70 Picket at Harvard Pro To Support UFW Boycott

A large group of noisy but orderly demonstrators manned a picket line outside the Harvard Provision Co. Saturday night, urging customers to stay out of the store until the management takes Gallo wine off the shelves.

The picketers--numbering almost 70 at one point--claimed that the Gallo Winery Co. uses scab labor in its California fields and called for a boycott of the product and the store.

The United Farm Workers distributed a leaflet during the picketing charging that Gallo "signed phony contracts with the corrupt Teamsters, refusing to hold union elections."

Workers in the Gallo fields in Modesto, Calif., were members of the United Farm Workers Union until April 1973, when, the UFW charges, Gallo signed a contract with the Teamsters Union based on a non-democratic election. Gallo denies the charges.

The picket line was organized by the Harvard-Radcliffe Boycott Support Committee. Members of the R-H New American Movement, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, the UFW and a number of non-aligned students stood on line from 7 to 9:30 p.m., carrying signs, singing and chanting.

The group marched in two long files on the sidewalk between Boylston and Holyoke Streets, wearing hats and gloves against the cold and chanting, "Harvard Pro, help yourself; take the Gallo off the shelf." The picketers, however, never physically blocked entrance to the store.

The two Cambridge police patrolmen at the scene made no attempts to stop the picketers, but did ticket a van carrying UFW organizers when it stopped in front of the Mt. Auburn St. store.

Other cars stopped in front of the store during the picketing, but were not ticketed.

The picketers objected loudly to the ticketing, but the police did not respond.

Some of those on the line tried to talk customers out of shopping at the store and succeeded in turning away a number of apparent customers.

Inside the store, business seemed light for a Saturday night, but a spokesman for the Provisions Co. management said he thought the picket's effect was "only slight."

Pro Management Complains

He said the management considers a boycott of all the store's products unfair, and added that the company will issue a formal statement of their position today.

Coleman P. Harrison '75, a NAM member and member of the support committee, said Saturday night that the committee chose the full boycott strategy because it has proven most effective in the past.

He said the committee plans to picket the store more frequently in the future and to try to stop all Harvard business with the Provision Co. until they remove Gallo from the shelves.

Late last week seven of the eight House masters who kept accounts with the store said they would stop doing business there, at least temporarily. The support committee, Harrison said, will aim next at the freshman proctors' liquor allowances at the Harvard Pro.

The other major liquor store in the Square, Varsity Liquors on the corner of Mass Ave and Boylston St., agreed last week to sell out its current Gallo stock and not renew Gallo sales.