Gdansk on the Charles

Cambridge seemed a Gdansk on the Charles this week, as labor unrest continued, but the city did manage to end one strike and narrowly avert another, at least for the time being.

Local 195, Independent Public Employees Association, which represents public works and cemetery workers and hospital orderlies, staged a wildcat walkout last Friday, timing the strike to coincide with the city's 350th birthday celebration. The union charged the city with refusing to negotiate.

And the union succeeded in drawing a lot of attention not only from the Boston papers and T.V. stations, but also from the state courts.

After the strikers defied a state labor relations board ruling that the walkout was illegal, a judge ordered them back to work. But it was only 14 hours before the union leaders were due in court to face possible contempt charges that the workers returned to the job at 11 p.m. Sunday night.

Forty-five minutes after the union went back on the job, city manager James L. Sullivan sat down with the 195 bargaining committee. The union claimed success: "We have brought the city back to the bargaining table," James Cassidy, president of the local, said.

But Sullivan, who insists the city has a valid contract with the workers and has asked the state to rule on the dispute, said he was not negotiating, only "listening to the worker's problems."

"The union is just trying to save face," city solicitor Russell Higley said as the talks began.

Though Sullivan said he would offer the union no more money, he did say he would let it rework the method of payment in the contract so long as it didn't increase the total bill. "If they can agree on some other way, they've got a customer," he said.

A settlement may be even farther off in the city's other contract squabble, with its nearly 1000 teachers.

Though the Cambridge Teachers Association (CTA) Thursday rejected an immediate strike, it did authorize its bargaining committee to call an immediate walkout should negotiations bog down.

The teachers, who have worked without a contract for a month, want more pay and job security, as well as a sharply defined set of duties.

Though both sides say they made "progress" at a marathon Wednesday night session--enough to convince the teachers to put off a strike--there is no guarantee that the progress will continue.

And with the teachers continuing their "work to rule" slowdown and marching in informational pickets outside the school, tension has been mounting for more than a week.

"A strike wouldn't benefit anyone; teachers lose the esteem of the community, children lose valuable educational time, and the neighborhoods badly need the teachers," Cambridge Mayor Francis H. Duehay '55 said yesterday.

"I am satisfied a good deal of progress has been made," Duehay added.

But more progress will be necessary to keep school in session: "teachers are very, very angry," one CTA member said Thursday after the strike authorization vote.