Big Victory for Labor Movement : Workers at Harvard Vote for Union Representation

In an extremely close election Tuesday, Harvard University’s clerical and technical workers voted in favor of union representation, culminating an organizing campaign that lasted more than a decade.

About 51% of the employees, who ranged from secretaries to scientific instrument makers, voted in favor of representation by the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers and 49% voted against the union. The vote was 1,530 for and 1,486 against, with 41 challenged ballots, officials said.

Fought Vigorous Campaign

The vote had been viewed as a key test of the ability of unions to organize white collar workers, a critical task if the labor movement is to rebound from setbacks in the Reagan era. The union waged a vigorous one-on-one organizing campaign, supplemented by radio and newspaper ads and endorsements from a number of elected officials and other public figures.

Harvard also waged a vigorous campaign. University President Derek Bok, a former labor law professor who co-authored a book sympathetic to trade unionism in the 1970s, sent out letters to all the employees saying he felt a union would not be in their best interests or the university’s best interest.

“I feel real good. . . . I knew we’d built a good organization. I’m real proud of everyone who took part in this,” Kristine Rondeau, chief organizer for the union, said in a telephone interview from a victory party at the Elks Hall in Cambridge, Mass., where Harvard’s main campus is located.

“The Harvard election is a victory for . . . the entire American labor movement,” said Gerald McEntee, president of the 1.1-million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which is affiliated with the Harvard union.

‘Emphatic Demonstration’

“This is an emphatic demonstration that the workplace priorities of the labor movement in the late 1980s--focusing on concerns like child care, pay equity, career mobility and giving workers a voice at the job site--are also the workplace concerns of an emerging ‘new collar’ work force of service-type workers, mostly working women,” McEntee added in a statement issued by his Washington office.

Urges Pay Policy Changes

Annual salaries for clerical workers at Harvard average $18,500, Rondeau said. Although citing no specific examples of sex-based pay discrimination, she said overall salary policies must be changed.

“The longer you work, the less you make,” Rondeau said. “After four or five years you peak out. That’s a common fact of life in women’s work, and it’s got to change.”

Rondeau said that the 3,300 union members will choose a negotiating committee, and she added that she hoped bargaining on a contract could begin soon.

That may not happen, however. In a prepared statement, Anne Taylor, a Harvard lawyer who headed the university’s campaign against unionization, indicated that Harvard might challenge the results.

Results Not Final

“There are a number of reports indicating that union representatives engaged in conduct prohibited by the National Labor Relations Board, which may affect the outcome of the election,” Taylor said. “We are presently investigating these reports. Until the NLRB has certified the results, they are not final.”

However, she added: “In the event the NLRB declares the union the winner, Harvard will work constructively with the union in the interest of support staff and the university.”

A Harvard spokesman said there were no details on the alleged election irregularities, and no official from the labor board was available for comment.