A Step in the Right Direction

FOR THE FIRST TIME in recent memory, the news from the University dining halls last week was good. Local 26 of the Hotel, Institutional and Restaurant Employees Union announced that it had come to terms with the University on a new contract for Harvard's nearly 450 kitchen workers after summer-long negotiations.

The new contract settlement, while not exactly what the workers had originally demanded, nonetheless represents a marked improvement over the previous pact, and a victory for workers who last year took the University to task for such abuses as failing to list available kitchen jobs and discrimination against minority workers.

In addition to offering the workers a wage increase, the new contract gives them tangible protection against the most pernicious of the abuses against which workers protested last spring.

Among the most significant benefits included under the new pact is a provision requiring management to post all available job openings well in advance, as well as a clause requiring the presence of a union representative at all workers' disciplinary hearings.

The union representatives involved in the negotiations are to be richly praised for their persistent efforts on behalf of their constituency. But the union must remain on guard against the reemergence of the problems the new contract endeavors to eliminate.

The union must continue to agitate for further reforms in the kitchens, including the attainment of affirmative action goals and the institution of permanent and meaningful worker-management dialogue on the important issues facing workers in the University. But the new contract represents a meaningful first step.