Strike at 'Cliffe Averted; Workers' Vote Unanimous

Plans for picnics on the Quad were made unnecessary last night when a union vote averted the threatened strike of Radcliffe dormitory, kitchen, and buildings and ground employees.

"Radcliffe's new offer was jubilantly accepted in a unanimous standing vote," Edward T. Sullivan, negotiator for local 254 of the Building Services Union, said yesterday.

"I'd call this a whiz-bang settlement," Sullivan said, adding that Radcliffe janitors are now the highest paid at any college in the country.

According to Mary I. Bunting, president of Radcliffe, the settlement will add $46,000 to the college's budget. If evenly divided this would mean a $38 addition to each student's annual board costs, she said, but she added that the actual distribution of costs is still uncertain.

Beginning retroactively as of July 1, Radcliffe maintenance men will receive $2.65 an hour, an increase of 20 cents an hour. Harvard's maintenance people are paid $2.60 an hour. Dormitory maids receive a 15 cents an hour increase to $1.99, compared with $1.95 at Harvard. Serving ladies now get $1.73, less than Harvard's $1.94, but receive three extra weeks of paid vacation.

'Cliffe Higher

"This is the first time Radcliffe rates have gone above Harvard's," Sullivan said. "Our labor relations with Radcliffe have always been excellent except for this problem; previously rate increases have been determined by the Harvard wages."

"A strike in a situation like this is like an atom bomb," Sullivan said. "As soon as you drop it the threat is gone. The important thing is to exploit the threat."

Sullivan attributes the success of negotiations in part to the support of Radcliffe students. "We couldn't have gotten the settlement without the genuine enthusiastic cooperation of the girls," he said. "I never saw anything like it."

Petitions being circulated all last week by an ad hoc committee set up at Radcliffe pledged support of the strike, and urged students not to strikebreak by serving themselves in the event that there was food but no waitresses.

Also, leaflets presenting lists of workers' salaries, costs of living figures, plans to boycott cafeterias, and revolutionary rhetoric, were distributed by both the ad hoc committee and the SDS Labor Committee.

Bad Faith

According to Deborah A. Batts '69, president of RUS, Sullivan had requested that the students take no action until plans for a strike were definite, saying that it would look like "bad faith" on the part of the Union. RUS had agreed to cooperate with the strike once it was announced, she added.

Questioned about reports that some workers had resented student interference, Sullivan said, "It's true that nobody likes to hand his economic future over to someone else."

"But we would never have gotten this far without the solid support of the girls," he added. "The college was faced with the fear of a student demonstration."

There was very little discussion of the terms at yesterday's meeting, Sullivan said, since it was the last step in a long "decision-making process."