District 65: Gets A New Lease on Life

Nearly 250 Med area workers took time off from their lunch breaks yesterday afternoon to drink lemonade, munch popcorn, listen to live entertainment and to otherwise celebrate this week's NLRB ruling, which granted a new lease on life to a Medical Area union.

The workers heard speeches by organizers from B.U., MIT, the Harvard Employees' Organizing Committee (HEOC), and from their own organizer, Leslie Sullivan, who called the Med School Quad rally "very successful."

The workers, in short, were justifiably happy, and not afraid to show it.

All had seemed lost for the Med area union before this week. Harvard had succeeded in blocking the nearly two-year drive by District 65 of the Distributive Workers of America to achieve union status in the Medical Area all the way down the line.

The unionizing battle, which centers around the "appropriateness" of the Medical area as a unit for employee collective bargaining, seemed won by Harvard following a February ruling against District 65 in the regional NLRB. Regional director Robert Fuchs, who on at least two occassions had tried ship the "unprecedented" matter down to Washington, finally succumbed to pressure the Washington board, and decided the case himself.

But after Fuchs's nearly year-long vacillation, and a decision in favor of District 65 at Columbia by the Washington board, the union felt enough questions were still left unanswered to warrant a full review of the case by Washington.

No one really expected the Washington board to accept the case; Harvard had prepared an enviably airtight brief in opposition to the appeal, and the union had lost faith in the ability of the NLRB to deal with the case following the Fuchs debacle.

So when Harvard and the union were notified on Monday that the Washington board felt the "substantial issues" involved in the case merited review, the union was justifiably elated, and Harvard had suffered its first setback since the union began organizing employees in the Med area two years ago.

"Our case is so outstandingly strong," she says. "If fair is fair, they should certainly decide it in our favor."