Yesterday HUCTW activists helped organize an action at the
world’s richest University’s Commencement Exercises. The Boston IWW spread the word about the action and brought local Wobblies to add to our forces. The Student Labor
Action Movement (SLAM) also helped us build for the event, and mobilized
their members to turn out. SLAM has been fiercely defending campus
workers for many years. Participants in the visibility action included
HUCTW’s Johany Pilar, facing ongoing retaliation for reporting sexual
harassment. Johany was called an “embarassing Latina” by a manager in
Harvard’s Campus Services. HUCTW Rep Nassim Kerkache, who also attended,
was demoted three salary grades by the same manager, who said his
English wasn’t good enough to be a Coordinator, the position he’d
occupied for nine years! HUCTW member Marvin Byrd was another subject of
the protest. Marvin, who uses braces to walk, was called “that dirty
black man,” by the very same administrator, and has been kept in a lower
salary grade than co-workers and threatened with termination. Paul
Casey, laid off after 30+ years of service shortly after he returned
from a disability leave, was another participant in the visibility
action. Paul was supposedly laid off for “lack of work,” although he was
very busy in his job. His duties were simply distributed to other
employees. Flyers we distributed to hundreds of graduates, families and
passers-by also called attention to the case of Judy Rouse. Judy, a
member of UNITE HERE Local 26, was fired by Harvard in retaliation for
being an active and effective shop steward.
Highlights of the action included the huge surrealist puppets which
were kindly hauled to the protest and hoisted by local anarchists from
the Lantern collective. They got a lot of attention and made it easy to
pass out flyers! Everybody wanted to know what was going on when they
saw the striking figures, one enormous one bearing the motto “Mentiri”
or “to lie,” a play on Harvard’s Latin motto Veritas (truth). Wobs and
HUCTW members were also heartened by the solidarity from USW Local 8751,
the Boston School Bus Drivers’ Union. Drivers Steve Gilles and Steve
Kirschbaum, terminated for union activity, helped us hand out flyers and
support Harvard workers under attack. All photos by Le Le Lechat &
Steve Kirschbaum.
