Dust Pan Politics

With all the perseverance of an ardent suitor, big organized labor is trying once more to win the attentions of University employees. And, as if to catch the objects of its desires on the rebound, the AFL is capitalizing on the recently announced cuts in maid service in the Houses.

It is significant that the AFL's honeyed phrases are aimed primarily at the maids. In its last attempt to displace the independent HUERA as representative of the University's employees, the AFL found its appeal least effective with this group. Now, with a cut in maid service imminent, many of these women are bound to be more receptive to the outside officers, specious though they may be.

The lure that the AFL is holding out seems to be some vague kind of "security." Small independent unions cannot bring pressures to bear on employers to secure long-term contracts, they argue. But big, powerful unions with nation-wide influence can.

With the situation as confused and misunderstood as it now is, the AFL's chances of moving in seem better than they have been before. Nobody is really satisfied with the University's decision to end maid service in the Houses, not even the University itself. Certainly the president undergraduates join with the maids in lamenting the loss of service scheduled for next fall. But faced with the soaring costs of running a college, the men in University Hall must economize. Rather than deprive the student of something less expendable, they decided on the maids.

The plan to which the HUERA and the University have agreed seems a fair one, Rumors of mass, indiscriminate firings are just so much hogwash. Of the two hundred or so maids now in the Houses, only about fifty will be laid off. Chosen because of their lack of seniority, most of this group were hired only last fall. And because they will be forced to leave their old jobs, the University has offered them preference should they want to apply for work in the College dining halls. Outside of this group, there will be no layoffs. About fifty maids usually quit each year; the College will simply not hire new help, and transfer the remaining maids to other jobs in the University.

Naturally the maids, and all the other University employees, would welcome some guarantee of "security." Whether the AFL can really give them this is certainly dubious. The decision between the rival unions, is, and should be the workers' alone. It should be made on the basis of real and relative benefits, not exaggerated claims.