Time to Eat! The Right to a Duty-Free Lunch

Just a few quiet minutes to yourself to eat lunch, every day – everyone deserves that, right? Well, for decades Boston educators, especially elementary school teachers, did not have a guaranteed right to a duty-free lunch.

That’s why the BTU made it one of their earliest contract demands.

The calls for a duty-free lunch started early. The Boston Union Teacher newspaper for December 1963 included “duty-free lunch” in a list of topics to discuss at an upcoming membership meeting at the Hotel Bradford. (Side-note: The same issue contained a touching memorial to John F. Kennedy, whose sudden assassination shocked the world only the month before on November 22, 1963.)

Lunchbox 1980s” via Wikimedia Commons (Greg Mote from Los Angeles, USA, CC BY 2.0)