Smiles and A One-Year Settlement

Harvard finally finished up a rough fall season of union negotiations this week with a contract ratification and settlement with its second largest union, the 331-member Maintenance Trades Council of New England.

The trades council, whose president had been making noises about a strike, ratified the new contract in five separate votes--it is made up of five member trade unions--with the last one coming Monday night.

There were a few details to be ironed out during the week, as Harvard assured one of the member unions in writing of some minor details about work shifts, but William N. Mullins, manager of employee relations, and John J. Mark, the union's president, are now ready to sit down, smile, and sign the new pact.

It's not clear how real Mark's threats of a strike ever were. They may have strengthened his bargaining position, and he did officially terminate the union's contract in the heat of negotiations. Still, both sides seemed to be substantially in agreement by mid-December.

The contract is, like most contracts, more of a compromise than a clear victory for either side. The union's 8.5-per-cent pay raise is substantially less than the rate of inflation, but substantially more than the 7.6 per cent Harvard gave its largest union, the Harvard University Employees Representative Association, last month.

The trades council also got an extra annual holiday and additional pay of 25 cents an hour for evening shift work and 50 cents an hour for night shift.

The extra shift pay is not as good a deal for the union as it initially appears to be; only about 20 members of the union will work outside of the day shift and get the benefit.

Both the trades council and employees representatives association contracts are for only one year--so in October or November the smiling will stop, the threats will begin and the University will have to hammer out its two biggest union contracts all over again.