Guards Rally for Wage Hike

The union that represents Harvard’s guards and the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) protested the University’s decision to turn down the union’s latest proposals for higher wages at a rally yesterday afternoon.

Police estimated that 50 students and union members met in front of Holyoke Center—home to Harvard’s Office of Labor and Employee Relations. They chanted and waved signs protesting Harvard’s conduct during ongoing negotiations with the guard union.

Through rain, protesters then marched around the Yard before concluding the rally in front of Mass. Hall.

Harvard and the union, which represents University security, museum and parking guards, are renegotiating wages following President Lawrence H. Summers’ January acceptance of the recommendations of the Harvard Committee on Employment and Contract Policies (HCECP).

Negotiators have met three times over the last month and have narrowed their differences over wages, although Harvard University Security, Parking and Museum Guards Union President Steve McCombe said that he has grown less optimistic about a quick conclusion.

The University’s latest proposal would set entry-level wages at $11.11 per hour, while the union is currently asking for $11.30.

According to Danny Meagher, a museum guard and union trustee, the current entry-level wage is $8.75 per hour. Security, museum and parking guards earned a median hourly wage of $9.76 in September 2001.

McCombe said that the raises would be the first in six years for Harvard security guards.

David A. Jones, who directs the Office of Labor and Employee Relations, said negotiations had been “positive” and said he expected to reach a settlement soon.

“There are very significant increases on the table right now,” he said. “A large number of employees would see immediate increases upwards of 25 percent.”

Lead union negotiator Matthew Levy also expressed hope that the sides would settle at their next meeting, scheduled for May 7.

“All we’ve done is gotten closer—unfortunately the place we’re at now is a place we think is middle ground,” he said. “We’re hoping they’ll realize what we’re asking is reasonable.”

In February, Harvard’s janitors won starting wages of $11.35 per hour, in the first contract negotiations following the HCECP report. Members of the guards union said they are seeking wages that are at least in line with those of the other union.

“They don’t think we’re as important as the janitors, and we put ourselves between the art and anyone who wants to attack it,” said museum guard Paula Ross, who attended the protest.

PSLM member Daniel DiMaggio ’03 said he believed the University was trying to “sneak by all these other negotiations” following contentious talks with the janitors union, a six-week long process during which nine protestors were arrested for blocking traffic in an act of civil disobedience.

DiMaggio said yesterday’s protest was held to bring attention to the negotiations with the guards.

But Jones called protests the “fashionable thing to do these days” and said they only distracted the negotiators from discussions at the table.

Levy said while the union currently has no plans for future protests in the hopes that talks will conclude May 7, he has asked PSLM members to prepare for the possibility of a rally in two weeks.

The guards union formed in 1996 after security, museum and parking guards chose to break off from Service Employees International Union. Security guards worked without a contract until 1999, when they reached a settlement that many felt was unfair because it did not include wage hikes.

In the late 1990s, many of the longest-serving guards accepted a contract buyout package from Harvard, which has decided to outsource most of its security guards. Partially as a result of the departure of those higher-paid employees, median inflation-adjusted hourly wages for security guards declined from $14.31 in 1994 to $11.97 in 2001.

Under the HCECP’s recommendations, Harvard’s outsourced and directly-employed guards must receive equal compensation.

Although the current talks only involve wages, Harvard will renegotiate all provisions of the 1999 contract when it expires in June 2003.

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