Janitors Celebrate Gains in Contract With Harvard

Harvard janitors, friends and supporters gathered to celebrate and underscore their achievements over the past year during a party at the Phillips Brooks House Saturday.

The event, sponsored by the Harvard Worker’s Center and held nine months after the janitors won raises and sweeping changes in contract negotiations with the University, was held to coincide with the deadline to enroll in a new health care plan won in the February contract.

Both full- and part-time workers are now eligible for the heath plan, but they must enroll by tomorrow.

Saturday’s party—complete with food, music and toys for the workers’ children—served to remind janitors to complete the necessary paperwork.

“We’re here to get to know one another better and to have some time for fun and entertainment between families and their children,” said Daniel M. Mejia, president of the Worker’s Center. The center is a three-year-old organization dedicated to securing the rights and well-being of Harvard’s lowest-paid employees.

However, the main thrust of the celebration—attended by three dozen people—was a celebration of the union’s recent achievements and how those changes have improved the lives of the janitors and their families.

While they say there is still much to be done, February’s contract—which is still being phased in—has made large-scale improvements in the working conditions at Harvard, according to those at the party.

The University reopened the janitors’ contract a year earlier than planned in the wake of a three-week-long occupation of Mass. Hall by students during the spring 2001 in protest of what they argued was Harvard’s inadequate compensation of campus employees, including janitors.

After adoption of the contract, Harvard janitors say they have been able to enjoy more comfortable and rewarding working experiences.

“We’ve gotten respect from supervisors. We have better benefits, like health care plans and better wages. We have more sick days and vacation days,” said Victoria Iscayau, who attended the party, and has been working as a janitor at the Law School for about 20 months.

“The contract is good and people are going to stay with their jobs,” said Anna M. Falicov ’03, a volunteer with the Worker’s Center. “People are probably going to stay here for awhile.”

At the party Saturday, Mejia spoke in Spanish to the attendees about the future plans of the center, which he said will include inviting international labor activists to campus and creating a better support network for janitors and their families.