SDS Will Challenge Mrs. Bunting On Demands for Kitchen Workers

SDS members will present a statement to Mrs. Bunting at 2 p.m. today demanding that she give in to their demands to improve the working conditions of the Radcliffe kitchen staff or agree to a public debate on the issue.

The statement challenges Mrs. Bunting's response to the SDS demands (published in the CRIMSON Nov. 19), charging that her information citing the number of students fed by the teams of workers in the kitchens was incorrect.

"we demand that the $.90 differential between men and women cooks be abolished by raising the women's pay," the statement says. "Mrs. Bunting has refused to do this and attempted to justify the differential by claiming that men and women cooks do different work. The facts are that women cooks prepare the same meals and serve as many or more students as men cooks, and therefore should be paid the same wages."

"If Mrs. Bunting still (after tomorrow) refuses to accede to our demands, we challenge her to a public debate, to be held no later than Friday, December 4," the statement says.

Mrs. Bunting said last night that she could not comment on the possibility of a debate until she received the SDS statement tomorrow. However, she said she felt that the main misunderstanding in the issue was the source of the SDS statistics on the number of people the kitchen workers were feeding.

"The figures they (SDS) are using are the ones which were posted at the beginning of the year on the basis of the number of students living in the dorms," she said. "But the figures I'm using are the actual count of the number of students at each meal in each house."

The discrepancy arises from the fact that many East and South House students eat in North House, Mrs. Bunting said. Her statement said that four North House workers (two male chefs and two female cooks) feed 450 students, while in South and East Houses a team of four cooks feeds 250.

SDS claims, however, that two South House cooks feed 350 students, and therefore they should receive the same pay as the male chefs.