Latino Workers Decry ‘Hostility’

In a meeting at Phillip Brooks House last night, students devised plans, such as November teach-ins and a December rally, to support several Latino employees of Harvard who claimed they were notified last month that they would be laid off in January.

A flyer written by one of the affected employees alleged that the Office of Animal Resources (OAR) said it would fire four Latino animal technicians in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB). The flyer also alleged that OAR has a “history of hostility...towards Latino workers.”

At last night’s meeting—the second one on this topic—three of the four workers and members of their families, over ten undergraduates, one graduate student, and two union representatives formed the Harvard Coalition for Respect and Equality at Work (CREW).

One of the workers, Jaime Moreno, who said he has been employed as an animal technician at Harvard for nine years, described instances of workplace discrimination, such as lack of promotion of Latino workers, prohibition on the use of Spanish, and segregation at workers’ meetings and functions.

OAR Director Arthur L. Lage and some Human Resources administrators could not be reached through calls to their offices yesterday and e-mails sent late last night.

At the meeting, CREW devised a list of demands that included an apology and reparations from Harvard, a joint union-management investigation into workplace discrimination, union control over hiring management, and equal access to hiring and promotion opportunities.

The participants also laid out plans to hold multiple teach-ins on Nov. 30 and a public demonstration near MCB labs on Divinity Ave. on Dec. 7.

They discussed strategies to gain support from campus organizations, such as Student Labor Action Movement and the Latino student groups.

One of the meeting’s organizers, Jose G. Olivarez ’10, who was wearing a button that said “Stand for Security!”—a reference he said to security guard unionization, which was permitted earlier this month—said, “it’s important to fight all injustices.”

A representative of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, Geoff Carens, said at the meeting, “group action in the street—I think that’s what it’s going to take.”