Striking University Employees to Vote Whether to Continue on Present Course

When the striking Harvard employees meet this morning to decide whether to continue their protest, the fate of the all-University strike will be decided.

The University has excused students from academic responsibilities for this year. Therefore, the success of the strike now depends almost entirely on the employees: their decision this morning is of vital importance.

The difficulties confronting the striking employees have been staggering. For one, the University has failed to issue a definitive statement on the status of striking employees.

The latest statement from the personnel office emphasizes that President Pusey's original declaration on the employees' strike is applicable both to salaried and hourly employees. It authorizes supervisors to permit them to participate in anti-war activities during working hours without reduction in pay. But it does not instruct the supervisors to do so.

The University has pointed up the need for a definition of the very word "strike." What it authorizes supervisors to do is to excuse workers who have strong feelings about the war and feel personal needs to miss work. What it does not condone is a strike whose purpose it is to shut down the University's vital functions.

There are many discrepancies.

NEWS ANALYSIS

The employees' strike headquarters is not sanctioned by the University; indeed the University refused to accommodate the steering group. It was left to the Phillips Brooks House to provide the strikers office space. Neither the University nor its spokesmen have talked directly to the leaders of the employees' strike.

When 30 Law School secretaries went on strike Wednesday, they were told that the time they missed would be counted as vacation time. On Thursday. Kelly Girls were hired to perform the secretaries' duties; yet most secretaries who participated in anti-war activities Thursday and Friday were given full pay.

It is hard to predict the outcome of this morning's meeting. Within the main body of striking employees, there is by no means a consensus about what steps should be taken, or what demands should be made. The main body-about 350 strong-consists primarily of white collar workers from separate offices and schools, and from the University library system.

This group voted Tuesday night to strike until this morning, and then to reconsider its position. The employees adopted four demands:

That the United States government "unilaterally and immediately withdraw all forces from Southeast Asia;"

That the U.S. "end its systematic oppression of political dissidents, and release all political prisoners," including Bobby Seale and other members of the Black Panther party:

That the University "immediately end defense research. ROTC, counter-insurgency research, and all other such programs;"

That striking workers receive full pay and receive no reprisals.

There was considerable debate over the second demand, and at a second mass meeting Thursday afternoon, the moderates among the group succeededin eliminating it and the third demand while retaining what they termed "the two essential demands."

It was the contention of his second group that what was most needed in the employees' strike was solidarity, and that the two more radical-and specific-demands automatically excluded large numbers of anti-war sympathizers.

It is true. The employees' strike to this point has been notably limited to a single group. By their admission, the strikers are young, white, mostly secretaries or librarians. They are primarily women who have other means of support.

There is indecision and divisiveness even within this group-as attested to by the changing nature of their demands-and it represents only a small percentage of Harvard's 6500 employees.

The problems involved in organizing Holyoke Center workers are manifold. Mostly older women who live outside the Harvard and Cambridge communities, the Holyoke employees staff a labyrinth of independent offices and departments.

There are no unions, not even a central Harvard employees organization. Petitions-much less any attempts at organizing the workers as a single body-are sidetracked by supervisors and workers in different offices, according to those who have tried to start them.

The situation with the University's blue collar and service employees is wholly different. These workers-Buildings and Grounds employees, engineers, food services personnel-are strictly unionized, and all have no-strike clauses in their union contracts. To strike without the union's consent would mean losing their jobs.

Ironically, these are the two groups that matter most to an effective all-University strike. It is clear that the young, more radical office workers are in sympathy with the strike. But the older workers in Holyoke Center, and the blue collar workers-who comprise the majority of the University's third world and black employees-are necessary participants.

Perhaps More Easily Reachable Now

Perhaps now that the two radical strike demands have been eliminated from the employees' platform, these two groups will be more easily reached. It is problematic, hough, because the Holyoke and blue collar workers are being intimidated by their supervisors. And it is the supervisors who have total jurisdiction-the University's latest statement has made that crystal clear.

Groundsmen are being told that they will be fired if they attend strike meetings, much less go on strike. This is contradictory to the stated University policy that every accommodation be made for interruptions in normal procedures.

It is not certain that the employees will vote today to remain on strike, but if they do a new thrust is needed.