About 25 janitors and students urged the University to grant its janitors more benefits and job security at a rally in front of the Holyoke Center last Friday afternoon.

The rally was sponsored by the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the union to which Harvard janitors belong.

The protesters asked Harvard for more full-time jobs and respect for seniority rights.

For months, janitors have complaining that full-time positions have been denied to workers with many years of service under their belts and given to others who hadn’t been here as long.

Daniel Mejia, a chief steward for SEIU at Harvard, said that the university has not fulfilled its contractual obligation to provide more full-time jobs.

“In three years time, Harvard was obligated to ensure that 50 percent of the jobs on campus be full time, but they’re not doing it,” said Mejia, speaking through a translator. “They have only made around 30 percent full time and that is not the contract.”

Marilyn D. Touborg, director of communications for Harvard’s Office of Human Resources, said the lack of full-time positions for all janitors who want them is due to low attrition rates rather than any violations on the University’s part.

“The process [of establishing full-time jobs] has been slowed during the last period of time during which there were very, very few open jobs, there was very little turnover,” Touborg said.

Though the janitor’s contract is not under negotiation now, Touborg said University officials and union representatives meet regularly to iron out problems.

Seniority is a difficult issue to deal with, she added, saying that union members and University labor relations officials have different ideas of how seniority should be weighted.

To resolve these types of issues, she said, Harvard has encouraged a period of arbitration.

“Those are the kinds of things that are discussed in an ongoing fashion with all of our unions. Those are issues that are being raised through the proper channels,” Touborg said. “The union understands very well that there’s been

very few opportunities to gain jobs and that we are acting in accordance to what we agreed to in our contract.”

Mejia said that at least one case of physical abuse was also among the union’s complaints.

“A supervisor pushed a certain worker and the Harvard administration has not wanted to hear anything about it,” he said.