Janitors and PSLM Members Rally for Higher Wages

A shark pinyata in tow and mariachi music accompanying them, Harvard janitors marched with over 150 protesters in a Living Wage Campaign rally yesterday, two days before beginning negotiations with the University over a new contract.

The janitors union wants all of its members--including those who work part time--to earn at least $10 per hour, the amount the Cambridge City Council voted last spring to set as the minimum wage for city workers.

Currently, Harvard janitors make about $8 to $9 per hour or between $16,000 to $18,000 per year.

The janitors also want the University to hire a more full-time custodial staff.

Until, the University has rejected these terms, according to the union.

The janitors' current contract expires on November 15. Marc LaBella, the attorney negotiating for the janitors, said that he hopes to have a "fair contract" by then.

If the University and the union are unable to come to terms, he said that janitors would do "whatever is necessary" to pressure the University. He would not say if the actions might include a strike. Another Living Wage Campaign rally in Harvard Square is scheduled for the next day, November 16.

The rally began at the Science Center, where union members, students and others signed a "subpoena" asking the University to reconsider the union's demands.

Led by a mariachi band, the protesters walked through the Yard to Holyoke Center.

There, a crimson-colored shark-shaped pinyata with a yellow "H" on its side dangled from a string two union members held between them.

"This is the greedy shark that eats the capital that you put into Harvard," LaBella said.

The protesters cheered as a third janitor, blindfolded, beat at the shark, sending peanuts flying into the crowd.

"We will not work for peanuts," LaBella told the crowd once the pinyata was emptied.

As students and janitors led chants outside Holyoke, LaBella rode the elevator up to the seventh-floor offices of the Harvard labor relations department to deliver the subpoena and the battered shark.

LaBella paused outside the doors to add his signature prominently at the bottom of the subpoena.

He then presented the paper and the pinyata to a room of startled secretaries. As he quickly walked out, he deposited the shark on top of a row of file cabinets.

"We want to show Harvard [administrators] that we have the support not just of Harvard janitors but of Harvard students and others," he said as he rode the elevator back down to the ground floor.

Emerging from Holyoke, LaBella said to the crowd that he had "served the subpoena."

The protesters were clad in red t-shirts dubbing them the "254 strike force," a reference to local 254 of the Service Employees International Union. Many of the janitors belong to that local, in addition to membership in their Harvard union

Some marchers carried signs. One read, "Greed is a disease and Harvard is a sick institution."

Other unions and worker groups, mostly from Harvard, made up a sizeable portion of the crowd.

"What [the University] can do to them they can do to us," said Karen L. O'Brien '97, a member of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW).

She said that other unions on campus are concerned about a "trickle" of non-union workers who work part-time when union members are sick or on vacation.

Harvard administrators are "slowly trying to dismantle unions," she said.

Geoff P. Carens, also a HUCTW member, said that even $10 is too low compared to Harvard's $14 billion endowment.

A shop steward for the carpenters local 40 said that Cambridge-area unions, including the electricians, plumbers and pipefitters, would support the janitors.

"We've been fighting [Harvard] since 1636 and what a fight it's been," he said.

University spokesperson Merry D. Touborg would not comment, citing ongoing negotiations.