Compliments of the Management

University labor relations have taken a surprise fork on the glory road of conservatism. With yesterday's announcement by Vice-President Reynolds of a reduction in the work-week of dining hall employees from six to five days without any loss in take-homepay a significant step has been taken in the direction of the economic realities of 1946.

In its recognition of the necessity of wage rises to meet inflated living costs and again in its tardy acceptance of the principle of the five-day week the University has come a long way from the almost feudal attitude it has indicated toward labor problems in the past. And the announced intention of the dining hall department to recruit a sufficient number of additional employees removes the possibility of the old employer racket of merely spreading workers thinner on the same jobs after a reduction in hours.

The good news for employees in the announcement yesterday should not obscure the fact that all that glitters in Mr. Reynolds' statement is not gold. For despite its recognition of certain facts of twentieth-century economic life, the University has not departed radically from its conservative labor tradition of the past decade.

As always, the announcement from the Administration of a change in contract status is couched in the most patronizing of terms. "While by the terms of the existing contract the University could refuse to make any wage adjustment until June, 1947," the release says, "it felt that in justice to its employees it should waive that right and did so."

Such a statement, like countless others of its dated ilk, puts the employer on a humanitarian pedestal at the expense of the realities of the situation--which in this case indicate that the University was in its premature action merely trying to avoid the annoyance and public embarrassment of a prolonged strike such as that recently endured by Columbia University.

The total lack of publicity for the negotiations in this and other recent collective bargaining cases also points out the unchanging and unsound conservatism of the Harvard policy. When agreements are negotiated behind closed doors and announced by official University sources, the freedom of information so essential to democratic action in any field is totally lacking.

Continued suppression of the facts behind the decisions in labor-management differences is more than anything else a sign of weak and subservient unionism. No healthy union would sign without a murmur a contract which in these inflationary days gives its members only an imaginary wage rise--as yesterday's "grant" from the University so obviously does.

Reduced working-time, although certainly a gain in itself, cannot help the dining hall employees to live as well as or better than before in the midst of rising price levels. And how does a part-time employee gain from such a contract adjustment? The onus for such failure in labor relations at Harvard lies equally with the University--intent on maintaining its traditional position of father-confessor to its employees--and with the unions, which cannot see beyond the noses of their temporary security and convenience, so easily bought by indolence.