ANNALS OF LABOR Providence janitor claims assault by supervisor BY IAN DONNIS

For supporters of organized labor, Luis DaSilva’s story sounds like something from a bygone and less enlightened era. The Providence janitor, a 25-year-old Brazilian immigrant, says a supervisor at Martins Maintenance, upset that DaSilva had spoken with the Service Employees International Union, Local 615, assaulted him on Friday, November 25, and threatened to send someone to cut off his legs.

A man who answered the phone at East Providence-based Martins Maintenance says company owner Manuel Martins Jr. was unavailable to comment since he was out of town on vacation, and that no one else could speak for the company.

Local 615, which launched an effort to organize Providence janitors earlier this year, has previously said that Martins Maintenance threatened to fire employees if they are seen speaking to SEIU organizers. In an October interview, Martins, who described employing four part-time workers at the Turks Head Building in downtown Providence, denied the union’s allegations and called them "completely false."

On Monday afternoon, a throng of more than 35 labor supporters gathered by the steps in front of City Hall to lend solidarity as DaSilva, who resides in Cranston, told his story through a translator. After being called into the Turks Head Building and defending his right to speak with organizers, he says, a supervisor grabbed him by his shirt, threw him against a wall, and threatened him with bodily harm. The supervisor told other janitors that DaSilva was responsible for any consequences they might face, DaSilva says, adding that he was fired and denied a paycheck for his final two weeks of work. His sister, Maria Luisa, was also subsequently fired.

Local 615 president Rocio Saenz, the Reverend Raymond Tetrault of St. Teresa’s Church in Olneyville, and city councilors Luis Aponte and Miguel Luna were among the speakers who used the City Hall gathering to say that the treatment described by DaSilva will not be tolerated. Aponte, for example, said he was personally and politically committed to conveying the message to Martins, "We’re not going to let you do that in Providence."

With DaSilva citing concerns for the safety of himself and four siblings in the area, supporters were slated to hold vigils by the Turks Head Building on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 5:30 pm to 11 pm. A rally and march in recognition of Rosa Parks’s legacy of struggle for civil rights was slated for Thursday at 5 pm at Kennedy Plaza.

While efforts to organize Providence’s janitors are ongoing, labor supporters can take encouragement from how, as the New York Times reported in a front-page story on Monday, union organizers say they have gathered majority support in one of the largest unionization drive in the South in decades, compiling the signatures of thousands of janitors in Houston. If such strides can be made in a region historically inhospitable to labor, it should be considerably easier to move forward in a labor bastion like Rhode Island.