The NLRB Decision

THE UNFORTUNATE DECISION rendered in the long-deadlocked unionizing dispute between Harvard and Medical Area District 65 by regional NLRB director Robert Fuchs last month represents a disappointing setback in the long-standing efforts of workers in the Medical area to achieve union representation.

Fuchs's final decision, currently under appeal to Washington by District 65, denied the union's request to held an election aimed at organizing the Medical area and supported Harvard's contention that the clerical and technical workers involved should seek representation in a larger, University-wide bargaining unit.

The regional director repeatedly attempted to send the unprecedented case to NLRB in Washington, but ultimately succumbed to pressure from the Washington board to render a decision which he was unwilling to make. By refusing to refer the matter to Washington immediately after briefs were filed in February, Fuchs obviously blundered, as evidenced by his subsequent unsuccessful attempts to dispose of the case. Both Harvard and District 65 were well aware of this when they jointly petitioned the NLRB in Washington to take the case last December. For its part, the Washington board was wrong in not taking the case from Fuchs.

Despite its justifiable concern that the considerable work already done by Fuchs on the case not be duplicated, the board could and should have reached some accommodation with Fuchs short of its embarrassing recourse to complete rejection of the complex matter on two separate occasions.

Furthermore, on the same day that Fuchs rendered his decision, the Washington NLRB handed down a seemingly contradictory ruling in a similar case involving workers at Columbia University's off-campus research facilities. The regional director's decision has thus been discredited in the eyes of the union by both the inability of Fuchs to reach a prompt finding and the Columbia decision.

District 65 has fought its battle to organize the Medical area long enough. Harvard cannot expect to impose the type of union which it considers most attractive on workers who, by their own repeated admission (and despite the regional director's ruling to the contrary), do not share a community of interests with workers in other areas of the University. If upheld, the regional director's decision would set the cause of Med area unionization back almost irreversably; while Medical Area District 65 has come a long way from its fledging status of two years ago, a University-wide union still seems a relatively remote prospect.

The Washington board should accept the review of the case, and should overturn the Boston ruling. The alternative would only be to deny workers the formation of a union which they deem best for themselves and a complete victory in Harvard's struggle to prevent Med area unionization.