A Slow-Moving Clash

The long-awaited clash between Harvard and Medical Area union organizers finally came to a head this week, as the National Labor Relations Board began hearings on whether to grant the Medical Area Employees Organizing Committee's petition to hold a union-forming election.

Harvard's lawyers, Thomas L.P. O'Donnell '47 and Nelson G. Ross, both of Ropes and Gray, called Hale Champion, financial vice president of the University, and John B. Butler, director of personnel, as witnesses, in an effort to show that Harvard is a big, centralized place, with the Medical Area only one part of a larger structure.

Harvard maintains that the only appropriate bargaining unit for clerical and technical personnel would be University-wide.

The organizing committee affiliated itself with District 65 of the Distributive Workers of America last spring, and District 65's New York attorney, Richard Levy, heatedly cross-examined Champion and Butler.

Butler was still on the stand when the hearings recessed yesterday, and Harvard has several other witnesses to call--including Medical Area personnel head Douglas Knox--which means that the NLRB will probably be in session on this issue for several more weeks.

District 65 hopes to hold the union-forming election before summer holidays begin in the Medical Area, in early June. At this rate, even with a decision in the union's favor by the NLRB regional director after he reads the record of the hearings, that will be a tough thing to accomplish.