As former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney greets thousands of supporters at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, scores of anti-Romney demonstrators are also converging on Florida. Some of them held a kickoff rally on Aug. 25 in Dorchester.
Several of the workers at the kickoff event work or worked for Bain Capital–owned companies. Romney is a co-founder of Bain. He left Bain as CEO in 2002, according to the firm’s own filings, but profited from the company for many years afterwards.
Simara Martinez earned $8 an hour as a supervisor at Dunkin Donuts, which was bought by Bain for $2.5 billion in 2005. Martinez planned to be one of several Boston-area residents in Tampa during the convention to protest conditions that they describe as low wages with few benefits at some Bain-owned companies.
"They're given a certain amount of money they can spend on wages and they have to live that. So if they need to be short on your check, they will be short on your check. That's how selfish the game has gotten," she said. "It's all a money game for them."
The Dorchester rally was organized by MASSUniting, a group that advocates on behalf of low-wage workers statewide.
