After Latino Layoffs, Forum Eyes Racism

Students, University employees, and union representatives met last night for a community forum that aimed “to address racism in the Harvard workplace.” The Harvard Coalition for Respect and Equality for Workers, the Student Labor Action Movement, Fuerza Latina, and the Latino Men’s Collective gathered in Emerson Hall for the event.

The Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology rescinded its layoffs of four Latino workers late last month after the workers charged that they were fired from their animal cage-cleaning jobs on account of their ethnicity.

Although Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesman Robert Mitchell, in a brief phone interview yesterday, said he had no new information on the inquiry into the animal cage-cleaning workers’ allegations, forum organizers say their concerns aren’t allayed.

Those four workers, accompanied by six other Latino employees, took the stage to describe what they say are specific instances of racism experienced on the job. They said that Spanish had been banned in the workplace and that a coworker had sprayed their food with Fantastik cleaner.

As the workers left the stage, the crowd broke out into chants of “Si se puede,” Spanish for “we can do it.”

Speakers at the forum—including Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics John Womack Jr., two union representatives, and the workers—sought to turn the audience’s attention toward “institutional racism,” rather than just focusing on individual layoffs.

“Harvard is a great big company,” Womack said. “The only thing [workers] can trust is their own power of all kinds.”

The student moderator, Jose G. Olivarez ’10, said the forum was not just a show of support for the “workers at the Bio labs who were facing layoffs,” but also a show of support “for all the workers and all the students who have ever faced discrimination.”

“Solidarity is the key and that’s the only way we’re going to win,” said Phebe C. Eckfeldt, a representative from Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers. “We need to continue to fight for the victory of the [animal care] workers because it will be victory for all of us.”

Audience members were encouraged to sign a petition before leaving, which had amassed 272 signatures at the end of the night.