Harvard Administrative Negligence

WHEN MOST of Harvard's 350 striking employees went back to work Monday morning, the all-University strike reached a dead end. Sixty employees voted Monday night to continue anti-war activities whenever and however possible while fulfilling their daily duties, but their vow is a necessarily hollow one.

It is impossible to concentrate fully on working for peace in Southeast Asia-regardless of the method-when other obligations remain primary. And there is no reason to believe that a person's job is not a primary obligation; if an all-University strike is to be effective, all members of the University must be free to participate wholeheartedly.

What is so unfortunate about the demise of the employees strike is that the end was brought about not so much by a considered decision of the employees themselves, but by the persistent refusal of the Harvard administration to delineate the status of striking employees. By Friday of last week, no one-including workers, administrators, and student pickets at University Hall-was exactly sure whether striking employees would be docked pay or receive reprisals. Rumors vastly complicated matters, and the confusion was as complete as it was uncalled for.

A single, definitive statement from the administration-aligning the University either with the employees strike or against them-would have been sufficient. But it never came; rather the University played the cautious middle. Its hazily-defined rhetoric served only to frustrate and anger both students and employees; it seems senseless to bring charges against 56 student pickets at University Hall without giving them cause to leave.

President Pusey's original statement of May 5 "urged" officers of the University "to make every effort to accommodate interruptions in our normal procedures." But what contact do the officers of the University have, say, with Buildings & Grounds personnel? It must have been clear to the administration that supervisors would not permit hourly employees to take time off to engage in anti-war activities. Yet it was Friday, three days later, before a second statement from the personnel office made it clear that Pusey's statement was "equally applicable to both salaried and hourly employees," and authorized supervisors "to permit both to participate in anti-war activities without reduction in pay."

Even then, the decision to permit employees to miss work without toss of pay was left to supervisors. The University qualified each employee's right to engage in political activities as "acts of conscience relating to our country's involvement in Southeast Asia." How was a supervisor supposed to objectively judge another employee's conscience; what criteria was to be used?

Most supervisors did not even know that this decision had been thrust upon them because the statement from the personnel office came in the form of a news release. It was Sunday night- two days after it was issued, before the University made any effort to transmit its decision to the supervisors.

Why the delays? Probably they were precipitated by the University's determination to keep the vital functions of the University operating smoothly. But to worry about the University being closed down is to overreact; the employees, NAC, and the Strike Steering Committee announced early last week that their aim was not to shut down the University, but to use it as a base of action and a center of organization. They wanted only that employees be allowed to participate in anti-war activities without loss of pay or reprisals.

This admittedly meant missing whole days of work in certain cases, but what does that matter? Not all of the University's 6500 employees sympathize with the national strike: indeed there was divisiveness over the strike demands within the comparatively small employee group of 350. Even if all 350-5.1 per cent of the University employees-were out on the same day, the University could remain open.

The employees' strike was limited to this number not by the choice of the strikers, but because other vital groups-notably the University's service personnel-were intimidated by supervisors. And this is wholly the fault of the administration.

BY ITS handling of the employees strike, the administration made clear its outlook on the national student strike and any logical extension of it. That outlook is one of disregard. Their actions have been devoid of understanding: they worry about keeping the University open, and in doing so, let pass the opportunity for an all-University expression of opposition to the war. If daily business must go on-if it is so important-why not say so and be prepared for the widespread criticism such narrow-mindedness deserves?

But if the administration is also against the war, it should not let others carry out the strike alone, without helping wherever possible. A good place to start would have been with its own employees: they were not striking against the University in the strict labor union meaning of the word, they were striking with the students against an unjust war.