BOSTON – Nervous college administrators abruptly cancelled a planned legislative breakfast at Roxbury Community College on March 1 after AFSCME Local 1067 members joined with other union members and supporters to rally against the unfair firing of five AFSCME workers in the college's IT department.

"We rallied to let the legislators know what's going on at Roxbury Community College on the injustice here," AFSCME Council 93 Vice President and Local 1067 President Kevin Hanley said.

Local 1067 members, Council 93 staff, and members from other locals gathered at 6:30 a.m. to distribute literature and key information to state legislators who were slated to attend a breakfast sponsored by administrators at RCC. Members looked forward to educating lawmakers on the poor financial practices of the RCC administrators and their mistreatment of workers.

"They're not union friendly, they don't care about the community, they don't about the people who work here, and they don't care about the students," Hanley said. "Everything we care about they don't care about."

(Jim Durkin/AFSCME Council 93)

But members didn't get a chance to speak with legislators because the college executives cancelled the legislative breakfast just hours before it was scheduled to start. RCC administrators knew that AFSCME members were coming to protest their mismanagement, and they weren't happy about it.

Members still had a great morning talking to students, staff, and community residents who were traveling through the Roxbury Community College campus and heading to the polls for the primary elections that were held the same day.

"They got wind of it and they cancelled the breakfast," Hanley continued. "But again AFSCME is going to be persistent, and we're going to follow them until the day this gets rectified and rectified properly."

Local 1067 members and Council 93 will be back at Roxbury Community College for any future events to hold the college's administrators accountable and defend the IT workers.