Union Moves Toward A Strike

A loosely organized Graduate Student and Teaching Fellow Union and its weary steering committee surprised almost every member of the Harvard community last week--themselves notwithstanding--and attracted enough people to launch an open-ended strike scheduled to begin Monday morning at 8 a.m.

The Union, which now claims 600 members, will picket all major classrooms and administrative buildings until the Administration revises the graduate school's financial aid plan according to Union demands, or until Union members decide collectively to pitch in the picket signs and go home.

While Union members worked time-and-a-half persuading undergraduates to support the strike and begging graduate students to join their ranks, the Faculty turned to the issues behind the Kraus plan for the entire duration of its monthly Faculty meeting Tuesday.

The Faculty's two-hour discussion centered mostly around a long, sweeping explanation of the newly-instituted Kraus financial aid program delivered by Edward T. Wilcox, acting dean of the GSAS. Wilcox in his 17-page speech failed to mention the Union or the fact that graduate students had scheduled a strike protesting the plan.

Those Faculty members who responded to Wilcox's address presented virtually no challenge to Wilcox's assertion that the Kraus plan is the best available compromise between the "extremes" of opinion surrounding graduate education.

Michael Ferber, a member of the Union, challenged Wilcox with the Union's seven demands and asked the Administration to account for its use of endowment income, claiming that unspent income could be diverted to the GSAS for more student scholarships.

President Bok took issue with Ferber's claims by saying that Harvard has spent all of the endowment income on University operating costs.

While discussion at the Faculty meeting was fizzling toward an inconclusive finish, chants filtered through the Faculty Room windows from 150 Union members and sympathizers demonstrating outside on the steps of University Hall.

As Faculty members entered the building, Union members had handed them leaflets urging revisions in the Kraus plan and explaining their decision to strike as a reluctant but necessary "last resort."

But the meeting, which was billed as a forum for debates about the Kraus plan, failed to draw even a quorum.

Nevertheless, about 600 graduate students will stumble into picket lines Monday morning--calling on the Administration for funds which Bok has called "nonexistent"--and remain on the march until at least Thursday night, when the footsore Union members will hold an open forum to consider future actions.