Striking has a long and venerable history in America, and though union membership has shrunk in the last few decades, the demonstrable power of the strike has not. One need only look to the baseball strike of 1994 or the United Parcel Service strike in the summer of 1997 to see how persuasive a strike can be to recalcitrant management.

Harvard janitors, it must be admitted, are not multi-millionaire athletes. However, just like the UPS workers or the baseball players, without them we would be hard pressed to get by. No more swept hallways, no more empty trash, no more clean bathrooms; a catalogue of ills would materialize if the janitors stopped working.

So why didn’t the janitors threaten to strike?

It seemed like prime time when negotiations with Harvard University threatened to collapse over pay and health benefits earlier this week. The Service Employees International Union Local 254 (SEIU) and Harvard had, during the six-week long negotiations, already settled some of the issues, such as overtime pay, vacation and sick leave, but stalled over the essentials: starting wages and health insurance.

The impasse had even provoked the union into civil disobedience. On Tuesday, nine union supporters were arrested in Harvard Square for blocking traffic. But still, not even a whisper of a strike.

There is a deceptively simple explanation for why the janitors did not made plans to walk out: Their contract prevented them from doing so.

So-called “no strike” clauses are a common feature of labor contracts these days. Harvard has no strike clauses in almost all its labor contracts, according to the University’s chief labor negotiator David Jones. The SEIU blanket contract for Massachusetts also has a provision against striking during the term of the contract.

Of course, if and when the contract expires, the workers are released from the no strike clause and may picket or strike if they so desire. Jones said in an interview that the no strike clause was simply there to “ensure labor peace during the term of the contract.”

All this sounds innocuous enough, and yet the janitors’ renegotiations demonstrate how pernicious no strike clauses can be. The last contract the janitors made was negotiated by a union that was so notoriously corrupt it was put under international trusteeship in 2001. The more robust union representing the janitors today wanted to renegotiate that contract early, and it was able to do so as a result of the labor demonstrations last spring. But since the negotiations were conducted nine months before the old contract was fit to expire, the no strike clause was firmly in effect, limiting the union’s bargaining chips. Harvard opened Wednesday’s negotiation session by reminding union representatives of the contract’s provision against strikes or pickets; a warning to the union against escalating their protests.

Furthermore, Harvard’s no strike clause is sufficiently vague that it now prevents “boycotts, picketing or any other direct or indirect interference with the University’s operations.” The clause’s wording therefore prohibits even sympathy picketing against UNICCO, a cleaning services contractor which has been involved in labor disputes around the country.

The strike is the essential tool of labor; it is the reason that hundreds or thousands of individually powerless individuals can exact just compensation from practically omnipotent institutions. The reason that Harvard wants to prevent its workers from striking—because a walk-out would paralyze the community—is precisely why workers must retain the right to do so. Without the strike, or at least the threat of one, labor negotiations are necessarily heavily weighted on the side of the employer.

The janitors concluded negotiations with the University on Wednesday, accepting an $11.35 starting wage that would be increased to $13.50 by 2005. This was far below the $13.40 starting wage first demanded by the union. The contract has some major accomplishments; the new health insurance plan does not require worker contributions and Harvard has agreed to offer parity wages to its non-union janitors. Still, if Tuesday’s civil disobedience had the effect the union claims it did—of embarrassing Harvard into accepting union demands—one wonders how much the union sacrificed in wage hikes because they could not threaten a strike.

According to Jones, the SEIU voluntarily abandoned its efforts to change the wording of the no strike clause four weeks into negotiations. If this is true, the union made a big mistake. The SEIU should make it a priority to modify the striking ban in future contracts so they have the most freedom of protest possible. It is only through retaining the power to protest that Harvard workers will be able to achieve the promises of the Katz Committee. As should now be abundantly clear, power—not principle—speaks to the Harvard Corporation.

Meredith B. Osborn ’02 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.