A Harvard Labor Union Finds Bargaining Difficult

To most Harvard people talk of University politics means talk of battles for tenure and academic policy, but in certain parts of the University--its warehouses, supply offices, repair shops, and personnel offices--Harvard politics means something else. Harvard has nearly 1500 unionized employees, for them Harvard politics means the intricate and exciting politics that goes on in their unions.

One of the biggest unions at Harvard is the 200 member Buildings and Grounds Maintenance Association (BGMA), which includes most of B&G's employees with the exception of janitors, maids, students, and unskilled help. The Buildings and Grounds Maintenance Association is an independent union, unaffiliated with any outside group like the AFLCIO and it exists only at Harvard. Twenty-five years ago Harvard had only one labor union, the Harvard Employees Representative Association. The craftsmen -- carpenters, plumbers, painters, truck drivers, and electricians -- who believed they were inadequately represented by the allinclusive union, created the BGMA to bargain exclusively for their interests.

Last Spring, however, as the BGMA prepared to negotiate for a new contract with Harvard, some members articulated a feeling that has been growing stronger and stronger in the BGMA for the last few years. Essentially, their argument was that the BGMA could no longer get very good contracts from the University. The complaint was not directed at the BGMA's officers. Indeed, Robert S. Richardson, president of the BGMA, has been one of the chief exponents of the view. The complaint that the BGMA was growing less effective reflected changing times.

According to one member, "a little association like the BGMA just can't deal with Harvard on Harvard's level. Maybe years ago it could, but not anymore." The BGMA has always chosen its bargainers from its own membership, but Harvard's personnel office, which bargains for "management," now has a staff of professionally trained negotiators. Union members come back from bargaining sessions crestfallen after having faced Harvard's representatives. They even tell of one management aide whose function it is to go plowing through a contract defining the exact meaning of each word, in every case to the benefit of the University. So some BGMA officers started looking around for another union that could provide the membership with better negotiators.

An Interested Person

One of the first persons to show an interest in the BGMA's problems was Eddy Sullivan, the business agent for Local 254 of the Building Services Employees International Union (AFLCIO). Sullivan's union represents all sorts of workers who maintain and service buildings. Nearly 2500 of the 5000 members in the local are employed by universities, and dealing with universities is Sullivan's self-professed area of expertise.

Despite his strong ambition to "organize" Harvard, the closest Sullivan has managed to get is Radcliffe where the BSEIU represents the janitors, maids and waitresses, as well as the craftsmen.

What makes Sullivan so anxious to participate in labor negotiations at Harvard is that settlements here are the key to contract terms at other colleges. "We live and die," he told some B&G workers, "by what goes on at Harvard, the oldest and most prestigious university." Sullivan feels that his past experience would enable him to get very good settlements out of Harvard, thereby boosting the contract benefits at some of his other area universities such as B.U. and M.I.T.

There are other more personal reasons why Sullivan would like to include Harvard's building service employees in his union. By virtue of its reputation, size, and wealth, Harvard would be the jewel in a system that already stretches from Berkeley to Dartmouth. And Sullivan claims to be a little bit embarrassed by his failure to place Harvard in the BSEUI bag. Discussing his lengthy record of successful organizing campaigns, he points out that "I'm from Inman Square and still haven't organized Harvard."

"All over the country," he says in his thick Boston accent, "people ask me 'why don't you organize Harvard?'" Last summer that's just what Eddy Sullivan set out to do.

Trade Identity

To some it seemed as if Sullivan would have no trouble getting the BGMA membership to designate his union as their bargaining agent. He even sent a supply of "authorization cards," which, if signed by a majority of the BGMA members, would have made Sullivan the bargaining agent. But something called "trade identity" was to play a much larger role in the BGMA's search for a new union than Sullivan had, perhaps, expected.

Essentially, trade identity means that the different groups within the Local will not be merged or confused. Carpenters, for example, can remain sure that they will always be considered carpenters and that the bargainers will negotiate in the interests of their particular needs and desires. The BGMA contracts have special wage settlements for each craft and Sullivan indicated that he would continue the practice of bargaining for "units." Nonetheless, many BGMA members, who trace the founding of their union to a desire to preserve trade identity, were wary. Even if the unit bargaining were continued, they feared that Sullivan would do what he did at Radcliffe: bring the janitors, maids, porters and unskilled help under the same union roof with the craftsmen. For some this would mean just too much chance for error. "I don't want anyone to mistake me for a janitor," one BGMA member said. Another large trade union was apparently rejected by the BGMA officers for much the same reason. This union had offered to take in all those already practicing a particular trade as masters, and take all the other tradesmen in under the classification of "helpers."

The informal rejection of the BSEIU by the BGMA officers did not daunt Sullivan. He insisted (and still does) that a majority of the BGMA's members had signed his "authorization cards" and that the BGMA officers were keeping them from him. In the fall he put into high gear his campaign to become bargaining agent, at the same time the BGMA officers continued their search for another union.

Far less important to the BGMA officers than the question of professional negotiators, but for some reason very important to the rank-and-file, was the question of how a new union might help the BGMA members if a strike ever became necessary. BGMA officers believe that the prospect of a strike at Harvard is extremely unlikely. They contend that the University would do virtually anything to avoid the embarrassment of a picket line marching around John Harvard's statue. But the problem of a strike came up frequently in encounters between the business agents of prospective unions and the BGMA membership.

BGMA members realize that a strike by the BGMA alone might embarrass the University, but would certainly not cripple its operation since Harvard could get along without its painters, carpenters, electricians, and plumbers for a few weeks. Furthermore, some members claim that there are enough loopholes in the law to allow Harvard to farm out much of the regular work to outside contractors working on special jobs. If, on the other hand, the BGMA members were associated with the AFL-CIO, they could count on definite support for their strike from other AFL-CIO unions, inside Harvard as well as out.

Essentially this means that if the Buildings and Grounds craftsmen went out on strike, they could count on the shutting down of Harvard's kitchens and dining rooms, since most of the 500 cooks and serving ladies are members of AFL-CIO unions. The BGMA members reason, probably correctly, that it wouldn't take Harvard very long to see their point of view once the kitchens were closed and the students weren't being fed.

Extra Bonus

By mid-autumn the BGMA officers found an organization that seemed to combine just what they required--professional bargainers, trade identity preservation, and AFL-CIO affiliation. This organization, ponderously named the Boston Crafts Maintenance Council, had an extra bonus since it would permit the old BGMA members to preserve some of their former autonomy.

Actually, the Boston Crafts Maintenance Council isn't a union at all but is a council of business agents for the Boston locals of the AFL-CIO affiliated trade unions. Under the BCMC plan for Harvard, the BGMA would be disbanded and each former member would join the union appropriate

In the past the small casual unions were adequate for the members desires. But both the needs of Harvard's workers have changed and the ways in which negotiations are carried on. While most of the University's employees are proud to work at Harvard, the security and prestige of their jobs won't silence their demands. Its not like the old days when "no one complained because getting a job at Harvard was like being elected to the U.S. Senate." to his trade. When it came time for negotiations, not one, but five, business agents would meet with Harvard. What made the BCMC plan especially attractive was the provision that some members of the old BGMA would be named to the bargaining committee and that the business agents would not sign the contracts until they had been approved specifically by the membership working at Harvard.

In early December, the BCMC business agents met with the BGMA membership and explained their proposal. Two weeks later the BGMA membership met and voted to assimilate themselves into the Boston Crafts Manitenance Council and to have the Council perform all bargaining functions. The Council, therefore, expected the University to recognize it as the agent for the old BGMA membership. But, a short time before the election John W. Teele, director of Harvard personnel, had received a telegram from Eddy Sullivan declaring that the BSEIU was the bargaining agent for the BGMA membership because of the authorization cards. After negotiating all summer and fall with Richardson and the BGMA staff; the University was unable to determine just who was unable to determine just who was representing whom and contract negotiations were broken off.

Petitions were filed by different groups with the State Labor Relations Commission, which will eventually decide, either by a judgment or an election, which group actually represents the craftsmen of Harvard. The decision is not due for some time since the State Commission has a huge backlog of cases created by new laws allowing public school teachers to bargain. Meanwhile the B&G crtfatsmen continued to work under a contract signed in 1964.

This long, still unended, battle probably will not be the last. Members of several other small independent unions at Harvard claim to feel at a disadvantage when negotiating with management and they too are anxious for affiliation with larger unions.

"Times have changed," one union member says, "and things at Harvard aren't so cozy anymore. Years ago no one complained because getting a job at Harvard was like being elected to the U.S. Senate. But not anymore.