Yale Makes Contingency Plans As Workers Threaten to Strike

Nearly 3000 workers may strike in an attempt to shut down Yale University unless the clerical and technical worker's union and the administration agree to a contract by Tuesday night.

Negotiations continued all weekend but the two sides seem to remain far apart on several key issues. While a settlement is still possible. Yale is bracing for a strike and has pledged to continue all teaching and research.

But normal operations will probably cease, as the university has drawn up contingency plans in case of a strike. Library hours will be reduced, and all but one of the dining halls will be shut down. Students who are forced to eat at local restaurants will be reimbursed from their board charges.

"The primary mission of the university will continue to be educating and graduating students, with the secondary objective of continuing all ongoing research." Yale General Counsel Lindsey Kiang said Friday.

The Negotiations

Negotiations between the university and Local 34 of the Federation of University Employees have dragged on since October, but tensions have mounted since the workers voted two weeks ago to strike if no agreement was reached by last Wednesday.

The union extended the strike deadline twice when progress was made on some issues after two federal mediators entered the process last Monday. But it is holding firm that tomorrow's deadline is final. Union officials say the strike threat forced Yale to bargain in good faith.

"Up until recently the university has had no interest in bargaining, and now they know that all eyes are on them." Local 34 organizer Anne L. Bracker said last week.

Before the federal mediator entered the negotiations, some faculty members attended the bargaining sessions as guests of the union after the university refused to allow them as impartial observers. One professor who asked not to be identified said of the negotiations he saw. "The union was interested in negotiating and the administration was not. It was almost a large."

If Local 34's roughly 1800 members do strike at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning they will be joined by the 975 maintenance and dining hall workers in the same union's local 35.

In Cambridge, Harvard officials and union leaders are keeping an eye on the current negotiations because they say while the two universities, differ in structure and policy, many issues being negotiated are common to every major school.

In recent years many universities, including Harvard have had to deal with increasing activism among clerical and technical workers, payroll and loan clerks, library aides, secretaries, lab technicians and assistants, and others.

For a decade the United Auto Workers has been trying to organize clerical and technical workers in Harvard's Medical Area, a drive which has been two close elections and has been strongly opposed by the University.

Kristine Rondeau, a Harvard UAW organizer, said. "We've been talking to them and obviously we're in support of them." "She added that her union had been informally involved in the Yale negotiations but refused to detail the nature of their support.

University Vice-President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54, who oversees labor relations at Harvard, said he was keeping abreast of developments in New Haven because, "we generally look at what employee relations issues exist at all universities."

But he added that it was unlikely anything happening at Yale would greatly influence policy at Harvard if clerical workers here do organize.

"What we pay overridingly greatest attention to is conditions hare at Harvard," he said.

Back to Yale

Observers at Yale are uncertain whether an agreement will be reached by the deadline set by the union. Some point to last week's strike extension as a good sign, but time may be running out.

Talks this weekend stalled over job security, and major issues of wages and benefits have not yet been discussed. The union has backed off an earlier demand for a 50 percent wage hike, but is still asking for a 12 percent raise, while Yale is reportedly offering only 4 percent.

When the strike was postponed negotiators hoped to have agreed on a complete construct for the union to vote tomorrow night, but with many individual points remaining to be hammered out neither side has been able to propose one.

Last week. Yale agreed to give employees preference for other jobs within the university, and said that workers not joining the union must still pay union dues.

These negotiations are Local 34's first after being unified leaf spring. Yale officials said this was a minor stumbling block teacher they had nevger dealt with the union and had so work through all issues from scrunch. "Union organizers said they were very consociates of the fact that it was their first trip to the bargaining table and were determined to make a good showing.

"The negotiations are, "extremely important because they set the foundation of the union," said Bracket.

Students and Faculty

The union has solicited and received significant student and faculty support during the negotiations. Volunteers are staffing an information center, preparing a strike fund, publicizing the union's position, organizing rallies and passing out buttons and posters.

On Wednesday some students not with Yale President A. Bartlett Giamatti to express support for the union. They held a vigil outside the negotiation on Friday.

A women's vigil outside Giamatti's office is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. this afternoon, and a student rally is planned for 12:30 p.m. tomorrow. Organizers said they were planning the women's vigil because 90 percent of Local 34 members are women and many see the debate as a sex, discrimination issue bettors women statically are paid less than men.

"The people understand that the union cause is a just nature," said fourth year graduate student Dana Franks. "They see the union an real people and think the University is being unreasonable."

At a press conference on Wednesday students released a poll which showed that one third of them would honor union picket lines. "I have frankly been astonished at how little support there has been for the opposite side." Franks said.

Reiocating

About 200 of Yale's 1600 faculty members have asked union sympathisers for help finding space off campus to hold their classes in the event of a strike and others are making plans to teach in their homes.

Some professors are moving their classes as an acting demonstration of support for the union. Other feel that by doing so they are remaining natural by not making their students to decide whether to cross a picket line, said Teresa J. Odendahl, one of the faculty members helping find space in theaters, churches and community centers for classes.

So far they have managed to relocate about 70 classes, Odendahl said.

Among students not actively supporting the union or the university there is a feeling of being unfairly caught in the middle, said Yale Student Government President Samuel S. Haviland, a junior.

Haviland said the controversy and possible strike work interrupting our daily lives," and that the student government had sent the salon and the university a public letter asking that the debate he resolved quickly so us to avoid drawing students into the fray.

He said that it there is a strike he would cross picket lines to go the library and to class. "I'm going to the library simply because I have un education to complete," he said.

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