A Vote Is Abandoned At the Coop

I he mood among organizers for the Retail Stores Employees Union last Fall was exultant. A drive underway at the Harvard Coop since July claimed seemingly strong support--over half the eligible Coop employees, by union estimate, had signed requests for a vote on unionization.

But this week, the campaign expired with scarcely a whisper. Only two weeks before a federally-ordered election, the union announced that it had reluctantly withdrawn its sponsorship of the voting, and had dropped a claim against the store over "harassment" of a pro-union employee. The union confessed that the action was forced by lack of employee support.

At Chavaree a union organizer, said support for the union waned after Coop efforts to sweeten life for its employees. A "notorious" union broker [in the person of Patricia Astor], he claimed, had been hired specially by the Coop to case job-related grievances.

"Astor would just talk to people all day long, saying the Coop didn't need outsiders, that the company would take care of its employees," Chavaree said.

Other management tactics consisted of a housecleaning of some "fifth" spots in the store, he said, and raises for "a select few."

Coop general manager Howard W. Davis, however, insisted that the union had been wrong from the start about its strength. Davis said the union was misled by the number of employees requesting the vote--that employees who signed did not necessarily support unionization. "I don't think they had that big a following," he said.

Davis admitted that the Coop "was not without fault," and that Astor, a New York-based personnel specialist, had indeed made improvements. He said that she would remain at the Coop "for the foreseeable future."

She may be needed again. "We haven't abandoned the Coop, Chavaree warned Monday. Six months from now, when a federally required breathing period lapses, the union has the legal option to reopen its drive on the Coop.