After the Med Area Election

WE CAN'T eat prestige," the green-and-white buttons read, but after last week the union organizers who had worn them for almost three years seemed to have little else.

On June 29, Medical Area workers voted not to authorize District 65, Distributive Workers of America, to represent them in their future negotiations with Harvard, dealing the union a stunning blow. But the University's 436-346 victory came only after Harvard adopted a new strategy to beat back District 65's effort to organize Med Area clerical and technical workers--a strategy that may not hold up next year, when union representatives say they will file for another election in the Med Area.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of last week's election was not Harvard's victory, but the fact that the vote took place at all. When District 65, a New York-based union with a membership of about 25,000, first cast its eye on Harvard three years ago, few observers believed the union could organize the workers in the face of the University's high-powered opposition. As the union drive wore on, their skepticism seemed justified; Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, relied on an expensive team of Ropes and Grey lawyers to tie up District 65's bid for an organizing election in a maze of legal challenges. Harvard contended that the union could not organize just the Med Area, but rather that Med Area workers would have to seek representation in a bargaining unit that would include all University clerical and technical employees. Furthermore, the University argued that District 65's proposed bargaining unit included several groups of employees, among them research assistants, who were in fact professionals and therefore not subject to unionization.

The legalistic strategy held good for a while. For two years Richard Levy, the union's attorney, ran up against the stone wall of Harvard's formidable briefs, and in early 1976 the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) accepted Harvard's argument. But later that year the parent NLRB in Washington startled University administrators by agreeing to hear the union's appeal-an extraordinary development, and one that Steiner now says gave him the first indication that Harvard's position might not be invulnerable. Then last May, the NLRB delivered the real shocker, reversing the regional Board decision and ruling that the Med Area was a "separate community of interest" that District 65 legally could organize apart from the rest of the University campus. The Harvard attorneys, stunned by what they considered the Board's ignorance of precedent, saw their legal defense pared down to the argument that the proposed bargaining unit wrongly included professionals.

That decision marked the turning point in Harvard's anti-union strategy. Rather than pressing Harvard's case back in a regional board hearing, Steiner decided to drop the legal argument and fight District 65 on the workers level. Reserving its right to revive the legal issue in federal court if it lost the election, the University agreed to an early date for the balloting, and then shifted into a high-gear information campaign "to talk the workers into seeing its side of the argument." As usual, the Harvard strategy was carefully conceived--even if the workers opted for District 65, the University could refuse to bargain with the union, and engage in a few more years of expensive legal bickering. Like a good poker player with a big bankroll to fall back on, the University could afford to risk a few chips on the chance of winning an early victory at the polls.

However, Harvard's personnel office is not noted for taking wild risks, and the five-week campaign that followed the NLRB's decision was a masterpiece of political maneuvering. Steiner and Daniel Cantor, director of personnel administration, orchestrated a campaign that included frequent meetings with Med Area workers and the distribution of 12 pamphlets questioning the motives and effectiveness of District 65. While Leslie A. Sullivan, chief organizer for District 65, characterized the University's efforts as "scare tactics," Steiner holds that the entire effort was aimed at informing, rather than indoctrinating the workers, and that Harvard at all times adhered to NLRB campaign regulations. Given the University ability to squeeze almost any tactic it wants to employ within the confines of a convoluted statute, Steiner probably is right. Given Harvard's tremendous resources, in terms of manpower as well as money, Sullivan too is probably right in marking District 65's eventual defeat down to the University's last-ditch anti-union publicity blitz.

Harvard's campaign resembled, on a grand scale, the drive engineered by John Sytek, vice president of Gnomon Copy, against District 65 members who tried to organize Gnomon workers. Both efforts argued that the union's rigid bureaucratic structure would hamper employer-employee relations, and stressed what they called District 65's poor record both in organizing elections and in negotiations. Each implied that the union was seeking to organize in Massachusetts only to generate dues revenue to offset losses from its New York operation; as Edward W. Powers, Harvard's associate general counsel for employee relations, said, "In a sense, the union needs Harvard more than Harvard needs the union." And finally, both campaigns were "labor-intensive"--both Sytek and Steiner agree that the efforts required far more hours of planning and pamphlet-writing than actual cash, and the campaigns were obviously far cheaper than paying Ropes and Grey for another few years of legal battles.

In the end, both anti-union campaigns were successful: the Gnomon workers voted down District 65 two months before last week's decisive election in the Med Area. But the workers' rejection of District 65 stemmed net from a lack desire for a union, but from fears--fueled by Harvard's information campaign--that District 65 would not be strong enough to bargain forcefully with the University. While NLRB records show the union owes only a small percentage of its assets to creditors-giving the lie to the argument that District65's organizing drive was largely a mercenary operation-many workers who said they opposed the union questioned its negotiating efectiveness. Spurred by the University's information campaign, several ad-hoc workers' groups organized against the union, arguing that District 65's lack of success in organizing and bargaining betrayed more than a hint of organizational incompetence. And in the end, it apparently was this economic argument, questioning District 65's ability to provide tangible benefits rather than ideological niceties, that carried the day.

Harvard's reliance on such an advertising campaign relies, however, on District 65's cooperation in affording the University an easy targetk. As long as the union remains only marginally successful in handling its local affairs--such as its mixed success at the Paperback Book Smith and Schoenhof's Foreign Book Store-questions of its effectiveness with make the union an easy foil in future organizing campaigns. If, however, District 65 can develop a more effective track record, if it focuses more on real economic issues rather than simple idealism, Harvard may have a tough fight on its hands. Having shifted their efforts from the predictable atmosphere of the courtroom to the more uncertain electoral arena, Steiner and Co. can no longer plan on smooth legal sailing.

Certainly the union does not lack enthusiasm. After last Thursday's balloting, as Powers was flashing a cautious victory smile and hustling past a dejected Sullivan and her supporters, a union backer called after him, "We'll be back next year Ed--same time, same channel." Powers, Steiner, and the others known that-but they cannot be sure next year will bring the same result.