Dining Hall Workers to Ask For 50-Cent-an-Hour Raise

A proposal by the rank and file committee of the 550 Harvard members of local 186 of the Cooks and Pastry Cooks Association calls for a new one year contract with a 50-cent-per-hour across-the-board raise for all Harvard dining hall workers.

The proposed raises range from 10.6 per cent for second cooks to 17 per cent for general service employees.

The Cooks contract with Harvard expires June 30 and although no date has been set, the union will probably start negotiating with the University next month.

The proposal also calls for a one-year contract ending in September 1976. Since the union's present contract ends in June 1975, the reference to September 1976 appears to indicate that the union does not expect to reach a contract settlement until September 1975--three months after the contract expires.

That provision court mean the union expects lengthy negotiations or, possibly, a brief strike.

Harvard and union officials declined yesterday to comment on the contract proposals. The union has sent the University a copy of the proposals.

In its present one-year contract--negotiated in only one bargaining session last spring--Harvard's dining hall workers got a 5.5-per-cent across-the-board pay raise.

By asking for a cents-per-hour raise rather than a percentage one, the union is effectively asking for proportionally larger raises for its lower-paid employees.

In a statement accompanying the proposals, the union's rank and file committee said. "We are not greedy, but we do want to make things better for ouselves and our families. We cannot afford to fall behind the cost of living."

Other union contract proposals include;

* Days off on three additional holidays;

* Double time-and-a-half pay for holidays--holiday pay is now double time;

* Printing of all notices to employees in English, Greek, Portuguese and Spanish; and,

* Guaranteed five hours' pay for employees who work on their days off.

Alan Balsam, the union's shop steward in the College dining halls, said yesterday the union will announce its negotiating committee next month and then start negotiations.