Painters to Talk At Tuesday Rally

Two apprentice painters will speak at a rally in Sanders Theatre tomorrow night to emphasize their demand that all apprentices be promoted immediately to journeyman status.

Gregory K. Pilkington a, second-year law student who was suspended for a semester for his participation in SDS's obstructive sit-in and OBU's two takeovers of University Hall last semester, will also speak.

The Worker-Student Coalition, a month-old group which includes members of OBU and SDS and a number of University employees, is sponsoring tomorrow's rally.

The coalition is also circulating a petition demanding that Harvard promote all apprentice painters immediately to journeymen status, and rescind all punishments given to "students and workers who took part in the campaign to promote the painters' 'helpers.' "

SDS and OBU charged last fall that the University was discriminating against the painters' helpers, many of whom were black, by paying them less money for thesame work-that journeymen painters did.

In conjunction with the painters' union, Harvard abolished the helper category in January, replacing it with a new "apprentice" category for painters that the University claimed were unqualified to be journeymen.

Two weeks ago, four apprentices, all of them former helpers, submitted a complaint to the new Joint Apprenticeship Board- which includes representatives from Harvard and the union- demanding that all apprentice painters be promoted.

The apprentices claimed in their complaint that they are still doing the same work for less pay. They also objected to their six-hour-a-week training program, calling it "a lot of extra expense and time away from our families for training we never have to use at Harvard."