Labor's New Mood

The newest New Mood on Harvard's campus does not involve its students, but its workers.

United Auto Worker affiliate District 65's recently announced campaign to organize the approximately 3000 secretaries and technicians on the University's main campus constitutes an enormous task, the largest unionization drive in Harvard's history.

But beyond District 65's ambitious undertaking, a new attitude seems to have spread and taken hold over the summer among members of Harvard's other unions, the largest two of which have about 500 card-carriers each.

Buoyed by vigorous new leadership and pressed by the floundering economy, the two biggest unions have taken steps to gain added clout and have resolved to deploy all resources at their disposal in their dealings with Harvard.

The Harvard University Employees Representatives Association (HUERA), which bargains for about 500 custodial workers, voted this summer to affiliate itself with Local 254 of Service Employees International Union. SEIU, which was badly defeated in its attempt to organize clerical and technical workers at Stanford last spring, represents custodial workers at many East Coast schools, including MIT and BU.

The University's oldest union, HUERA was formed about 50 years ago to represent nearly all of Harvard's support service employees. The police, printers and dining hall workers eventually splintered from HUERA to compose separate bargaining units, charing HUERA with being "a company union."

As an independent union, HUERA had trouble maintaining solidarity among the rank and file. The union last year was wracked by a bizarre internal power struggle, in which HUERA's vice president and attorney at one point sought a restraining order to bar HUERA's president from officially representing the union.

The machinations within the union ultimately resulted in HUERA withdrawing an unfair-labor-practice complaint against Harvard that it had filed with the NLRB. Charles Crockett, then HUERA president, was accused last fall by fellow union officials of siding with the University in the unfair-labor-practice dispute. Crockett denied that his actions undermined the union and said that Vice President Darleen Bonislawski, a long-time nemesis of Harvard labor officials, had asked him to lie.

Crockett and Bonislawski are no longer involved with HUERA, Crockett having lost the presidential election to former shop steward Edward Gardin and Bonislawski having quit. Gardin was one of the principals in last year's union's troubles--it was his treatment at a grievance proceeding that led to the unfair labor complaint being filed.

"I think the move brings more professionalism and experience to the union," Edward W. Powers, Harvard's associate general counsel for labor relations says of HUERA's decision to join SEIU. "I'm now dealing with an international union instead of an independent one."

Powers signed all Harvard's unions to similar three-year contracts a year and a half ago. The agreement he shaped called for successive wage increases of 10, 9 and 8 per cent, and minimal changes in fringe benefits. Negotiations will not begin for new contracts until next year, but since HUERA's contract comes up first, the custodial union will set the tone for the other unions.

During the 1979-80 academic year, Harvard's seven unions all settled for the 10-9-8 plan, but each contract included a clause allowing each union to re-negotiate its deal if another Harvard union reached a more lucrative pact. Therefore, HUERA's bargaining ability affects the rest of the University's unionized employees.

Local 26 of the AFL-CIO, which represents the University's 550 dining hall workers, has vowed to take a strong adversarial tack in its dealings with Harvard under its new leadership. The primary issue in last spring's union elections, in fact, was whether the incumbent officials had acted complacently during contract negotiations during their tenure.

Harvard's dining hall employees compose one of the largest chunks of Local 26's membership. Although the union also represents hotel, restaurant and bartending workers throughout Boston and at MIT, campaigners recognized that the Harvard unit furnished the swing votes on which the union election hinged. In 1978, the University's kitchen employees propelled Joseph Sullivan into the Local 26 presidency by granting him nearly 85 per cent of the Harvard vote.

In last spring's election, however, Harvard workers fell in line behind challenger Dominic Bozzotto, indicating dissatisfaction with the 10-9-8 contract Sullivan had negotiated. During the campaign, no love was lost between Powers and Bozzotto's slate. The University refused to allow Bozzotto into the dining halls to talk with workers about issues. Bozzotto said at the time that the ruling gave Sullivan, whom Powers liked, a monopoly on the workers' attention; Powers said the University had rules Bozzotto had to obey.

The overwhelming victory scored by Bozzotto showed that Powers' decision had little effect on the election's outcome. Clearly, Bozzotto's supporters conducted a strong opposition campaign.

For now, Powers says he has developed a working relationship with the new leaders. "It's just business as usual," he says, adding, "I haven't changed my approach, and I haven't had any serious difficulties."

Marie Kenney, new business agent for Local 26 who used to work in the Faculty Club dining facility, says Local 26 is pleased with the results it has had in grievance proceedings. "We've been very successful in settling grievances to our advantage," she says. "I don't think Powers can be intimidated by anybody, but he seems to be taking a new attitude toward a new administration."

Aided by an able chief shop steward, Jim Burke, and Edward B. Childs, former chief shop steward and an experienced organizer, Local 26 is already beginning to map out strategies for next fall's contract talks. "We're getting a negotiating team together and holding shop-steward seminars," says Bozzotto, who this summer won a vastly improved contract for workers at Boston's Harvard Club.

And at MIT, Local 26 workers have threatened to go on strike in a move that could throw student eating plans into disarray. The sticking issue in MIT negotiations is the length of the contract. Management has offered a three-year deal with an average 8.5-per-cent raise, while the union wants the contract proposal shortened to two years. The union's willingness to take the economic risk of striking will not go unnoticed by Harvard labor officials.

Local 26 has organized a trip to Washington for Solidarity Day, September 19. If there is any doubt about the University's unions having a New Mood, consider a warning sent out by Danny Clifford, Bozzotto's running mate and now secretary-treasurer of Local 26:

"We're going to show Harvard that we're not going to mess around. And you can tell Mr. Powers that we're going to stop getting stuck in bureaucratic mud."