Brown Aftermath

THE RECENTLY RESOLVED Brown University library workers' strike, the arrest of eleven students who participated in a pro-strike demonstration last month, and the Brown administration's blind and foolish handling of the two problems have left scars on the Brown campus far deeper than those caused by the school's financial woes which set the ball rolling in the first place.

Last week the administration finally--and prudently--relented in the case of the arrested students. After nearly a month of preparation, marked by repeated threats that it would introduce previously undisclosed evidence and call unannounced witnesses, the administration backed down on the night of the disciplinary hearing before Brown's University Committee on Student Affairs.

The administration's decision not to push for the punishment of the students was yet another example of the type of behavior that has led to fitful progress on the various problems that have beset the university during the past several months. Faculty and student outcry against the administration's lethargy in settling the strike, and its insistence on making an example of the arrested students, had intensified as the month of October dragged on, with no resolution of the conflict in sight.

The administration, whose only apparent concern throughout the strike has been the avoidance of negative publicity, quickly relented. Placed in what it considered an untenable position, it withdrew all but one of its witnesses from the UCSA hearing last week, and allowed the panel to clear the students without any real challenge.

The administration's behavior in resolving the strike itself has been deplorable, however. It has consistently shown its disdain for its employees by refusing to bargain with them in good faith, by rejecting even their lowest-level wage demands, and by simply refusing to negotiate until the union representing the 60 striking workers agreed in advance to accept the university wage offer. Because of administration's anti-union, anti-worker stance, the workers were forced to accept a wage settlement and back-to-work conditions considerably less favorable than those they had hoped for. Three months of picketing, with unprecedented student and faculty support, were rendered meaningless.

The wage settlement actually reached--a six per cent wage increase coupled with a $100 bonus--is pitifully inadequate and does not even cover the rate of nationwide price inflation. It represents a figure rejected by the union during last year's contract negotiations, and was accepted only because the university had threatened the workers with "permanent replacement" if they did not immediately return to their jobs.

Brown's administration will face a number of problems in the future stemming directly from the way in which it handled the strike and strike-related developments. Speaking in defense of the arrested students at last week's UCSA hearing, Philip Bray, professor of Physics at Brown, called for a "clearing out" of administrators who "lack compassion and understanding of the problems of a university community." The implementation of Bray's suggestion would be a needed start in the right direction.