Police Arrest Nine Protestors In Wage Rally

Nine supporters of higher wages for Harvard’s janitors—including two undergraduates—were arrested for blocking traffic during a carefully choreographed protest in front of the Holyoke Center yesterday afternoon.

The rally, covered by camera crews from local and national media, was intended to draw community attention to what the janitors say is Harvard’s unwillingness to agree to pay fair wages in ongoing contract negotiations.

“I hope they feel the pressure,” said Jairo Dias, an organizer with Service Employees International Union Local 254 (SEIU), which represents Harvard’s janitors. “They ask us to have negotiations in good faith, but I don’t think they have good faith.”

The supporters began gathering at about 3:45 p.m. in front of the Holyoke Center. Police estimated the crowd at around 300 people, while the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM), which helped organize the rally, said it collected 506 signatures of support at the event.

From beginning to end, the rally was carefully planned and executed.

The City of Cambridge closed Mass Ave. to parking an hour before the event and closed off the street to traffic during the protest.

A heavy presence of more than 70 officers from the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) and Harvard police monitored the event, and a 20-member CPD Special Response Team waited on Mt. Auburn Street in case of trouble. Two ambulances also stood by in case of injuries.

At about 4:15 p.m., CPD officials approached rally organizers to explain the booking process and how they would handle the arrests.

“We’ll arrest you if you want us to arrest you,” CPD Deputy Superintendent Timothy McCusker told the union officials. “When you’re ready, let me know.”

The rally itself began at 4:45 p.m., and organizers led the crowd in chants of “yes, we can” in both Spanish and English, while supporters waved signs asking for “Better Wages” and “Justice Now” and shook noisemakers made out of empty soda cans.

“We need to make sure Harvard and other places no longer subsist on the backs of people who do the real work at Harvard,” SEIU deputy trustee Rocio Saenz told the crowd.

Also on hand were local politicians including former Cambridge Mayor Anthony D. Galluccio and Cambridge Democratic State Rep. Jarrett T. Barrios ’90, who led chants.

“If Harvard hasn’t heard it yet, that they can afford to pay janitors more, we’re going to tell them,” Barrios said.

After 15 minutes of rallying, supporters crossed the street and marched through the Yard, stopping for a few minutes in front of Mass. Hall before moving back toward into the street.

At about 5:05 p.m., the nine protestors who had volunteered to be arrested sat in the crosswalk in front of the Holyoke Center with linked hands, as CPD units rerouted traffic down side streets. The remainder of the protesters waited on the sidewalk in front of Au Bon Pain, while University officials watched from the other side of the street.

After being informed on a loudspeaker that they had 30 seconds to leave the street or risk arrest, the nine were handcuffed and taken away by a CPD prisoner transport wagon without incident. The street was clear by 5:19 p.m.

The nine arrested were Stephen N. Smith ’02, Madeleine S. Elfenbein ’04, Ian Simmons ’98-’00, Harvard Law students Jermaine J. Hughes and Minsu D. Longiaru, janitor Frank Morley, SEIU organizer Jill Hurst, Massachusetts AFL-CIO organizer Kathy Cassavant, and Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers organizer Robert Kelly.

They will be charged with violating a city ordinance against blocking traffic, which is a misdemeanor, and will likely face a minor fine, said Cambridge Police spokesperson Frank D. Pasquarello.

University officials declined to comment on whether the four arrested students would face disciplinary action.

“Freedom of expression is an essential value of a community like this. So also is the avoidance of coercive disruption,” University President Lawrence H. Summers told The Crimson yesterday. “It’s essential to the doctrine of civil disobedience that those who break rules or violate laws accept the consequences of that.”

Before his arrest, Morley, one of the Harvard janitors who has been part of the union’s negotiating team, said that the civil disobedience might anger the University but that it was a necessary tactic for the union.

“We’ve had rallies, we’ve marched, we’ve been negotiating for a month,” Morley said. “We think it may be this is what it will take to do it.”

Following the arrests, supporters continued protesting, with shouts including “arrest Larry Summers,” before the rally wound down at about 5:30 p.m.

SEIU hopes to influence Harvard to raise janitors’ base wages to $14 an hour in today’s contract negotiations at the Sheraton Commander Hotel on Garden Street, union officials have said. The negotiations are in their sixth week, and the two sides have come to little agreement on new wage or benefit provisions, despite resolving many other issues, representatives of both sides have confirmed.

Saenz said she hoped the rally would translate to progress in the negotiations today.

“I think people are feeling very good,” she said. “We have a lot of support from the community and politicians.”

But David A. Jones, who directs Harvard’s Office of Labor and Employee Relations and is lead negotiator for the University, called the rally “unfortunate” and “unproductive” and said that such tactics only disturbed the negotiation process.

“I wish the parties would focus all their energies on trying to resolve the issues at the bargaining table instead of on the streets of Cambridge,” he said.

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