Moral Support For Our Workers

LABOUR MANAGEMENT RELATIONS have never been one of the friendlier aspects of American life. But even by the contentious standards of boss-worker struggles in our society this year's negotiations between the University and during hall workers represented by Local 26 of the International Hotel. Restaurant. Institutional Employees and Bartenders Union ranks as a genuine knock-down drag-out. Indeed there really haven't been any negotiations at all between Local 26 president Domenic M. Bozzotto and Harvard chief labour negotiator Edward W. Powers. As the workers contract approaches its June 19 expiration date, the two men have spent most of their time in a posturing pas de deux of charges and outright insults.

The difficulty of compromise in this hostile atmosphere is now where more evident than in the University's refusal to talk with Local 26's negotiating committee until Bozzotto gives up his demand that all bargaining be held in public. Bozzotto's demand is impractical and unusual--it may even legally be a failure to bargain in good faith. But in the interests of moving the negotiations off dead center the University should be willing to at least offer a proposal for limited public and press participation in the talks. With the help of a recently appointed federal mediator. Bozzotto's and Powers ought to be able to find a reasonable balance between Bozzotto's desire to capitalize on Local 26's community and student support and Posers equally legitimate wish for frank and businesslike discussion Periodic sessions to review negotiating positions and invite public questions for example might be a good idea.

But the dispite over public negotiations is only a sideshow to the main event in the Harvard-Local 26 set-to. The real issue is the contract itself. And here the bargaining stances are so fat apart that even if negotiations started tomorrow a strike on June 19 or more probably next September when students return could not be ruled out. Bozzotto's union what a one dollar an hour across the board pay increase free medical insurance and a set of so-called "dignity demands" specific contract language ruling out elimination of employment positions. stricter adherence to seniority-based promotion and an end to alleged harassment of workers who take sick leave. The union also wants contract clauses prohibiting sexual harassment and discrimination against gay workers.

Powers seems willing to go along with the union's anti-discrimination demands. But he insists that no one who takes sick leave is being harassed and that Harvard's current contract adequately protects workers against arbitrary dismissal Powers says he will offer the workers a "fair" pay hike, but maintains that they are already receiving the best wages and benefits of any food service workers in the Boston area.

We;re inclined to support the workers' demands. Powers himself has reportedly suggested that he couldn't support his family on a Harvard dining hall worker's income. Harvard should award wage increases not based on market forces but on the needs of its employees. The workers' "dignity" demands also merit support: in a time of high unemployment, workers need Harvard to make a binding legal commitment to the University's current discretionary policy of providing alternative jobs when it claimants their positions. In a border sense, the hard-working dining hall personnel deserve both the feeling and the reality of greater power and self-determination on their jobs. They shouldn't for example, be made to feel that they are malingering every time they take sick leave.

By attempting to enlist community, faculty and student support--and by involving rank and file workers in collective bargaining--Bozzotto and his union have displayed a creative and democratic approach to the problem of maintaining workers' incomes and employment in a time of layoffs and labour wage concessions. They have chosen to go down a rather risky road in presenting Harvard--an employer that has easy recourse to non-union help--with such a militantly determined bargaining stance. The threat of a strike, and the attendant possibility that the University might call in non-union workers, make student support for the dining hall workers bid for a fair contract critically important.

The student role will, necessarily, be limited to moral support. Many students have already backed Local 26 by attending a union rally and by signing a student-circulated petition Undergraduates can step up their efforts by contacting Powers and his boss Vice President Daniel Steiner '54 to express their views. And most importantly, if it comes to a strike next fall, students should stay on Local 26's side of the picket lines.

The dining hall workers, after all, help in many usually unrecognized ways to make life at this campus a little but more tolerable. Now they need our help. They deserved it.