Law Secretaries, AFL-CIO Official Talk About Union

More than 30 Law School secretaries attended a meeting yesterday with a representative of the National AFL-CIO to discuss the pros and cons of forming a local union.

John F. O'Malley field representative for the AFL-CIO, spoke and answered questions for an hour about the advantages of unionizing before 34 of the Law School's 87 secretaries. The Law School has 70 full-time and 17 part-time secretaries.

The meeting was arranged by the policy committee of the Harvard Law School Secretaries Association-a group of some 40 secretaries which has been active since last Fall in questioning the salary scale and job classifications at the Law School.

"Quite frankly." O'Malley began, "the reason professional people have not been organized is a very snobbish one... Part of your pay check has been the fact that you work for Harvard. That's fine, but you can't eat it."

O'Malley went on to explain the structure of the AFL-CIO and the way in which a local union would operator stressing both the power of the international union and the democracy within the local.

"We do not organize unions. We givedirection and leadership, but people organize unions," he said.

"Non-Profit"

The group seemed to receive O'Malley well, laughing at his comments about Harvard, "Harvard is a non-profit institution and you're non-profit people", and asking a number of questions.

After the meeting, O'Malley said he had spoken to groups at Harvard before, but never to a group so large or receptive.