PSLM Wants Faster Reforms

More than a month after Harvard janitors ratified a contract to increase their hourly wages to at least $11.35, roughly 50 members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) and supporters crowded outside Holyoke Center yesterday to call for the University to speed up implementation of the wage hikes.

Amidst sounds of bullhorns, chanted slogans and makeshift drums, PSLM members said subcontracted janitors had yet to receive their negotiated wage increases.

The Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies (HCECP)’s recommendations, adopted largely by University President Lawrence H. Summers, required that “parity” be established between the wages of Harvard employees and subcontracted workers with similar jobs.

“We’ve asked these subcontractors to pay the negotiated wages and they still haven’t,” said former PSLM member and current SEIU employee Aaron D. Bartley.

But according to Marilyn D. Touborg, spokesperson for the Office of Human Resources (OHR), the implementation of the wage raises is moving along quickly.

Touborg said the OHR has developed a plan of how to implement the parity wages and benefits and is now awaiting approval of the plan by Harvard’s 12 different schools.

“It is a question of adapting language that would be adopted for all contractors of a certain size,” Touborg said. “Each department or school will have to negotiate to ensure that this new language is included.”

Touborg also said that since the subcontracted janitor’s wages will be be retroactive to May 2001, any delay in implementation will not cost workers any money.

UNICCO, the University’s largest subcontractor, is also moving along in the implemenation process.

“We agree with parity, it’s just a case of settling the language,” says UNICCO spokesperson Greg Soucy.

A Great Place To Work?

The University has also recently begun a survey of Harvard employees on working conditions and employee satisfaction.

The “Great Place to Work Survey” was originally administered to a portion of the University workforce in 1999. Starting last month, some of the University’s schools have begun to administer the survey once again.

While many of the University’s schools are currently participating in the survey, some of the largest schools—including the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Business School—are not.

OHR spokesperson Henry Ryan said the rest of the University’s schools would conduct these surveys in the fall.

According to Ryan, the survey on employee satisfaction will not be given to subcontracted workers.

“You want people who are invested in the place they work at,” Ryan said. “If you don’t have a vested interest in the place you work at it can chage your view.”

But Minsu Longiaru, a law school student and member of the Worker’s Center, a coalition of students and workers from different unons and subcontractors, said she objects to Ryan’s argument. “Based on the subcontracted workers that the Worker’s Center have relationships with, workers for subcontracting companies like UNICCO defintely consider themselves as prt of this university’s community and contributing to that commuity,” Longiaru said.

Claims of Intimidation

At yesterday’s protest, PSLM members also said workers who have been active with labor issues in the recent negotiations are being intimidated by their supervisors.

They said three of the ten employees who were on the committee that negotiated new custodial contracts have been suspended or moved to a different worksite since the contract was signed on Feb. 27.

One member of the committee, Frank Morley—who was arrested for an act of civil disobediance during the union negotiations—said he was suspended from work the week after the contract was signed.

Morley, who is a subcontracted employee of Hurley’s of America, works as a janitor at the Littauer Building.

He said that throughout the University’s negotiations with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 254, SEIU would call Hurley’s to let the employer know each time Morley left work early for negotiations.

Morley said he was suspended from work for three days on the day the union voted to ratify the new contract—although he said the union had notified his employer. When SEIU threatened to file a grievance, Morley said, Hurley’s of America paid him for the three days.

Morley, who has been a custodian for more than 30 years and worked at Harvard since 1997, questioned the timing of the suspension.

“I’ve never been suspended at any job and all of a sudden I’m being suspended?” he said.

Hurley’s of America could not be reached for comment.

Wilson Sinclaire, a Harvard custodian who was part of the negotiating committee and active during last year’s Mass. Hall sit-in, said he has also had trouble with management since the new contract was negotiated.

Just two weeks ago, he was moved from his job at Adams House to work in buildings at the Soldiers Field Athletic Complex.

“I think it’s a game of them trying to punish those who fight against Harvard management,” Sinclaire said.

Sinclaire, who was moved to Adams House after working at the Harvard Law School for 12 years, said he had enjoyed the year in Adams.

“You’re in the middle of things, all the students know you. Maybe that’s why they moved me, because I know too many students,” he quipped.

But Augusto Arevalo, the custodial supervisor for the Facilities Maintenance Organization said that moving Sinclaire had nothing to do with his union activities.

“We encourage him to participate in the union,” Arevalo said. “Some of the issues we have are with his job performance, but other than that, there are no issues with him participating in the union.”

—Staff writer Joseph P. Flood can be reached at flood@fas.harvard.edu.