Support the Workers

LAST WEEK, tensions erupted once more between the University and members of Local 26 of the Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Employees' Union. The kitchen workers angrily rejected Harvard's latest contract offer, authorizing their union negotiators to call a strike if the University refuses to be more flexible at the bargaining table.

The dining hall workers may well denounce the renegotiated contract. While the University does offer them a wage increase, many at the union meeting contended that the increase is still not enough to keep up with inflation. But more importantly, the University has made no concessions on benefits, the issue of central concern to most of the kitchen workers. Harvard now provides the dining hall workers with absurdly low pension payments--$90 a month after 25 years of service, and a 10 per cent reduction if a worker retires before age 62, and did not improve the pension plan in the contract offer. Nor does the contract increase Blue Cross coverage or offer a dental health plan. In addition, the workers want a clearer commitment to affirmative action by the University, especially at the managerial level, where minorities are still underrepresented.

Harvard's negotiators have held to a hard line throughout the contract talks this spring and summer, refusing to bend on most issues. Last week's strike vote was as much a bargaining tool as an expression of their anger and discontent with the University's intransigence. The kitchen workers are meeting this week to spell out the terms they would like to see in a renegotiated contract, but there is little hope that the University will display the flexibility that most of the workers hope for and Harvard has made every effort to discourage them. The University's chief labor negotiator, Edward F. Powers, has made not-so-veiled threats to reconsider some of the concessions Harvard made during the contract negotiations.

THE UNIVERSITY should change its recalcitrant attitude and respect the kitchen workers' widespread dissatisfaction with the contract. Food service workers, many of whom are older men and women with few other options for employment, as a whole receive lower wages than many other institutional employees, and few benefits to make up for their relatively low wages. Harvard's inflexibility has forced them to take steps to protect their rights, and students should give the workers their full support.