Arrest 30 Students
For Mass Picketing

Hold B. C. Men & Women Who
       Aid Striking Employees
              of Dean Cafeteria

GIRLS TO BE TRIED TODAY

       Sixteen Boys, Fourteen Girls
               Released in Custody
                      Of Lawyer

            Thirty Brooklyn College students were arrested on charges of "gang picketing" and "obstructing traffic" when they formed it a mass picket line in front of Dean's Cafeteria, 577 Fulton Street yesterday and Wednesday noon.

            Fourteen students were arraigned yesterday; the seven girls at the eighty-sixth precinct at Marcy and Gates Avenues, and the boys at the Adolescent Court at Smith and Schermerhorn Streets under Judge Mason. They were booked on the charges of disorderly conduct, but were immediately paroled in the custody of their lawyer.

            The magistrate, however, decided to subpoena the parents and acquaint them with the students' activities, because the defendants are mostly under twenty-one years of age.

            A group of thirty students marched in front of the cafeteria shouting "Dean's workers are on strike! Do not eat at Deans!" Although there is no injunction against mass picketing, six policemen were stationed near the cafeteria when the students arrived.

            The police suddenly seized fourteen students, confining them in the patrol wagon. Two others, seeing the arrests, made signs reading "Brooklyn College students support Dean strikers." They were also arrested, and their signs were torn up and held as evidence.

            The seven girls are being tried this morning at the Gates and Marcy Avenue station, while the nine boys are coming up for trial an Monday morning at ten at Smith and Schermerhorn Streets. They were released :n the custody of Joseph Tauber, attorney tar the International Labor Defense, who is defending all thirty. The students charge that they were mistreated and that two of them were assaulted by the police in the courtroom. They claim thaat they observed the "six foot" law and did not obstruct traffic. It is still legal to have mass picketing where no injunction has been issued the students claimed.

            The picket line was called by the National Student League, unchartered campus group, in support of the striking countermen, waitresses, and bus boys of the cafeteria, who are demanding recognition of the Food Workers Industrial Union and a substantial wage increase. The NRA provides for twelve dollars for unskilled labor, but skilled workers in Dean's were getting only ten and a half dollars.

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May 20, 2004