Harvard U. Reaches Tentative Pact With Janitors, Clarifies Policy on Protests By AUDREY Y. WILLIAMS
Harvard University has tentatively settled a contract dispute with its janitors that will pay them $11.35 an hour, ending a long-standing debate that prompted sit-ins last spring. The settlement comes the same week that the university announced a new interpretation of its policy on campus protests that is designed to discourage such disruptions in the future.
The settlement, which comes after six weeks of negotiations, will give more than 700 janitors slightly more than the hourly wage of $10.83 to $11.30 that a special committee recommended in December for low-wage workers. Janitors who have worked at Harvard for at least three years would earn $11.50 an hour, under the agreement reached between the university and the Service Employees International Union Local 254, which represents Harvard's janitors. The higher wages are retroactive to May 15, 2001.
The agreement also calls for benefits that include short-term disability for part-time workers and access to health care for janitors who work as few as 16 hours a week, said David A. Jones, Harvard's lead negotiator and director of the university's office of labor and employee relations.
Janitors can look for annual wage increases through 2005, the university's president, Lawrence H. Summers, said in a statement. The raises would bring their pay to at least $13.50 an hour at the end of the agreement.
"We characterize it as one significant step for Harvard and one giant leap for the Harvard work force," Mr. Jones said.
Officials of the union could not be reached for comment. Its members will vote on the agreement today.
Earlier this week, the janitor negotiations were marked by the arrests of nine students, workers, and labor officials who protested by blocking traffic in front of Harvard's Office of Labor and Employee Relations.
On Thursday, the university took a stance that could make students think twice about employing such protest tactics, especially sit-ins like the one outside of the president's office that lasted three weeks last year.
The university released an official "interpretation" of its policy on protests and demonstrations, making it clear that it is "unacceptable" for students to occupy a Harvard building and disrupt the university's normal activity. The statement also recommends that students who participate in sit-ins at the campus be suspended.
Harvard's original policy was adopted in 1970 after students took over University Hall, which houses the offices of several deans, the year before. Thursday's statement says that Harvard is committed to allowing all members of the university to "express their views freely and vigorously," but it also wants to make sure that people on campus "carry out their normal duties and activities in support of the university's mission without interference or constraint by others.
Some students were upset by the administration's interpretation, which was adopted by Harvard's governing boards.
"It's outrageous that they wouldn't involve the whole community in some sort of consultative process," Benjamin L. McKean, a participant in last spring's sit-in, told The Harvard Crimson.