Bad Faith, Again

THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY POLICE Department patrolmen's union has taken its almost year-long dispute with the University to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The patrolmen's association alleges that the University circumvented the collective-bargaining process by making a new contract offer directly to the patrolmen at roll calls rather than working through the association. Such an allegation, if it is true--and the University denies it--is quite serious. It means that Harvard is still trying to deny that its workers, in this case the patrolmen, have the right to organize into unions to improve their bargaining position.

This is not the first time the University has refused to bargain in good faith with the patrolmen. Earlier this fall Harvard negotiators refused to negotiate a compromise over a union proposal to adopt a new work schedule similar to those at several other local and university police departments and then tried to pressure the union by threatening to withdraw retroactive wage increases to be granted after a new contract is approved. And last year the University forced a union grievance into binding arbitration--which found on behalf of the patrolmen--instead of negotiating with its workers.

Harvard's attempts to take advantage of the patrolmen are particularly cynical. Under contract provisions which are standard for police unions, the patrolmen are barred from striking, picketting or taking job actions which would threaten the public safety. The union has said it will not engage in an illegal strike; unlike the University it can only bargain in good faith.

The patrolmen's latest charge--that Harvard tried to subvert the collective bargaining process--is disturbing because that process is the raison d'etre of unions. To deny workers the advantage of a united stance is to make unions meaningless. Sadly, however, the University's attitude toward unions is all too clear.

Harvard has consistently tried to bust unions. The University has spent millions over the last 12 years to defeat efforts by clerical and technical workers to organize into a union, repeatedly litigating election petitions before the NLRB for nine years. In 1982 the personnel office at the Medical School was moved in the middle of the night to support a bid to refuse them a union election. Harvard has also tried to stymie the dining hall workers' union. Last year officials tried to hire non-union labor at the Faculty Club and forced workers at the Business School's Kresge dining hall into a different bargaining unit after hiring Marriott to run the cafeteria. Harvard's attempt to defeat the patrolmen's union is just the latest in a series of wrongheaded efforts to subvert unions.

Workers have the right to form a union and the right to bargain collectively as a unit--that's the law. The letter of the law is sometimes open to conflict, but the spirit is clear. Harvard ought to follow it.