Picketers Seeking Touraine Boycott

Fifteen members of Cambridge's Peace and Freedom Party and SDS picketed Touraine's Harvard Square store Tuesday and Wednesday in support of a strike against the Outlet Company of Providence, Touraine's owner. Not Touraine employees jointed the pickets.

The protestors handed out leaflets outside Touraine that asked prospective customers to boycott the store. The leaflets accused the Outlet Company of underpaying its employees and using terrorism to break the strike in Providence.

William Ehrlich '25 of Touraine's main office in Braintree claimed yesterday that the picketing at the store has not decreased the number of purchases or total receipts. Picketers maintain they have turned away one-third to one-half of the customers. One customer entered the store saying, "I'm going to shop here just because of you people."

Protestors said that one girl involved in organizing student support was temporized by two men who broke into her apartment. Ehrlich denied that Outlet had any connection with the incident. Employees of Outlet had in fact complained that the strikers were terrorizing non-strikers, Ehrlich said.

Touraine stores is an autonomous company whose stock is owned by Outlet. Outside of yearly report, the company has no contact with Outlet, Ehrlich said.

"Touraine has no labor problem. Peace and freedom is merely an outside group trying to put pressure on Outlet," he said.