Union Says Contract Talks At ‘Stalemate’

As the fifth week of contract negotiations began, representatives of Harvard custodial workers’ union said talks with the University on wages and benefits were at a “stalemate” yesterday.

The talks are the first conducted since the Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies (HCECP) issued its report on Dec. 19 calling for wages to be set between $10.83 and $11.30 for the University’s lowest-paid workers. The report was largely adopted by University President Lawrence H. Summers last month.

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 254, which represents Harvard janitors, has called for a higher wage than the figure offered in the HCECP report. SEIU asked for base wages beginning at $14 and increasing to $15.50 over the three years that will be covered by the new contract.

Harvard officials declined to comment yesterday when approached at the Sheraton Commander Hotel on Garden Street, where negotiations are being held every Tuesday.

David A. Jones, who directs the University’s Office of Labor and Employee Relations, recently said Harvard will not discuss specifics of the negotiations until they are complete.

According to union officials, though, Harvard negotiators, led by the Human Resources Office (HRO), initially proposed a starting wage of $10.85 and then upped the offer to $11. Custodial worker and SEIU representative Daniel Mejia called Harvard’s position “cheap.”

However, even Harvard’s initial offer would be a significant raise for the unions, since, according to the HCECP report, 89 percent of contracted custodial workers and 82 percent of Harvard custodial workers earned less than $10 an hour last year.

Although students have been allowed to watch the negotiations, officials barred a Crimson reporter from observing.

SEIU spokesperson Sylvia Panfil said that negotiations are proceeding slowly. Agreements have been reached on making seniority a factor in deciding promotions from part-time to full-time, and on creating a system for granting overtime requests, she said.

But she said the big sticking points remains wages and benefits. Currently, workers pay a fee for health care, and according to the HCECP report, 38 percent of Harvard’s custodial workers and 46 percent of sub-contracted custodial workers participated in health care plans in 2001.

Panfil said Harvard has made “no movement” in discussions about reducing health fees for in-house workers and requiring parity benefits for contracted workers, as recommended by the HCECP report.

She added that it was unlikely workers would agree to a contract that raised wages without improving benefits.

Although students reported in an op-ed in yesterday’s Crimson that Harvard negotiators had been “condescending” and “patronizing” during the negotiations, custodial workers disagreed with the characterization.

“So far, I think it has been pretty mild, [with] no hostility from either side,” said custodial worker Shakespeare Christmas, who has participated in the negotiations.

Panfil said there had been some tense moments in past weeks’ meetings, which have lasted late into the evening, but that the overall tone had been polite—despite the lack of progress.

Yesterday’s session ended in frustration at about 5:30 p.m., after workers rejected a Harvard proposal of an extra 20 cents an hour for custodians who had been at the University for over 3 years but offered no change for entry wages, Panfil said.

Union negotiators said they would keep on talking as long as discussions were progressing.

“We’re going to have to have some persistence,” said Frank Morley, a custodian at Littauer who also works a part-time job. “They’re probably waiting to see who’s going to blink first.”

According to the University’s current timetable, Harvard hopes to conclude all union negotiations by May, including those with dining workers and security guards which have not yet started.

Next year’s budgets for the University’s 11 schools are due in March, making the outcome of the negotiations a matter of urgent concern for University officials.

Union officials are now trying to turn up the heat on the administration.

Jairo Dias, an SEIU organizer, said the current contract prohibits custodial workers from striking but that the union intended to eliminate that provision from the new contract.

The Progressive Student Labor Movement, workers and union representatives organized a small demonstration on behalf of custodians in front of Au Bon Pain last night at 5:30 p.m. Protestors sat in the middle of a crosswalk in the Square for about 30 seconds, waved signs and chanted, police officers at the scene said.

Panfil said the union was organizing a larger display of civil disobedience next Tuesday but declined to comment on any specific plans. She said the nature of the demonstration would depend on progress at next week’s negotiations.

—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore can be reached at theodore@fas.harvard.edu.