Round 2 to Harvard

LAST WEEK the University won another labor victory by using inflexible and threatening bargaining tactics. Because the University refused to compromise on the benefits issue, the members of Local 26 of the Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Employees Union voted in a stormy meeting to ratify the University contract offer. Their vote reversed an earlier decision in September to reject the pact.

The workers' vote, however, does not indicate satisfaction with the contract. The dining hall workers simply preferred working under an inadequate contract to going on strike, with the financial hardships a strike entails. Harvard's refusal to compromise is hardly surprising, given the University's generally callous attitude toward union employees. While the contract contains a reasonable wage increase, food services remains a traditionally lower-paid industry. The pensions offered in the latest contract are still pitifully inadequate, and so workers need expanded benefits to fill the wage gap. Despite kitchen workers' requests that the University consider these concerns, Edward W. Powers, associate general counsel for employee relations and Harvard's chief labor negotiator, refused to compromise. Instead, he threatened to retract concessions Harvard had already granted in the contract.

The University's hard line placed the union leadership in a difficult position. Local 26 is a Boston-based union, with Harvard constituting a minor bargaining unit. Because Harvard does pay slightly more than other Boston hotels or restaurants, the Boston union officials did not want to strain the resources of the union in a Harvard strike. But this reluctance of the Boston officials, and their subsequent attempts to convince the Harvard workers not to strike at the meeting, left the Harvard rank and file with little choice but to capitulate to Harvard's demands. The rank and file are justly angry with their leadership's refusal to back up their demands.

We can only regret that the University's inflexible bargaining tactics prevented a satisfactory compromise on the important benefits issue in the contract. Harvard forced the union into ratifying a contract the majority of workers still find inadequate, and further embitters labor relations between Local 26 and the University.