Harvard Settles With LPIU, B&G, To End Strikes

A contract and a promise to attend a conciliation meeting ended the two strikes that hit Harvard last June.

On June 14, University negotiators signed a contract that ended the month-old strike of the Lithographers' and Printers' International Union. Five days later striking Builders and Grounds craftsmen went back to work as the University promised to attend a state-run arbitration and conciliation meeting.

The LPIU settlement raised the salaries of the union's 34 members, all employees of the Harvard Printing Office, to a level comparable to those of employees in area commercial shops. Under the 18 month contract, employees received immediate wage increases and will receive another general increase on November 1, 1967.

Serious contract negotiations between the University and the Boston Crafts Maintenance Council (BCMC), the union that caused the commencement-time strike of over 100 B&G craftsmen, are now going on. That strike was ended when the University agreed to attend a June meeting which led to the eventual recognition of the BCMC as the B&G's bargaining agent.

The BCMC called the strike to indicate to the University that the sympathies of most of the B&G men were with it and not with the other unions seeking official recognition as the B&G bargaining agent. Because there were so many unions exercising claims on the right to represent the B&G men, Harvard insisted upon a state-run election as the means of choosing the bargaining agent.