Court Says Police Cannot Interrupt Janitors’ March : Labor: A restraining order is issued to allow a peaceful demonstration on behalf of strikers. A previous Century City protest ended in violence.

A Santa Monica Superior Court judge on Friday issued a temporary restraining order that restricts the Los Angeles Police Department’s ability to interrupt a march planned in Century City next week by supporters of striking janitors.

The order by Judge Richard Harris said police may not prevent demonstrators “from peacefully assembling on public sidewalks” in Century City as long as marchers “obey all traffic and other laws.”

On June 15 police made a last-minute decision to cut off a march by the strikers and about 300 supporters, who were headed from a park in Beverly Hills to office towers on Century Park East, where the strikers worked until they walked out May 29.

After the marchers refused a police order to disperse, police attempted to drive them back with clubs. Forty people were arrested and 16 injured.

The Service Employees International Union, representing the janitors, is planning to repeat the march Thursday.

In defending their decision to halt last week’s march, police did not say the march had gotten out of control. Rather, they said they had received intelligence reports that the marchers planned to dump trash at the office towers and to disrupt traffic. Attorneys for the marchers said stopping the march on those grounds represented prior restraint of free expression.

Union attorney Dan Stormer said Harris’ ruling means police “can’t stop the march for purposes of stopping legitimate protest.”

Assistant City Atty. Linda Lefkowitz, who represented the Police Department, said the order “doesn’t require anything on the part of city or Police Department that it wouldn’t do anyway.” She said the department opposed the order because “the city was making every attempt to open lines of communication with the unions so all (future) demonstrations would proceed peaceably.”

About half of the 180 janitors in a dozen Century City office buildings are striking over alleged unfair labor practices by International Service System, a huge cleaning company. Janitors are seeking a union contract that would boost wages by about $1 an hour for workers who now make about $4.50 an hour. Negotiations to settle the strike took place in New York this week between union and International Service System officials.