Protests Continue at Site of Democratic Convention in Boston

For the second day in a row, striking police officers, joined by several hundred pickets from dozens of other Boston labor organizations, disrupted construction Wednesday at the site of next month’s Democratic National Convention.

The demonstration outside the Fleet Center on a 90-degree day prompted many tradesmen to turn away rather than enter the cavernous arena to continue a seven-week, $14-million face-lift aimed at converting a sports arena into a convention center.

Thomas J. Nee, president of the National Assn. of Police Organizations, said Wednesday that the protest was organized because Boston’s 1,400 officers had been working without a contract for two years.

Asserting that Mayor Thomas M. Menino had refused to negotiate with the region’s largest law enforcement union, Nee said that the demonstration was aimed not at Democratic delegates but at Boston City Hall. Nee said the Fleet Center was merely a “place for a party” -- not a venue for party politics.

“They could take a nomination out here on the street, on a soapbox,” said Nee, standing on a traffic island and waving at drivers who honked in support of the protesters.

At a news conference late Wednesday, Menino called the demonstration “a distraction.”

Menino, a Democrat who lobbied hard to bring his party’s convention to Boston, said he was certain the Fleet Center would be spruced up in time for the July 26-29 gathering. The convention already has been clouded by announcements of highway closings and predictions of monumental traffic jams in the dense urban setting around the Fleet Center.

For Democrats, the labor dispute has the potential to cast a pall on a party that prides itself on having a sound relationship with organized labor.

Menino said Boston City Atty. Marita Hopkins today would ask a federal judge to block striking labor groups from slowing construction at the arena.

The mayor’s press secretary, Seth Gittell, said Menino offered to enter into mediation with Boston police officers more than a year ago and had extended a contract offer as recently as Monday. He said the city offered salary increases “of nearly 12% over the next four years, an offer as good as the one achieved by [Boston] teachers” not long ago.

“Nee and the police leadership appear afraid to accept as a floor what the other unions have accepted as a ceiling,” Gittell said.

But picketing outside the convention site, Officer Joseph Nee -- no relation to the union chief -- said Menino’s efforts were insincere.

“He sends his henchmen in and basically throws insults at us,” he said.

When the police officers’ contract expired in June 2002, rank-and-file members earned an average yearly salary of $79,000. The union is seeking a 16.5% increase over four years.

Susana Segat, president of the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union, said representatives of at least 10 other labor groups in Boston also were operating without contracts. Segat said the unions joined Wednesday’s protest “to get the mayor’s attention,” not to interfere with the expected nomination of Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry as the Democrats’ candidate for president.

“We endorsed John Kerry,” she said. “We want him in the White House.”

A spokesman for the Kerry campaign in Washington would not comment on possible delays at the convention site. Lina Garcia at the Democratic National Convention headquarters here also declined to discuss the labor dispute.

A crane carrying equipment for the arena renovation turned around outside the Fleet Center Wednesday after its driver surveyed the picket line. A concrete-contractor’s truck and several moving trucks also did not cross the line of protesters.

“We respect the police union’s right to protest,” said Tom Goemaat, president of Shawmut Construction, general contractor for the convention overhaul at the Fleet Center. “We’re just trying to do our job.”

With the convention set to open in 47 days, Goemaat said, the union protest makes keeping to the schedule “very, very tough.”