Waitresses Picket Cronin's To Demand Bargaining Agent

Waitresses at Cronin's Restaurant on Mt. Auburn St, are picketing in an attempt to gain recognition of the new Harvard Square Waitresses Organizing Committee (HSWOC) as their bargaining agent.

The waitresses have been calling for a boycott of the restaurant since Thursday. They have been working their usual shifts, however, since the action is not a strike.

James Cronin, the owner, was notified a week ago that at least 80 per cent of the waitresses working for him supported HSWOC and was asked to recognize it. Mr. Cronin could not be reached for comment.

Twelve of the 13 waitresses currently employed by the restaurant have signed slips authorizing the committee as their bargaining agent. "Members of the kitchen staff will also sign," Bernadette Hedderson, one of the waitresses at Cronin's said yesterday.

The picketing has drawn widespread support from many women's groups including NOW.

Kathy Allen and Stephen R. Domesick, attorneys, and Kathy Segal, a third-year law student at B.U., have aided the waitresses in the organization of their movement.

Segal said she hopes that HSWOC will eventually become the bargaining agent for all waitresses employed by restaurants in the Square. Friends, waitresses and bartenders from neighboring restaurants have expressed support for HSWOC.

The waitresses are seeking a minimum pay hike from $1.10 to $1.35 an hour and improved working conditions. Other demands include sick pay, health insurance, overtime, time-and-a-half on holidays, paid vacations of one week for employees of one year or more, and breaks required by law and a place to sit.

Waitress Patricia Welch said yesterday. "You can never be a normal person. The only thing that's good about the job is that you can leave it."

"There is nothing degrading about serving hungry people their food," she continued. "The job becomes degrading when you have to bow, scrape and kiss ass for a tip, and then there is still no guarantee."

The waitresses would also like to see a 15 per cent tip included in the bill as it is payment for a service and not a gratuity. The Harvard "preppie" for whom Welch says Cronin's exists "always leaves a tip, and it always amounts to a dime or fifteen cents."

The waitresses no longer wish to be responsible for payment of unpaid checks and seek abandonment of the dress code. They also demand equal distribution of customers by number and an end to favoritism, protection of waitresses by management from harassment by customers, and regular schedules.

Hedderman claims that she is losing about $15 in tips a day since the beginning of the boycott. A waitress said that the boycott was costing Cronin about $500 a day.