Stepping Into the Past

IN 1882, a group of Harvard undergraduates got together to beat the high prices of textbooks and firewood that Cambridge merchants charged at the time. The students started a shop in a local tobacco store, and out of their first five-foot-long bookshelf the Harvard Cooperative Society was born. The enterprise has since expanded to proportions its founders could never have dreamed possible. Over the past century, the Coop has grown into a multi-million-dollar retailing operation with six stores in the Boston area.

Not surprisingly, the Coop's success story has involved a radical transformation of its goals and organization. The communal service of the original student-run cooperative has gone the way of valet service and wholesome meals in Harvard dining halls, to be replaced with the scientific business management that considers efficiency and profits the hallmark of successful enterprise. The Harvard Cooperative Society has entered the league of department stores like Jordan Marsh and Filene's, two of its Boston competitors. The Coop often selects its managers from among graduates of the nation's top business schools, and their tight-fisted handling of the firm's operations ensures the top-notch business performance that Coop members have come to expect.

Profitability is the bottom line of that performance. The Coop's sales last year totaled more than $37 million, and its members received a 9.5-per-cent rebate on their purchases. Although the cooperative society must provide this patronage refund to its members, it is entitled to invest its profits from non-member sales into plant, stock, equipment and, inevitably, further expansion. The Coop's formula for successful enterprise is actually quite simple: The establishment exploits the laws of supply and demand to charge high prices for the products it sells while profiting from its limited outlays to labor. One example is the Coop's textbook monopoly. Graduate and undergraduate students from Harvard and MIT, who often have little recourse but to buy required course readings at the Coop, must acquiesce to the exorbitant prices charged for textbooks and other academic materials. The store can rely on a steady demand for its products as long as there are academics in Cambridge; and, judging from history, that should be a long, long time.

Although Coop managers claim that the high cost of searching for and maintaining a well-ordered stock of student readings and supplies often leaves their textbook operations in the red, they cannot deny that their secure situation in the Cambridge and Boston market allows them to attract students and other customers to the rest of the store's inevitably overpriced products. And if the Coop's revenues are accordingly high, its labor costs are quite low. The transient nature of the unskilled labor force in the Boston-Cambridge area allows management to pay low wages. In fact, the Coop attracts workers at wages that are dirt-cheap--starting levels for stockboys and clerks, who are often college graduates, border on the minimum wage--not a whole lot for one of the country's most expensive cities to live in. One worker recently described her employers' posture toward hiring and firing: "The Coop has an attitude that if you don't like it here, you go some place else--there are a hundred people on the street who will take your job."

AS YOUNGER EMPLOYEES come and go, the store's senior workers stay on at their assigned tasks, most of them resigned to their low wages and dim prospects for advancement by the poor chances of finding jobs elsewhere in the area's strickened job market. Meanwhile, the Coop goes on selling its books and clothes, pens, pencils and vast assortment of Harvard paraphernalia. But a storm of dissent recently blew through this garden of profitability, when local 1445 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) reported that more than half of the employees at the Coop's six branches and Boston warehouse signed authorization cards requesting union representation in contract negotiations. Workers complained of low wages, poor benefits, and the Coop's haphazard advancement procedure. They say oppressive work schedules during beginning-of-semester book rushes as well as unfair and often biased monitoring procedures manifest a lack of respect in the management's treatment of workers on the job. Furthermore, the absence of an official grievance procedure robs them of an effective voice to bring up complaints about management's policies for fair consideration and review, a significant problem for older employees who fear raising dirt might cost them their jobs.

Unions should not be supported blindly, as the example of the student boycott last spring of a firm selling commencement garments and resisting unionization indicates. The marginal company's sharp decline in sales forced it to shut down, leaving many to wonder what good the union organizers and student activism did for the plant's employees. But the facts of the union effort at the Coop are clear--wages and benefits are poor, and the company's profits are enormous. A union shop will not endanger the Coop's financial stability, and the measures that a union could take to improve working conditions at the Coop seem clear enough. Higher wages and the establishment of a systematic and honest employment policy through a union contract would be the first steps toward more secure working conditions and higher morale. As important, perhaps, could be the pride and conviction that union membership often entails. Workers would no longer need to sweep their grievances under a rug for fear of embarrassment and hassles from management. Instead, a voice would exist to address the preferences of all workers.

THE OPPOSITION of the Coop management to the organization attempt is hardly surprising, for the advent of a union would represent a dramatic shift in control over the forces that affect the workplace. Nevertheless, its hard-core campaign to prevent unionization is not less than appalling. Reports indicate that the Coop has hired a union-busting consultant, perhaps paying him as much as $1000 a day for his expertise in intimidating workers. The store's front office has released a barrage of anti-union propaganda, all designed to prey on the fears and latent conservatism of the workers. A series of letters from the management to the workers outlining its opinions on the effect of voting in the union's favor contain no outright lies. Instead, they highly exaggerate the negative effects that unionization possibly entails and present a grossly distorted vision of the union's purpose in seeking to organize the Coop's workers. More subtle tactics have included using lower-level managers to spread rumors among workers that denigrate the union and its efforts and the attempt to confuse workers into thinking that a vote giving the union negotiation rights also binds the workers to membership. The Coop no doubt has the right to present its case to the employees, so long as it operates within the confines set by U.S. labor law. But all Coop members and employees should ask themselves if these policies are fitting of an enterprise that was founded with a truly cooperative spirit.

The decision whether to unionize is ultimately up to the workers themselves. A majority of the more than 500 employees at the Coop's six branches and its warehouse must vote affirmatively in a March 26 election, before local 1445 can gain the authority to represent the workers in contract negotiations. If the union is granted this right, employees still have the option to turn down any contract that they perceive as unfavorable to their interests. Union organizers and activist workers point out that the road to unionization is a triumph of the democratic process. The local's present effort involves educating the store's employees as to the possible benefits the union could bring to their workplace. Those involved in the organization effort claim no promises are being made, but say that current dissatisfaction and the hope of a better future are the most persuasive forces on their side.