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Council approves ban on city-employee travel to North Carolina

The city council today approved a protest against a recent North Carolina law lifting rights for transgender and gay residents in its cities: A ban on travel to the state by Boston city workers.

The measure, which now goes to Mayor Walsh for his consideration, has exemptions for public-safety and public-health workers who would have to travel there for law-enforcement or public-health reasons.

Councilor Josh Zakim (Fenway, Mission Hill, Beacon Hill, Back Bay), who proposed the measure, said he wanted to add Boston's voice against "some really outrageous actions taken in the state of North Carolina."

Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury) supported the measure, saying budgets reflect moral choices, and the council was voting against spending money with bigots.

Councilor Bill Linehan (South Boston, South End, Chinatown) did not vote against the measure - and said he appreciated Zakim's passion on the issue - but rose to caution councilors about going overboard on such protest measures. "There are numerous injustices going on, not only here in the United States, but also throughout the world," he said.

Last year, the council approved a similar ban on travel to Indiana.

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Comments

Public employees should learn how to use google hangouts, Skype, slack and a whole host of other collaborative, distance tools and eliminate as much travel as possible.

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What fun is that? City councilors should ABSOLUTELY be jetting around the world on fact-finding missions. Definitely a great use of time and campaign contributions.

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I've got 2 work trips scheduled to the RTP area of North Carolina next week and the week after. Long scheduled with people flying in from all over the world.

Trying to balance principals vs. not effing with clients who have been awesome for many years. Current inclination is to have our company set a "no new business in NC" policy that allows us to travel if we need to support an existing client based there.

NC is gonna pull back on this I think, the backlash has not just been empty PR and press releases. I work in a niche technical field where my peers are heavily recruited and in high demand and we are already starting to hear stories of folks declining recruiter offers or backing away from accepted offers in North Carolina. The state is gonna have a massive employee recruitment and/or retention nightmare down there if this drags on.

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has already said he won't be enforcing HB-2.

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