Printing Office Chief Testifies At Hearing on Unions' Dispute

The director of the University Printing Office testified for five and one half hours yesterday about the differences between hot and cold-type printing on the opening day of a National Labor Relations Board hearing about a dispute involving Harvard and two printers unions.

Carl W. Getz Jr. stressed the lack of similarity between hot and cold-type work in an attempt to block a hot-type union's efforts to gain jurisdiction over the University's cold-type composition equipment.

The hot-type union--local 13 of the Boston Typographical Union-- is trying to take away the Graphic Arts international Union's rights over the cold-type equipment. The NLRB awarded the GAIU jurisdiction over the equipment last May.

The BTU is trying to convince the NLRB that the work it now does is so similar to cold-type composition that it should have jurisdiction over Harvard's cold-type composition machinery.

Yesterday's hearing began with a last minute change by the BTU in its description of the work it does in response to Harvard lawyers' threats that they would ask for a dismissal of the hearing.

NLRB hearing officer Joel F. Gardiner continued the hearing until February 26 after yesterday's testimony and Getz will resume the stand then.

Nelson G. Ross, a Boston lawyer who represented Harvard at the hearing, said the BTU was trying to gain new members at the GAIU's expense instead of jurisdiction over equipment--an attempt that would not fall within the bounds of the hearing.

Right to Unionize

But Richard T. Coleman, the BTU's lawyer, announced just as the hearing was beginning that the BTU already considers cold-type compositors part of the group it has the right to unionize.

Coleman said the BTU wants the four University Printing Office employees who work on cold-type composition to join the BTU but he said he does not want Harvard to fire the four workers and hire BTU members in their place.

Harvard officials say they may lay off seven of the 17 BTU members who work here by the end of the year--but the BTU's arrangements are apparently an attempt not to prevent the layoffs but to get rights to more equipment.