Compromise With the Cops

There won't be a police strike at Harvard this year. Not that one was ever really in the offing, but tension was rising during the six months of negotiations for a new police contract, and the Harvard Patrolmen's Association and the University were having a hard time getting anywhere at all for five of those six months.

The new pact that the Patrolmen's Association, the Harvard police union, ratified last week, is a product of major concessions by both sides. The cops will have an 18-month contract with a raise of about 12 per cent, from $5.34 to $6.00 an hour, for the first 15 months, and an extra 3 per cent added on for the final three months.

Since Harvard was offering a 9.6 per cent raise just over a month ago, while the cops were asking for more than 21 per cent, it is clear that both parties gave way.

The cops will also get an increase in their pay differential--the higher pay scale for police who work shifts after 4 p.m.--but this increase will only take effect late in the contract. The addition of a floating holiday, increased uniform allowances and a broadened definition of funeral leave to include the death of grandparents round out the new contract for the 49 patrolmen.

Lawrence Letteri, the Patrolmen's Association president, said last week there was no dissension in the ranks about accepting the new agreement. The cops had been without a contract since June 30 and Letteri feels most patrolmen were pretty anxious to get something down on paper.

Harvard has a couple of points in its favor in the new pact, as Edward W. Powers, the University's director of employee relations and chief labor negotiator, pointed out las week. For one thing, Letteri withdrew one of his major demands, that 10 to 12 patrolmen be added to the force, before the union and Harvard even went into mediation. In addition, the 18-month duration of the pact, six months longer than the old contract, is a significant plus for Harvard.

No date has yet been set for a formal signing ceremony. But for both sides, after substantial compromises, the long stalemate has ended.

Earlier this fall, as tension was mounting in the University police force over stalemated contract talks with Harvard, a number of patrolmen staged a protest at the personnel office to complain against an alleged violation of their old contract by police chief David L. Gorski.