Dining Hall Workers Rally During Contract Negotiations

Dining Hall Workers Rally in The Yard

By MERCER R. COOK, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

KEREN E. ROHE

Yale University dining hall workers and students join their Harvard counterparts for a union demonstration in Harvard Square on Thursday night. The protest followed a meeting and discussion and a negotiation session between Unite Here Local 26 and the University.

Harvard dining hall workers, students and Unite HERE members from across New England marched through the Yard Thursday night holding signs and chanting “we want justice” and “union power.”

The march ended in the area outside of the Holyoke Center where the crowd sung a version of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” with lyrics adapted for the union.

As the marchers traveled through the yard swinging colorful glow sticks, accompanied by a union-led band, they picked up a number of spectators and drew some students to watch from the sidelines.

Earlier that day, University officials met with members of Unite HERE Local 26—the union that represents Harvard dining hall workers—as part of their contract renegotiations.

Union leadership offered few details about the nature of the negotiations and the University declined to comment late Thursday night.

Members of the Yale dining hall workers’ chapter of Unite HERE also met with University officials in that meeting.

Following that meeting, the union members met with student supporters in First Parish Church before kicking off the rally.

At the church, the two school’s unions discussed the differences in their contracts.

Harvard and Yale workers said they want many of the elements contained in the Yale workers’ contracts to be included in the newest contract for the Harvard dining hall workers, including full-time employment, more job training opportunities for workers, and increased job security.

“In New Haven, we have a source of inspiration,” said Unite HERE Local 26 president Brian Lang, who called five Yale workers up to the stage.

The Yale workers proceeded to discuss the struggle they endured before obtaining their current contract, including 11 strikes. The speakers said their struggle was ultimately worth the pay-off.

“We stand here today with full-time employment. We stand here with no lay-off language—period. We stand here with 100 percent free medical,” said Robert “Bob” Proto, president of Unite HERE Local 35, which represents Yale dining hall workers. “There’s a standard of quality of jobs that Harvard needs to raise up to Yale’s.”

Lang said that the Yale workers made a presentation to Harvard officials during the negotiations earlier in the day Thursday and that the Yale workers presented some “very concrete solutions to the problems we’ve been facing.”

Harvard dining hall workers also spoke during the First Parish Church meeting, saying that they are fighting for a contract that benefits the entire University.

“We’re here tonight to make life better for everybody,” said Ed Childs, a chef in Adams House and a union official. “The problem is there are some people on the other side who do not want to make life better. But we intend to win because we intend to be united, workers, students, and faculty.”

Childs then proceeded to grab the hands of a student and a worker and raised them high, a symbol that would be repeated throughout the night, and drew thunderous applause from the audience.

Students also expressed support for the dining hall workers.

Undergraduate Council president Senan Ebrahim ’12 spoke about the symbiotic relationship between students and dining hall workers.

“Every time I’ve been in a dining hall, workers have had my back,” Ebrahim said. “Now, it’s our turn.”

SLAM member Naimonu A. James ’14 received a standing ovation from the energized attendees when she expressed SLAM’s dedication to the workers’ cause. With over 50 students standing behind her, James said, “No matter what this takes or how long it takes, we’re going to get this done, and we’re going to get each other through it.”

—Staff writer Mercer R. Cook can be reached at mcook@college.harvard.edu.

SLAM Rallies in Support of Workers

The Student Labor Action Movement has kicked off its sustainable jobs campaign to rally student support for University dining hall workers who will be re-negotiating their contracts in the coming year.

The campaign comes a week before Unite Here! Local 26, the union for Harvard University Hospitality and Dining Hall Services workers, plans to submit its contract proposal to the University.

For the campaign, SLAM has placed posters across campus that state SLAM’s demands for Harvard workers, which include greater job security and more access to full-time employment.

Read more »

Crimson - Workers Advocates March on Yard

Workers Advocates March on Yard

By TARA W. MERRIGAN, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Published: Friday, April 30, 2010

SIRUI LI

Christopher A. Johnson-Roberson ‘11 sings for more communication with workers in the Harvard community as he leads a procession of 30 across the Yard.

Strumming a banjo and guitar, two Harvard undergraduates led a band of 30 through Harvard Yard yesterday afternoon, stopping at various landmarks to air employee concerns and honor University staff.

The group—which included Harvard students, faculty, and staff—aimed to remind the Harvard community of the impact of last year’s layoffs on current employees, such as heavier work loads, said Neal J. Meyer ’11, a Crimson photographer and a member of the Harvard Student Labor Action Movement, which organized the event.

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Weekly Dig article on 4/29 Walk with Workers

Walk with Workers Celebrates Labor At Harvard and Beyond

By Remeike Forbes and Colette Perold

Cambridge — At 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 29, members of the Harvard and Cambridge communities will be gathering in Harvard Yard to celebrate a value overlooked on the Harvard campus during our period of rapid budget cuts: the dignity of human labor. The Harvard Student Labor Action Movement’s “Walk With Workers” is intended to demonstrate our community’s immense respect for Harvard’s labor,and to demand just treatment for Harvard’s workers as an integral part of said community.

Read more »

Protesters Highlight Health Concerns

Protesters Highlight Health Concerns

CRIMSON/ REBECCA J. MARGOLIES

Students and union activists protest layoffs and hours reductions for janitors in front of the Holyoke Center yesterday. They say that sanitation standards will slip, and health and safety will suffer as a result.
See more pictures for this story.

Published On Thursday, September 17, 2009 12:38 AM

By PETER F. ZHU
Crimson Staff Writer

Union activists and students at yesterday’s labor rally added to their tried-and-true repertoire of bullhorn blasting and sign waving to walk to Mass. Hall to deliver a modest gift to University President Drew G. Faust: a bag labeled “Get Well Harvard,” filled with cards from protesters.

But the gesture was not a sarcastic reference to the University’s recently-announced 30 percent drop in endowment value.

Instead, the cards left space for people to write “recommendations for a healthy Harvard,” and were intended to highlight a message—that the health of Harvard’s workers is deteriorating, and that the well-being of students and staff will suffer soon as well. Protesters argued that recent layoffs and hour reductions have left janitors with more to do in less time, and that sanitation standards will inevitably suffer—hurting the rest of the Harvard community.

“The first line of defense [against disease] is sanitation, and that’s the function of janitors,” said Daniel B. Becker, a union organizer who represents Harvard’s service workers.

A Harvard police officer accepted the gift bag and brought it into Mass. Hall, but it is unclear if Faust received the offering. Harvard spokesman Kevin Galvin declined to comment on the matter, saying only that he was “confident cleaning standards are being maintained” and that no Harvard-employed janitors have been laid off this summer.

But the University did slash work hours for over 100 of its own janitors in July, and numerous janitors it employs through outside firms—a group not addressed by Galvin’s statement—have been laid off in recent months as a result of reduced custodial budgets.

Abigail S. Brown ’11, a member of the Student Labor Action Movement, said that officials need to understand that there are “all sorts of people that make up Harvard and need to be recognized as valuable.” While yesterday’s actions were not intended to be conciliatory, Brown said SLAM would be employing various new strategies this year, hopefully embodying more “positive spin” than in the past.

“SLAM is not an anti-Harvard organization,” Brown reiterated.

But other attendees of the rally were more militant. Chanting repeatedly “No justice, no peace,” and “Harvard, escucha, estamos en la lucha” (Harvard, listen, we are in a fight), roughly 50 protesters picketed outside the Holyoke Center, denouncing what they called Harvard’s greed and calling for shared sacrifice by administrators. Geoff P. Carens, a Harvard librarian and union member who frequently organizes such vocal protests, ridiculed the University for saying that it was in the midst of a fiscal crisis and had to lay off workers when the endowment still stands at $26 billion.

“These people don’t know what a tough decision really is. They’ll never know what it’s like to struggle for something worthwhile,” shouted Bryan Koulouris, a member of advocacy group Socialist Alternative, to the gathered protestors. “That’s what this struggle’s about: It’s about solidarity.”

—Staff writer Peter F. Zhu can be reached at pzhu@fas.harvard.edu.

Sign the Petition!

The Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) has created an online petition. Please follow this link (http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/slam/petition5) and sign it! Here is the text:

Don't forget - Thursday, April 16, 4pm-6pm No Layoffs Rally at Holyoke Center in Harvard Square!

Petition Against Layoffs at Harvard

We, the undersigned, are concerned with Harvard University’s response to the economic crisis. We recognize that Harvard confronts a difficult challenge with a significant drop in the endowment announced in November 2008. However, Harvard remains the wealthiest university and one of the wealthiest non-profit organizations in the world. In this difficult moment, Harvard faces a choice: it can either use its wealth in order to strengthen the community — students, faculty, and workers together — or allow greed and fear to divide and erode our institution of higher learning. We call upon Harvard in these times to act, not out of a logic of fear, but out of a logic of courage and creativity. Laying off workers should be an absolute last resort, not a quick solution.

We ask Harvard to comply with the following demands...

1. We demand a meeting with the President, the Corporation, relevant University administrators, students, and staff in order to begin working together on creative and alternative solutions to layoffs.
2. We demand that Harvard suspends layoffs and recall all workers, full-time and temporary, laid off due to budget cuts since October 2008.
3. We demand that Harvard not reduce the hours of its workers putting them below a living wage.
4. We demand that Harvard not ask its remaining workers to do an unsafe amount of additional work due to the hiring freeze.
5. We demand that Harvard treat its workers with dignity and respect.