the factory. Arthur Phillips, a spokesman for Unite Here, said the union expects significant job losses even with the nearby facility in New Hampshire. “Because it’s a very small facility, we don’t think it can accommodate a large number of workers from Lawrence,’’ he said.
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