Employees Reject University's Offer

A union representing about 600 Harvard employees last night rejected a contract which its officials had negotiated with the University, and empowered the officials to call a strike if their loosely defined demands are not met.

The Harvard University Employees Representative Association, representing janitors, maids, porters, and bakers, voted overwhelmingly to send its leaders back for another round of negotiations. The contract they rejected was for three years, including raises which averaged out to about 15 cents for the first year, 15 cents for the second year, and 10 cents for the third year.

Most of the approximately 100 workers present at Emerson 105 were opposed to the idea of a three-year contract. They wanted a two-year contract, with raises on the order of 20 or 25 cents a year. Janitors also wanted night differential pay.

The meeting, run in part by Association president Anthony Miele and in part by the union's lawyer Richard Coleman, was remarkably democratic, if a bit confused. From the outset, several people in the audience complained that they had not been notified of past union meetings, and that the union did not seem to be representing them.

In the final vote, which was taken separately by job category, every group voted to reject. But the vote was close among the maids while it was almost unanimous among the janitors.

Coleman said after the meeting that he would inform the University today of the union's decision to reject the contract. He did not know when negotiations would begin again, or how long they might take.

Present Contract

The present contract, which expired June 30, was for two years. If the union had approved this contract, Coleman explained, the University would have automatically made the pay raises retroactive. But, he told the workers, the University had said it would not guarantee retroactive pay if the first contract was rejected. Coleman said, however, that he would insist on the retroactive pay.

At one point in the discussions, Coleman read the results of M.I.T.'s contract negotiations. The maids there earn about 20 cents an hour more than at Harvard. When the audience heard these figures, several men yelled out, "Off to M.I.T., girls." Someone on the stage said he thought the maids at M.I.T. had different functions then at Harvard. One man in the audience cried, "Do they lay bricks?"