STATE HOUSE – Years before it became the centerpiece of a federal extortion case that rocked Boston City Hall, an outdoor music festival and its hiring practices were the subject of debate within the office of former Attorney General Martha Coakley.
Boston Calling's offer to let music fans work to gain tickets to its weekend-long pop music festivals appeared "highly problematic" and seemed to violate the minimum wage law, a lawyer in the attorney general's Fair Labor Division told a top City Hall aide, according to emails obtained by the News Service through a public records request. A couple months later in the summer of 2014 the aide, Tim Sullivan, allegedly extorted the company to hire union workers.
BOSTON (AP) — A contract negotiated with the region's largest transit union will save the cash-strapped Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority more than $80 million over the next four years, officials said Monday.
Under the deal, the 4,100-member Boston Carmen's Union Local 589 will forgo a 2.5 percent pay raise that was scheduled for June. But in exchange, most union members including bus and subway drivers and bus maintenance workers would be protected from having their jobs outsourced over the next four years.
