Hospitality workers to protest Hynes Convention Center sale Wednesday

A local hospitality workers’ union said Tuesday it expects hundreds of Back Bay hospitality workers to protest Governor Charlie Baker’s bid to sell Hynes Convention Center Wednesday afternoon.

UNITE HERE Local 26, which represents Boston hotel, casino, and airport employees, argues that the loss of Hynes Convention Center as an event space that brings people from all over the world to stay and eat in Back Bay would destroy the neighborhood’s economy.

“In the very minute that people are starting to travel again and starting to go to events again and to plan large scale events, to sell and potentially shutter and transform one of the city’s two significant meeting spaces, I think is bad for hospitality workers, bad for the economy of the city and the region,” Local 26 President Carlos Aramayo told Boston.com.

The protest is set for 3 p.m., and will be attended by workers represented by Local 26 from the Sheraton Boston, Westin Copley Place, Hilton Back Bay, and Fairmont Copley Plaza hotels, as well as workers from Logan Airport, Encore casino, and Fenway Park, the union said in a press release.

The union said Boston City Council President Ed Flynn will also be in attendance.

Baker first attempted to sell Hynes Convention Center, which is owned by the state, just before the pandemic happened, The Boston Globe reported. But after the pandemic hit, those plans were put on hold.

In late March, according to the newspaper, Baker said he would again try to include a measure to sell Hynes Convention Center in a larger economic development bill that would go before the Massachusetts Legislature.

Baker argues that there may be a use for the six acres the convention center takes up on Boylston Street that would benefit the local economy more than a meeting space.

“People need to start thinking a little differently,” he told the Globe. “Right now we have a big space there in the middle of an important neighborhood that’s basically dark almost all the time.”

But Boston city officials and Back Bay neighborhood groups have voiced concern about the potential change in the use of the space.

“We need to have a serious conversation about what the use will be because this is central to the neighborhood, the city economy, and this decision will have wide-ranging ripple effects,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu told the Globe.

On Wednesday, Local 26 plans to gather members and supporters at Copley Square and march down to the center wearing red shirts and carrying signs with slogans such as “Destroying Good Jobs Dishonors Boston’s History, #SavetheHynes” and “Save The Hynes, Save Our Boston.”

Aramayo said the Hynes Convention Center has been an anchor for the Back Bay economy for the last several decades, and because of it, the economy there has boomed.

“The Hynes Convention Center is the heartbeat of the Back Bay. While the discussion of a sale has been focused on the building itself, it is real live people who work in the Hynes and … who flood out of the Hynes and onto Boylston and Newbury Streets at lunch and dinner time, filling retail stores, restaurants, and other tourist attractions,” the union wrote in a news release.

“Selling the Hynes would devastate thousands of workers — not just those who work in the convention center, but also Back Bay hotel workers who rely on Hynes events to fill nearby hotel rooms and keep their well-paying, middle-class jobs secure.”

Aramayo said he believes the decision to sell the Hynes Convention Center just as the hospitality industry is starting to recover from the pandemic is not only brutal, but short-sighted.

Now, he said, Local 26 is hoping to send a message to Massachusetts legislators who will ultimately make the decision whether or not to sell the convention center in the coming months.

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