Comp Lab to Require Report from Strikers

The Director of the Harvard Computing Center has required striking computer employees to state how they spent their time while striking, so that a special committee can decide whether they will receive any, partial, or full pay.

Director Norman Zachary sent a letter Friday to about 15 employees saying that pay will "be withheld for those days an employee was on strike pending further clarification of the activities of the employee."

The written statements required of the computer employees are supposed to include:

whether a supervisor granted permission to participate in the strike;

the extent of "political or other conscientious acts during the period of the strike";

"any particular extenuating circumstances such as genuine illnesses during this period of time."

L. Gard Wiggins, Administrative Vice President of the University, will chair this special committee. He said lastnight that if employees were writing letters to Congressmen or "doing other acts of conscience all day then I suppose they will be payed."

Zachary estimated that out of the 160 to 180 computer employees, less than ten per cent went on strike.

Decisions should be reached by next Monday, he said.

Christine Bell, a computer employee who went on strike said. "I was surprised but I wasn't too dismayed. I'd just as soon let everybody know about my strike activities. But I don't believe that they have an inherent right to the information." -S.Z.G.