Not everybody at the rally was in agreement, however.
During a speech on the value of negotiations and persistence by Danny Meagher, president of the Harvard University Security, Parking and Museum Guards Union, a student member of the Workers’ Vanguard shouted out that the group had no business taking part in the labor rally.
“Security is no friend of the workers’ union,” he said. “We think it’s really outrageous that these agents of the capitalist state are being treated as fellow workers. Their inclusion is a knife into the heart of organized labor.”
Meagher responded by saying that although security are sometimes charged with breaking up strikes and putting down demonstrations, they “have the same right to decent living and dignity as anyone else.”
As Meagher spoke, a few of the police officers guarding Mass. Hall nodded in agreement.
—Staff writer Leon Neyfakh can be reached at neyfakh@fas.harvard.edu.