Union Organizing Efforts

For more than a decade the small Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) has been waging a losing battle to organize Harvard's 4000 support staff in the face of University opposition. But this year--despite the fact that the University has won almost every past unionizing battle--HUCTW leaders say they are ready to win the war.

The renewed confidence is largely due to the backing the HUCTW received this winter from the AFL-CIO's largest union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). The national endorsement has brought the Harvard labor movement financial support, research assistance and the right to be called the "premier organizing drive for [AFSCME] across the U.S."

AFSCME hopes to make HUCTW a symbol of the new kind of white-collar organizing that unions will face in the eighties. But leaders of HUCTW, which began its organizing drive in the early seventies in the Medical Area, say they are still relying on the same grassroots techniques they have used for the last 16 years.

Organizers hope that this grassroots style will provide the one-on-one contact necessary to achieve a majority of support throughout Harvard, a legal requirement before HUCTW can be recognized as an official bargaining unit. With the help of AFSCME's money, resources and publicity, organizers are confident that the local union which has been a thorn in the side of the University's central administration will finally achieve success this fall.

"It is truly a grassroots movement and it is successful because it is one-on-one," says Thomas Kiley, the head partner of a Boston polling company that has worked with AFSCME for a decade.

To establish and maintain a sense among Harvard workers that their union will be a friend and supporter, HUCTW leaders say that the union must maintain its own autonomy despite its national backing. They add that AFSCME has been wise not to meddle excessively in the local operation.

"AFSCME has a great deal of respect for Kris [Rondeau, HUCTW leader,] and does not want to intrude on the autonomy of the organization," said Kiley.

In the past HUCTW has been at odds with another national union, the United Auto Workers (UAW). Leaders of the local union broke off from UAW, which now maintains a separate Harvard organizing effort. Leaders of HUCTW say their relationship with AFSCME has been much more amicable.

"When AFSCME decided to reach out to us they were impressed with our confidence and ability to win," says Rondeau, who added that HUCTW makes the strategic and timing decisions for the campaign, while AFSCME provides any help requested.

Because the movement to organize Harvard's workers is not focused on one particular issue or grievance, union leaders are stressing their autonomy as a major theme, union labor experts and union leaders say. "The campaign is all about the issue of personal dignity, not one particular issue," Kiley says.

The University holds that workers will not vote for a union because there are not significant grievances, Director of Personnel Daniel Cantor says. But labor experts, union leaders and many workers say that the HUCTW effort transcends simple grievances and addresses the issue of empowerment, which is criticial factor underlying any specific grievance.

As a recent HUCTW letter to University officials put it, "We are not organizing against Harvard, we are organizing for ourselves."

One pro-union secretary in Holyoke Center says that she has no personal grievances, enjoys her job and gets along well with her supervisors--but she supports the union as an effective representative for worker concerns in general.

"The union provides a voice for a lot of people who want to speak up, but don't now," says the secretary, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The recent publicity surrounding the AFSCME support has increased worker awareness about the campaign. Whether workers have decided to back the union or not, they now know it's there. Most support staff are approached by HUCTW organizers about once a month, and most are aware of whom the chief organizer in their working area is.

The heightened awareness has paid off in increased support for HUCTW. In March, about a month after the affiliation with AFSCME, union leaders said almost 400 new supporters had signed on to support the union.

Union leaders have said in the past that they will call for an election when they garner the support of a majority of workers in each of 22 organizing areas on campus and when the organizing commttee is built up to 600. Officials have predicted a late fall election.

One worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says that just in the last three months "people who support the union, have all started coming out of the woodwork."

This staff member attributed the heightened support to the organizers' constant contact with employees. "They persisted week after week, and after a while we said, 'What's the story, tell me about it."'

Leslie Sullivan, who founded the independent organizing drive in the Medical Area that has grown into HUCTW, says since she left the effort in 1981 there has been an increase in one-to-one outreach efforts. Now there is an organizing committee in each of the 22 organizing areas across campus and "a real understanding on the part of the workers what the union is," she says.

Charles Heckscher, assistant professor at the Business School and specialist in labor, says "each organizing area has strong leadership and support."

Labor experts say that the HUCTW drive is a symbol for heightened efforts nationwide to organize white collar workers, especially in universities and service industries.

"The Harvard debate is on the cutting edge of post-industrial life, how we decide to organize ourselves," says Ralph Whitehead, a public service professor at the University of Massachusetts.

"The HUCTW campaign is very symbolic for the labor movement because Harvard is a decentralized work place, heavily populated by white collar and service workers, a lot of autonomy in the workplace and not necessarily much respect," says Heckscher."

Last month HUCTW accomplished a feat that has stumped the other unions at the University--drawing together all seven Harvard unions into a coalition, to work together and show solidarity in the case of a strike. Union experts see this unprecedented move as a testament to HUCTW's successful organizing strategies.

"Unions don't work well together, normally they aren't compatible," says Heckscher. "For this to happen is quite impossible and a very positive sign."

But despite the union's recent victories, it still faces some major obstacles. The support staff undergoes a tremendously high turnover rate, about 25 percent a year, and most staff leave in the summer.

While HUCTW will no doubt lose some of itssupporters from this departing group, Rondeau isoptimistic about the prospects for winning overthe newly hired staff and for retaining adisproportionate share of union supporters, whowill choose to stay at Harvard for the election.

Over the summer HUCTW plans to organize fasterthan the turnover, Rondeau says. HUCTW will expandits group of full-time organizers, from 10 to 16.

The main block to the organizing drive could bethe anti-union efforts of the administration.During past election drives in the Medical Area,the University ran a "viscious anti-unioncampaign," Sullivan says. Employees were"inundated" with anti-union material and invitedto meetings with Harvard's top administrators,which "created an atmosphere of tension andanxiety."

This fall the University will voice itsopposition to the union effort, as it has for 15years, by talking to supervisors and trying tobring the administration's position to workers,Cantor says.

Last month HUCTW sent a letter to allsupervisors and administrators requestingneutrality. Cantor says the University will"absolutely not" abide by HUCTW's request forneutrality.

"The union can say whatever they wish," Cantorsays. "That's not neutrality. Neutrality isreached when both sides state their case and theelectorate considers all the facts and reaches adecision."

Harvard has responsed to increased unionactivity with some bureacratic maneuvering. Theveteran of several union battles, Vice Presidentand General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54,relinquished his labor duties which have now beenpicked up by Vice President for AdministrationRobert Scott.

University officials say the change marks nopolicy shift, but Rondeau contends that Steiner,who has been victorious in his anti-union effortsin the past, may be "getting out now, while thegettin's good.