Waitresses Strike Against Square Regular

A heated and at times bitter six-month labor dispute pitting waitresses against management continues to plague Cronin's Restaurant in Harvard Square.

The incessant legal battle between James D. Cronin, the owner of the restaurant, and waitresses there has been waged in several courts; it was not until May 9 that the court actions regarding the labor dispute and related strike apparently came to an end.

The dispute began when waitresses picketed the restaurant on Mt. Auburn St. demanding that Cronin recognize the newly founded Harvard Square Waitresses Organizing Committee (HSWOC) as the sole and inclusive bargaining agent for the waitresses in his employ.

The waitresses--who conducted a four-day picketing action while working their usual shifts--won recognition of their union. Excited about their own first victory, the waitresses at Cronin's expressed hope that others employed by restaurants around the square would become members of the HSWOC.

Members also hoped that Mayor Barbara S. Ackermann (then Cambridge City Councilwoman), who had contacted Cronin and urged him to recognize HSWOC, would become permanent members of the new union.

The HSWOC waitresses optimistically entered negotiations with Cronin demanding:

*a wage increase from $1.10 per hour to a starting salary of $1.35 per hour which would rise to $1.50 per hour with seniority;

*time and a half for hours worked in excess of eight hours per day or forty hours per week;

*a 15 per cent tip included in the bill;

*a release from responsibility for unpaid checks;

*sick pay and health insurance;

*leaves of absence without loss of seniority;

*abolition of the uniform for which they must pay;

*a clause barring firing discrimination based on race, political activities, union activities or national origin;

*equal distribution of customers by number and protection by the management from harassment by customers.

However, six weeks of fruitless contract negotiations between HSWOC and Cronin ended in a strike.

"The negotiations weren't getting any of us anywhere," Patricia Welch, a waitress employed by Cronin and one of the founders of HSWOC, said. She said that after ten meetings, Cronin had agreed to sign only one minor detail of the 24-article contract proposed by the union. "Mr. Cronin never drew up a list of counter proposals as he had promised to do," she added.

Cronin said he was "totally surprised" by the strike. "I thought that we were making lots of progress in the negotiations," he said. Within the next week, Cronin fired the eight HSWOC-member striking waitresses, and obtained a restraining order forbidding them from picketing.

Ann Erdmann, a striking waitress, said the only reason given by Cronin for the dismissal was that the waitresses were guilty of "conduct while on duty which is prejudicial to Cronin's Restaurant, Inc." However, the waitresses contended that Cronin had fired them as a result of their participation in the strike.

The restraining order was based primarily on Cronin's allegation that the picketing was illegal because the wage increase being sought by the waitresses was higher than the amount allowed by the wage-price freeze.

Cronin also charged the waitresses with harassment of customers, forcibly keeping customers from entering the restaurant, and threatening other employees who wished to work.

During the week following its issuance, Kathi Allen and Stephen R. Domesick, attorneys for HSWOC, twice appealed the restraining order. The motion was denied on both occasions. A few days after the issuance of the restraining order, Cronin filed a contempt charge. He claimed that waitresses continued to picket the restaurant following the issuance of the restraining order on Tuesday, February 1.

Erdmann countered the charge saying: "Those (people) who continued to picket after Tuesday--who have been charged by Cronin to be agents for the waitresses--are merely citizens who are concerned with the plight of the waitresses."

Following the second appeal denial, the HSWOC attorneys filed papers to remove the case from state to federal court. The basis of that request was that the restraining order was founded in the federal wage-price freeze. HSWOC argued that the negotiation for higher wages was not in conflict with the terms of the wage-price freeze if the actual wage hike would not go into effect until after the freeze had ceased.

At a hearing on the morning of February 9--at which the HSWOC had been scheduled to show cause why it was not guilty of contempt of the restraining order--Judge Frank W. Tomesello of the Superior Court of Middlesex County extended indefinitely the restraining order forbidding picketing. He also postponed all further procedures in state court until the issue of proper jurisdiction in the case was settled in federal court.

That afternoon, Judge Anthony Julian of the Federal District Court for eastern Massachusetts ruled that jurisdiction in the case involving the right of waitresses at Cronin's Restaurant to picket lies exclusively in federal court. Julian also ruled that a written stipulation by James C. Gahan, Jr., '34, Cronin's attorney, permitting peaceful picketing would sufficiently "cover" the earlier restraining order by clarifying the right of the HSWOC members to resume picketing.

The waitresses returned to the picket line the next morning. More than 20 other groups participated in the picket line. Those groups included Cambridge Ministers, the Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee, Women for Action against Sexism, SDS, and the Adams House Collective.

The federal court soon remanded the case to the state court. Back in Middlesex Superior Court, Cronin persisted in his endeavor to obtain a preliminary injunction barring the waitresses from picketing the restaurant.

The legal battle continued, and charges were exchanged. On March 2 the battle ended; the Middlesex Superior Court denied Cronin's plea for a preliminary injunction against further picketing.

The decision declared that the waitresses had every right to continue peaceful picketing, including asking potential customers not to eat in Cronin's. However, it directed a special admonition that the waitresses must not engage in unlawful picket activities, particularly by blocking the door to the restaurant or using "vile and abusive language" against customers crossing the picket line.

At the conclusion of his summation argument, prior to the decision, Gahan said: "Mr. Cronin is this year's target for certain groups in and around Harvard Square... This (the trial and the strike) has been a real nightmare for Mr. and Mrs. Cronin." Cronin himself had testified that the strike had cut his business by at least 65 per cent and was costing him about $11,000 a month.

And again the waitresses returned to the picket line. Cronin refused to reinstate the waitresses at an informal hearing arranged by the Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission.

More recently, striking waitresses met with Ackermann and presented her with charges that Cronin's Restaurant violates the state sanitary codes. At the meeting the waitresses said that David Harris president of the Cambridge Civic Association had agreed to sit on a committee to mediate the strike. Ackermann said she would be willing to sit on a committee to investigate the breakdown of negotiations between Cronin and the HSWOC.

Although Ackerman refused to say whether she supported the strike against Cronin's she contended that "people are entitled to organize, and waitresses in general are underpaid."

Erdmann said that the group had approached Ackermann because they felt the mayor would have a special interest in the working conditions of women. "She's not a stupid woman," Erdmann said. "She can see when people are using connections to circumvent the law."

The five-month old strike continues with no apparent end in sight. But the waitresses maintain that they are determined to be reinstated and to negotiate their demands with Cronin.