2200 University Employees Win Wage Increases In Compromise

Six weeks of negotiations between the Harvard University Employees' Representative Association and the College Administration bore fruit yesterday when the University announced a compromise wage increase for 2200 of its workers effective January 1, 1942.

Full time employees, those who work more than 40 hours a week, have been granted a raise of $1 a week, while part time workers of 20, 24, and 36 hours per week are to receive their benefits on a pro rata scale. Although the Administration declined to announce which employees came under the latter categories, it was learned that the maids, who started the agitation for the wage increase, received a raise of $65 per week.

A compromise agreement between the University and the H.U.E.R.A., the new ruling will cost the Corporation approximately $100,000.

Economies to Be Effected

In its announcement yesterday the Corporation stated that "since University income seems to be in a declining rather than a rising trend the University expected to compensate for the additional cost occasioned by the increase in wages by savings to be effected in the various departments over a period of time."

Declining to be specific about how these savings will be secured, University officials said last night that they hoped that the $100,000 could be raised through administrative economies rather than through the discharge of employees.

Not included in the wage increase are the dining hall group, numbering 500, who are organized in the A.F. of L. Cooks and Pastry Cooks Union. The A.F. of L. contract with the University does not expire until next June, at which time that division may present its case.

Not a Contracted Agreement

The agreement is not a contracted one, and will be in effect until further notice. The increase was granted, it was explained, to meet in part the rising cost of living. Workers affected by the regulation are both union and non-union employees. Of the 2200 benefited, some 1000 are members of the H.U.E.R.A.

Since the middle of October, the H.U.E.R.A., under the direction of President William A. Doyle, had been studying salary conditions at the University, and it was after a conference between the employees' union and the Corporation that the increase was announced.

Differences in conference had brought strike possibility to the fore, but the union and the University agreed that the costs of such action would not be commensurate with the issue involved.