Rondeau Addresses Alumni

Despite Harvard's 17-year-old battle with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), union director Kris Rondeau was invited to discuss union organizing at an official reunion event yesterday, and she used that platform to exhort alumni to voice their opposition to Harvard's antiunion legal maneuvering.

In the symposium, which addressed controversies on Harvard's campus, Rondeau urged union supporters to write or call President Bok and ask the University to withdraw the charges of unfair labor practice that it has filed against the union. The University hopes to overturn the results of a May 17th election, in which support staff workers voted 1530-1486 in favor of HUCTW. Harvard claims that union organizers threatened and coerced staff on the day of the election.

"They know how easy it is to get a no vote, and they know they could have beaten the union. So they have filed complaints on technicalities. I don't think this is one of the times that Bok made a clean, clear decision," Rondeau said. "You people may help unmuddy the waters in his mind."

Rondeau has worked to organize Harvard's support staff for 17 years in defiance of the administration's wishes.

The HUCTW organizer was selected by a committee of alumni to speak at a Class of '63 reunion event because a group of New York alumni had petitioned the reunion committee to include a talk about current Harvard issues.

"A group of us in the class--people who had been involved in social activism over the years--felt that to have a bunch of symposia that were supposed to discuss the problems of the day without ever a word about Harvard's controversies was hypocritical," said James A. Paul '63, one of the alumni who petitioned for this symposium.

Consciousness Raisers

Only 25 people attended the symposium, which addressed Harvard's reluctance to divest, the recently elected support staff union and student activism on campus. The other speakers were Peter H. Wood '64, a pro-divestment member of the Board of Overseers, Rosa Ehrenreich '91, a student activist who volunteered for HUCTW and Professor of Biology William H. Bossert '59, Lowell House master.

Paul said the committee spent a lot of time deciding what campus issues to address. They considered gender awareness, racism and academic freedom as other possible topics, but "to us these seemed to be the issues that were most in the consciousness of the alumni," said Paul, who arranged the symposium.

"I don't see our union as a controversy on the Harvard campus, so the way I thought about this meeting was 'how does Harvard react to change?'" Rondeau said. "I think that change is going to become more and more a way of life at Harvard."

Ehrenreich was chosen for the panel because of her work with the union this year, and because her father is a member of the class of '63, Paul said.

"The reason I got, involved was because I took seriously all the things the University said it stood for," said Ehrenreich, adding that she believed Harvard should establish a formal procedure for addressing student complaints.

Wood, who was elected to the Board of Overseers on a pro-divestment platform, opened the panel by discussing the history of Harvard's involvement in South Africa.

Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 was originally scheduled to represent the University's voice in response to Rondeau, Ehrenreich and Wood. However, at the last minute, Jewett told Paul he could not come because of the Class Day ceremonies, so Bossert attended in his place, Paul said.

Paul said he thought Jewett's decision not to come was typical of the University's attitude toward the event. "My impression is that they've been very keen to make this as difficult as possible," he said.

Bossert did not address the issues discussed by the other panelists, saying he considered the issues of divestment and support staff unionization "less relevant" than the issues such as the falsification of research data, the interruption of free speech and student agitation about faculty hiring.