Labor Union Administration and Contract Negotiation

     In this section I will discuss my experiences over the whole of my ten year tenure at Smith from the perspective of labor relations. That is, I will attempt to answer the question, "What are the realities, as I experienced them, of the workplace, and labor-management relations, how did they lead me to my conclusions, and how does it all relate to community organizing?" The realities were brought home to me through several aspects of the ongoing struggle, such as the nature of the relationship between labor and management, the way the two groups are organized, and their attitudes and strategies with regard to each other. We engaged in the struggle, in Local 211, in several contract campaigns, and protest actions and movements against workplace changes in healthcare insurance, budget cuts, and staff reductions. Along the away, we picked up the battle on behalf of individual employees through our contractual grievance procedure, and the surrounding negotiations and protest actions.

Quiet beginnings

     August 26, 1986 was the first day of orientation for my new job at Smith College. It would be some time before the defining events of my employment there would begin to unfold. There were 36 new employees in the group that day. It was the largest number of employees ever hired on a single day by Dining Services. That was the name of the department, although many department employees and others on campus continued to refer to us as Food Services, as we had previously been called. Just before being served a very nice buffet lunch, we had a visit from Dennis Seymour, the President of SEIU Local 211, and Glenn Meakim, the Secretary-Treasurer. They gave a brief presentation covering the requirements of the contract between Smith and Local 211, which included the mandate that we join the Union after thirty days of employment.

     I no longer remember what my state of mind regarding unions was at the time, except that I wasn’t against them, and I was curious. I know I had been aware of many strikes during the seventies, tying up train service or bus service, or choking New York City with trash when the garbage haulers went out. I remember seeing news reports about the difficulties for commuters, or the hazards presented by the vermin in the growing garbage heaps. I now recognize the news coverage as being biased against the unions, and remember the effect it had on me. I thought of the unions as being selfish, willing to let others suffer so they could get better pay. I wondered at the number of strikes I was hearing about in the news. It always seemed like there was a strike screwing things up somewhere. Of course nowhere was there coverage of the conditions the workers had to suffer, or what in their situations was prompting them to such drastic action. Never did I see any news of the suffering the workers had to endure during a strike, or the sacrifices they had to make.

     I also remember that I had learned not to mention unions in the places I worked, since the reaction was invariably hostile. I couldn’t understand the level of hostility among workers who might have something to gain from being in a union. Now I was in a place where not only was it okay to discuss unions, but representatives of the Union were invited to address the employer’s orientation meeting. I now recognize that situation as a feature of a labor-management honeymoon period. I was coming to this place near the end of the honeymoon.

     By early October I recall bothering Glenn about the fact that I hadn’t been contacted by the Union about joining up. He was a bit put off by my string of questions, saying that they would be contacting me soon. It must have been unusual for him, because I subsequently never saw anyone ask when they would be admitted to the Union. Most would rather not have to take time out for a meeting, and would rather not have union dues taken out of their weekly paychecks. I was worried that I would miss the boat and end up losing my job.

     I suppose it was at the November meeting when a large group of us were sworn in. Dennis gruffly conducted the meeting with gavel close at hand, asking for a roll call of the union officers present and moving briskly into the Order of Business like a well-oiled machine. We waited through the monthly formalities of the beginning of the meeting as the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the previous meeting, describing various obscure decisions ensuing from unintelligible discussions, after which Glenn, the Secretary Treasurer, read aloud in minute detail the financial transactions of the Union for the previous month. I exchanged glances with some of my friends, during this unintelligible ritual. We whispered jokes and tried to muffle our laughter, until we finally came to the first order of new business: our induction oath. First we were asked to leave the room and wait in the corridor with the Sergeant-At-Arms while the body took a vote on whether to allow us into the Union. This was pure ritual in Local 211. I’ve never heard of anyone being rejected. On our way out there were the ritual remarks, something to the effect of sheep being led to slaughter.

     It was but a moment before we were being ushered back into the room and corralled up to the front where we stood in two rows, facing the members of the Union. It was hard to keep with the intended solemnity of the occasion. It was embarrassing standing there with my right hand up reciting an oath like I was in some kind of cartoon. That’s the only kind of previous exposure I had had to this type of ritual: Fred and Barney at the Water Buffalo Lodge. The oath had become complicated by labor’s history, and included some arcane language that tended to trip up even the experienced union President, and totally confused us. Some simply held their hands up through the difficult parts until we came to something they could understand, which they would repeat along with the rest of the group.

     For many in the group, the meaning of the words passing through their lips would soon be forgotten, if they were ever considered at all. Together, with hands raised, in the presence of our new brothers and sisters, we vowed loyalty to the organization whose ranks would thereby include us. We pledged loyalty to each other, promising never to wrong one another, nor see one another wronged, if we could prevent it. We promised to educate ourselves and each other about the history and principles of the labor movement. Some of the people in that group were enemies of the Union already, with deep ties to management, of which the rest of us were unaware. It would be quite some time before our loyalties would be put to the test. The first order of business would be to finish the meeting and gather at the most convenient spot for a beer.

     For many years after that I rarely missed a meeting. I considered it the minimum commitment to fulfill my oath. In the early meetings of the spring semester the leaders of the Union repeatedly asked for someone to fill a vacated spot on the contract negotiation committee. I realized they hadn’t filled the vacancy after a couple of meetings, so I began to ask some questions about what it would entail. Satisfied that it wouldn’t be too burdensome a commitment, I accepted nomination to the committee, and was elected without competition at the following meeting.

On the team

     The negotiation of the contract was actually fun. It was challenging and interesting, and often amusing. I met and became familiar with the Union’s attorney, Bill Newman, a good man and a clever attorney, with a good sense of humor. Bill was and continues to be the architect of many of Local 211’s successes. He has a knack for theatrics, what he liked to call "smoke and mirrors," that has enabled us to achieve agreement on some issues that should have been losers. I was impressed with Bill’s strong sense of right and wrong, tempered by his instinct to go for the win. Much of his motivation for putting in the long hours and pulling rabbits out of his hat come from his moral sense. He even charged us half his usual rate. I also became familiar with the members of management’s negotiating team, led by the Director of Personnel, Jack Simpkin, and attorney Chip Dougherty, from a Springfield law firm.

     First, the union team met together to formulate our demands, and plan our strategy. There wasn’t much to it. We had some substantial demands, but the biggest issue was our wage demand. Once we had drawn up our list of demands, we discussed them at a union meeting, with Bill in attendance. This was a well-attended meeting which gave some members a chance to vent their frustrations, but resulted in no changes in the list of demands. Our contract contains a provision for the start of negotiations over the next contract, towards the end of its two-year term. The provision states that the current contract will remain in effect unless one or both of the parties contacts the other in writing by a certain date. This communication contains proposals for changes to be included in the new contract. Usually these letters were exchanged on the day of the deadline, I suppose so there wouldn’t be time for the contents of one letter to affect the contents of the other. In labor negotiating parlance the Union’s proposals are referred to as "demands", and the employer’s as "proposals."

     It is presumed that all contract sections not changed in negotiations will remain in effect. This has the effect of making change slow, because all either party has to do is refuse to agree on a change, and that section will stay. Of course, both parties generally want some changes, and often agree to changes they would rather avoid, in order to motivate the other party to agree to the things they want. This makes for some interesting strategies, as the parties make counterproposals in order to make the opposition’s proposals more acceptable for their side. Bill stressed the need for a good strategy, but no elaborate plans were developed. The overall concept was to be ready to interject, so Bill wouldn’t be the only one talking. If there was something in the discussion that irked us, we were particularly urged to speak up, to show the emotional force of the issue.

     Our union was divided into two departments: Dining Services and Housekeeping. Our team was mostly comprised of Dining Services personnel, with one or two housekeepers. Bill acted as the chief spokesperson. The other principle players were Dennis Seymour, our president, who had a good command of the facts. He was also the person who had the authority to make decisions, and sign agreements on behalf of the union. Dennis was ably assisted by Glenn Meakim, the Secretary-Treasurer. Having held this position for ten years, Glenn’s knowledge of the details of the union’s operations was unsurpassed. He seemed to have had the entire contract memorized, and also remembered accurately how and why many of the agreements embodied in the contract were arrived at. Glenn was indispensable for information, and was a stalwart advocate of the union’s every position on every issue. Mike Eaton had been a perennial member of the negotiating team. He had served as an officer on the Executive Board, and also had an excellent command of the necessary facts. Mike was also very cagey. He was a very good bluffer, and could carry it to the extreme measure. He’s not the kind of person you want to play poker with.

     Then there was Attorney Newman. Bill often gave the impression that he was flying by the seat of his pants. I think it was part of his technique to be exactly the person the bosses and their attorneys would hate. From every observation I could make he was well prepared, and did his homework extensively. Either that or he’s a very good faker. You never know with attorneys. Watching Bill , Chip and Jack was all the entertainment I needed. I became aware of their meta-communication, a subtle jockeying for dominance masked by clever banter. Bill had a way of sucking people in, and most of us would be easy work for him, but Jack and Chip knew what to listen for. He would start with some general opening comments, state some inarguable premises, and build logically on them until he had his opposition agreeing with his position. He would be able to get Jack so far, until a look would come across Jack’s face like he had bought one magic bean too many, and he would angrily interrupt and deny what he had just admitted. Bill would slowly wear him down in this way, each time trying a different approach, and maybe getting one more tiny concession.

     The management team had the gray-haired Mr. Simpkin, the unquestioned leader of the team, who wore his mustache exceedingly thin, right along his upper lip. Jack was the College’s chief spokesperson. He was very direct, often sarcastic, and very anal. We all benefited from his fastidiousness, as we used his system of organizing and handling the proposals and couterproposals. Nobody benefited from his stubbornness and belligerence, which had the tendency to hold things up for arbitrary reasons.

     Jack’s assistant Jan Keefe was neat as a pin, collar always buttoned to the top, typically with a cameo pin meticulously placed in the center of her neck. Jan was usually the quiet one, taking what I am sure were meticulous notes, and only speaking up when the issue concerned the clerical issues that her staff had to deal with. One such issue was the College’s perennial proposal to make the benefits for a significant number of our members, who worked 32 hours a week, prorated. Our members were the only group of part time employees who got full benefits, by virtue of our contract. Jan was called upon to speak out on the abuses heaped upon her clerical staff, trying to keep track of this aberration. One of the chief arguments made on behalf of this proposal was that it led to errors, resulting in our members not receiving the right benefits, and the subsequent adjustments of those errors, which were apparently quite an annoyance. It was probably annoying because the people who had to process these special arrangements were part time themselves, but didn’t receive full time benefits.

     Not enough can be said here about the Director of Dining Services, Paul Garvey. The most fitting terms I ever heard to describe Mr. Garvey were "the love child of Archie Bunker and Jaba the Hut." He was a handsome man who had gotten quite too big for his expensive business suits. His style was loud and abrasive. Period. That was his entire technique. Mr. Garvey was, however a good public speaker. He would upon occasion have to address the entire Dining Services staff at large meetings, where I was impressed by his ability to measure his words, and pause long enough to ensure maximum absorption and clarity, giving the appearance of great confidence and poise. He was also the person most responsible for putting together a department that really did function well. I liked Mr. Garvey at first, which was not a popular thing to do, but I try to give everyone a fair chance. Over time I learned that it was a waste of time trying to talk to him about anything. He was not capable of hearing the opinion of another, except under extreme duress. His own inflexibility would eventually do him in.

     I found Garvey’s Associate Director, Kathy Zieja, much more reasonable to deal with, although she was by no means easy. Kathy was the memory of the management team, a functional approximation of what Glenn was to us. If you ever screwed up, though you may have held an otherwise exemplary record for all of twenty years, she remembered it. If the College had ever done you a favor, if they so much as allowed you to use your personal day on shorter than usual notice, she would remember it. This information was always available to be used to defeat proposals, or to deny personal requests, as the department saw fit, and it usually consisted of dirt on one of our members, of which there was always a plentiful supply. The Director of Building Services, Bill Johansen and the Director of the Housekeeping Department, Arlene Lenahan were the quiet ones on the team, and they had an obvious distaste for the proceedings, sitting out sessions that would not directly concern housekeeping issues, and speaking, for the most part, only to those issues.

     Whenever things were going tough, or we were just plain bored, we could while away the hours and blow off steam by making fun of Chip Dougherty. He was always dressed in an expensive suit, accessorized with expensive jewelry, and his shirt was always buttoned up to his neck, with his tie always tight, no matter how hot it got. Even his haircut looked expensive. Mr. Simpkin’s anal retentiveness was exceeded only by Chip’s. I used to watch him fill legal pads with his precise, geometric doodles. When things got hot, particularly when we were "on a roll," you could watch his neck literally turn red. His philosophy clearly left no room for worker involvement in management decision-making, a shame for his clients, since they now use labor-management committees to control workers.

     Chip was a complete contrast to Bill, who often wore no tie, wore Birckenstock sandals, and whose wavy red hair was a bit long, and sometimes unkempt. He looked every bit the card-carrying member of the ACLU he was. The antagonism between Chip and Bill occasionally became counterproductive. As their mutual contempt surfaced in the discussions they would both dig in to their respective positions, Chip in particular, even hardening his stance. When Chip became agitated it was even harder than usual to get to any agreement with Jack. The robber-baron in him would surface, and he seemed to delight in the idea of making things difficult for us, simply because he could.

Negotiating the contract

     I should mention, as it came as a surprise to me, that our contract was explicitly with the Trustees of Smith College, but there was never a Trustee to be seen at the negotiating table, nor was there a Treasurer or a President, both of whom outranked the entire bargaining team of the College. One of the presumptions of negotiating labor contracts is that the teams doing the bargaining have the authority to bargain on behalf of the interested parties. (i.e. the members of 211 on one hand and the Trustees of the College on the other) It’s common in many negotiations for both parties to formally ask each other, for the record, if they have authority to bargain. We were constantly challenged as to whether we really represented the views of the membership, and we tried always to challenge any sign that the College team had insufficient authority, such as when they had to consult with the Treasurer or President on issues we were really pushing for.

     Another factor in the relative power of the two sides was political. On the union side there were some radicals, some liberal Democrats, conservative Democrats, and even staunch Republicans. Mike Eaton delighted in shocking us with his support of Reagan, Bush and Quayle. The differences among this rainbow of perspectives was considerable. When it comes to desired proposals and tactics, even the perspectives of the liberal democrat and the radical, or socialist, can be quite pronounced. Even when the individuals agree in principle on a proposal the discussion can become quite heated in the areas of how far to go, or even just the language used to frame it. Politics on the College team ranged from conservative democrats to right-wing Republicans. These points of view are much more compatible, but in case of any dissension among the team, the great sums of money they were all being paid to sit there and deny us the crumbs from their table, and the strict hierarchical authority were enough to unite them.

     By the first day of negotiation both sides had the opportunity to review each others’ proposals. Negotiations began with each side going through their list of proposals, giving the other side a chance to ask questions about the proposals that may have come up during review, like "What the hell are you talking about here?" This is an opportunity for each side to posture and show their resolve on each issue, how they’ll never give in, etc. At this point it’s like a poker game. Every issue is of the utmost importance, or absolutely impossible to agree to. You have to figure out whether they mean it or not.

     An interesting dynamic I discovered here is that sometimes the other side proposes something that’s a good idea for your own side. You may be forced to admit it. This is harder to do from the perspective of the union negotiator. In the small group of the negotiating team you may be able to discuss the merits of an idea openly, but when the ideas are presented to the body, you can see the heads shaking as each proposal is read, before they’ve even heard it. As long as it’s known that the idea came from management, it’s a bad one. I believe many in the Union see negotiations as a chance to get even with management for the perceived injuries of the contract term: grievances that were not resolved satisfactorily, jobs awarded to favorites, personal day requests denied, and any number of possible insults and injuries. Now we have the chance to tell them that everything about them stinks and there’s often quite a bit of emotion behind it. As a representative of the union it can be quite risky to contradict the expressed will of an agitated membership. The risks may seem intangible, but in the workplace things can be made difficult.

     After many years of work in the non-unionized sector, coming to a union shop was a bit of a shock. One would think, in light of the oath and all, that the camaraderie would be better, but in fact there was far more infighting than I had ever experienced. There’s nothing like the support of a union when things get tough, but in every day terms, I found relationships between coworkers to be better where there was no union. My explanation for this is that when you take the oath, your loyalty is presumed and expected, then measured against this expectation, with everyone, as human nature dictates, expecting more from their neighbor than they’re willing to give themselves. In the non-unionized workplace everyone still expects more from their neighbor, but there are no presumptions about loyalty and fidelity. In order to function, often in difficult circumstances, and with little protection from being fired, injured, or various other workplace hazards, workers have little choice but to help each other. In conditions that are generally more difficult, this mutual support tends to be better appreciated and better reciprocated.

     Jack Simpkin’s first move in negotiations was to take the majority of the Union’s proposals out of consideration. He does this by dividing his piles. Each proposal, whether by the College, or the Union, is printed on the top of a piece of paper, and given a number. It is referenced by the section of the contract to which it applies, and put in order according to contract section. That’s one big pile. In order to consider this large pile, it’s necessary to divide it. Jack divides it into those he’s willing to consider, and those he’s not. All of the College’s proposals are generally in the pile to be considered. He doesn’t quite come out and say it, but it was immediately apparent that we wouldn’t be able to get back to those proposals of ours that went into the other pile. I was shocked. Bill Newman helped me to realize that this was simply reality. If there was anything really important in that not-to-be-considered pile we could bring it back at any time, but Jack genuinely did know which were the important proposals, and wouldn’t waste an unnecessary minute on anything else. It would be up to us to assert which of the College’s proposals we thought belonged in the trash. Jack’s piles would grow increasingly complicated over the course of negotiations, testifying both to his organizational ability and to his compulsiveness.

     Jack’s method for organizing all of the numerous proposals was very effective, though. We had to admit to this. We had to ask for copies, rather than make our own. Our other options seemed poor alternatives: make copies, 80 or so, the approximate total number of proposals, for each of the members of our team, plus the time it would take for someone to make all of those copies by masking out everything else on the proposal letters, and copying each proposal alone on a separate sheet of paper with its own number on it; or we could pay for Bill to have his secretary do it. Either method would be time-consuming and, though not terribly expensive, more so than having Jack get 7 more copies of everything he had. That way, both sides of the negotiation could be referring to each of the proposals by the same number at the top of the page. Jack always gave us a hard time about it, saying he would patent his methods and make us pay royalties. It wasn’t very effective on our part, however to leave ourselves in a position of having to rely on the boss and his plentiful resources. It’s harder sometimes to be independent and do things yourself, but generally, anything you can do for yourself is a plus. It’s a psychological disadvantage when you’re supposedly going into negotiations as an equal in an adversarial relationship, and you have to rely on the good graces of your opponent for the necessary tools. You’re in the position of the child who, though defiant in the afternoon, has to come home for dinner in the evening. This would become a motivation for me to learn how to do the things they knew how to do, like maintain a database for the seniority list, or for keeping track of where all of the members of the Union worked.

     The negotiations continued in what was considered a fairly routine manner, into mid August. The timing brought up one of Jack’s perennial threats. If the new contract wasn’t settled by the time the last one expired, June 30, any negotiated pay increases wouldn’t have to be retroactive to that date. In other words, retroactivity was negotiable. The threat was waved over our heads to ensure that we weren’t too belligerent, or didn’t ask too much. It would be difficult to go back to the membership if the raises weren’t retroactive. I had trouble understanding this because the money involved wasn’t much if the time period was several weeks. Several months, of course would mean more money, but people would accept the loss of more substantial issues before retroactivity. It was one issue I had to learn to respect, even if I didn’t understand it. Ultimately the contract was settled without any remarkable trouble, and our raises were retroactive.

* * *

The next level

     Teresa Charlebois was a Local 211 icon. She had served two terms as President, and from all reports was an excellent negotiator. She had trouble with her knees which caused her to walk with a distinct limp when it was flaring up. I had only spoken to her once or twice, when she called me to stop in at her worksite before reporting to work one Sunday in late Autumn. We walked for awhile outside as she solemnly put it to me that she wanted me to run for President of the Union. She felt like the Union needed someone who would "stand up to Garvey." Paul Garvey was a formidable figure in our department. I suppose it was his job to be, but he was a very large and loud man, who was able to bully his way to getting what he wanted. Union presidents who would be willing to stand up to a man like him weren’t all that common. I didn’t know whether or not I would be able to either. By now though, I had been around long enough to know some of the Union regulations, and knew I wouldn’t be eligible for office for another year. She said that wasn’t a problem. I told her I didn’t feel ready to take on such a central role right away, but that I would consider accepting a nomination to the Executive Board. The Executive Board consists of the officers of the Union, the President, Vice-President, Secretary-Treasurer, Business Agent, Recording Secretary, Sergeant-at-Arms, and three generic Executive Board members.

     In order to elect someone to office who wasn’t normally eligible, the International Union had to be contacted to ask for a waiver of the restrictions. The waiver was granted. I accepted the nomination for one of the Executive Board positions and was elected. The installation of officers requires another oath, similar to the induction oath. We were sworn in at the December meeting in 1987.

     As the new slate of officers took over, we had the experience of Glenn Meakim to rely on for a sense of protocol and tradition. The new President, Joe Menzyk, had served for several years as a member of the Executive Board, the last two as Vice President. Most of the rest of us were new to the process. There were a number of things to be aware of, but most of them had not occurred to us as yet. It seemed quiet, as if they elected us, swore us in, and closed the door on us. One engine for activity was the remaining business left over from the last E-Board. This consisted mostly of grievances pending, and ongoing discussions of issues with the College. Then there were the regular monthly duties of collecting the dues, paying the officers, paying "per-capita" taxes to the various confederations our local belongs to, and running our regular meetings. There were an assortment of other duties that one might not expect, but that we would learn about over time, like going to funerals of union members’ loved ones, or sending flowers to someone who’s sick. Amid the symphony of issues that must be managed by a union, one must always keep one’s ear tuned to the melodies of individual members, and make those sacrifices and gestures that show our common bond as humans.

     As my first year of service progressed I began to learn my first lessons about unionism, beginning with our small local. There are said to be two common models of unionism today. One is the service model which correlates to craft or trade unionism, and the other is an organizing model, correlating more closely to industrial unionism. The twin pillars of the service model are the contract and the grievance procedure. The contract makes provisions for the grievance procedure, and the grievance procedure, by giving people a potential avenue to redress management abuses, enforces the terms of the contract, motivates a certain amount of unity, which is important in winning good contracts, and identifies issues for future negotiations. In the organizing model there is only one pillar: group unity. This philosophy emphasizes the existence of a state of conflict between labor and management. In the face of the enormous economic power of capital, the only weapon available to labor is its numbers. Every situation is evaluated in terms of what effect it has on the organization, and each decision is made to increase the solidarity of its members. We were adherents to the service model, and were struggling to maintain it in our union.

     I had come in with one small agenda item. I felt it was important for the functioning of the Union, and the service of our members that we have better communication. I remember ruminating about this during my first year on campus. The 230 members of Local 211 worked in about 40 buildings. Most of the buildings had a kitchen which in most cases served as the communication hub for workers who took their lunch there. The lunch break table was literally the focus of union communication at work. It was the most expedient solution to the challenges of communication in our fragmented workplace, but it tended to reduce contact with some of the housekeepers. This was a group that seemed to generate many complaints. I heard several union officers make remarks to the effect that their job would have been easier if the housekeepers didn’t belong to the Union. This situation is illustrative of so many of the problems confronting labor today. These are internal problems, and tend to be overlooked easily in favor of the sexier issues like job security and health care. We like to make our house look good for visitors, even if they can’t use the bathroom when they get there.

     The housekeepers inhabit a space of their own at Smith College. The kind of relationships they have with the institution are defined by the highly sensitive work they do. They know the truth about life in the houses at Smith, because from them it cannot be hidden. Their jobs take them up the stairs that most employees of the College never climb. Because of the nature of their work, they inhabit a world where one sees mostly students and other housekeepers. Because of their work, they often find themselves and the work they do disparaged and undervalued. They tend to develop a common point of view that is shaped by their daily experience. In this way, they form the smaller of two subsets in the Union. They are a minority within our ranks, with their own set of common issues and expectations. Within our union, the housekeepers tend to feel as though they’ve been left out of the Union’s internal processes, and treated by many of their coworkers in Dining Services with disrespect. They feel that the Union looks out for the people in Dining Services first, sacrificing the needs of housekeepers.

     My answer to this problem was simple: get on the Executive Board and the Negotiating Committee and make things better. There was rarely a contest to get on these committees, yet there were never more than one or two housekeepers involved, and they were usually the same couple of people. This seemed like the obvious answer. It wasn’t as simple as I thought it was. What we were experiencing were dynamics that most would feel are undesirable and unnecessary, but which developed in our union as they had developed many times before in other places. It was a politics of inequality. Those in the majority had little intrinsic motivation to empathize with the housekeepers. They saw themselves as having risen above that level. Their salaries were better. What concerned a Senior Cook and what concerned a housekeeper were often mutually exclusive. Just a little of this attitude would be picked up very easily by a housekeeper. Their harsh reactions served to exacerbate the animosity, and reinforce the image of the "crabby housekeeper". It turned out that housekeepers and their issues were key to our success, or to our lack thereof. Any effort to heal these differences would be an act of building our union.

     Alongside of this situation there were other communication problems in Local 211. The separated workplaces made any union-wide communication difficult. Our union meetings were not well-attended. How do you get messages across? I considered the possibility of deputizing one person from each house to be the representative, and communicate with their coworkers what happened at meetings. Conscription was not the answer. What would you do if they didn’t show up? Shoot them? Have them fired for not being a member in good standing? Imagine the Union on the side of trying to get an employee fired, while the employer is trying to save the person’s job. I considered the possibility of having someone of their own choosing from each house come to the meetings. Again, unenforceable. I imagined confederations of groups of houses, but such a system would make things even more tiring and less attractive. The only vehicle I could conceive of was a revived newsletter. There had been some people producing one, but that effort had withered. At our first Executive Board meeting I volunteered, without being asked, to work on the newsletter. The newsletter might not solve our communication problems, but at least it addressed them.

The first round of cuts

     In December of 1988, the Union was invited by the Director of Physical Plant, Bill Johansen, to discuss some issues of importance concerning the housekeeping department. At this meeting we were informed of the College’s decision to hire ServiceMaster to re-evaluate the housekeepers’ jobs, and propose any changes they would find advisable. Thus began the first of the major campaigns that would occupy Local 211 for the next several years. It would be the College’s first move to get operating costs under control by cutting that part of the budget that goes to the people that worked there. The College actively engaged in stonewalling us from that very first meeting. Some questions were asked about how the jobs would be evaluated. They wouldn’t tell us. They said it was "proprietary information." We asked about workers having input into the evaluation process, and were assured that there would be worker input. As the next few months rolled by, there were several other meetings on this issue, even as the studies began, and the reports came out. As the start of negotiations in 1989 approached, the issue had become quite heated. The College wanted to cut 35% of the housekeepers. ServiceMaster said that was all that the remaining numbers would be sufficient. We still hadn’t been given the opportunity to provide any input into the study, or see any of the results.

     Bill Newman became involved in the issue right after the first meeting. Our initial strategy was to delay the implementation of the plan as long as we could. This was not simply to postpone the inevitable, but to tie the issue up with the contract negotiation. Bill’s advice was that we would fare best if we could use the strength of our other issues to get the College to give ground wherever we could. Our negotiation team had already been selected, and there were no housekeepers on the team. We elected two volunteers from the housekeeping staff to assist us with the bargaining over these issues. At our meetings with the College, Jack Simpkin and Bill Johansen continued to stonewall. We continued to badger, to make information requests, to propose alternatives. We had begun to negotiate the contract as well, and the housekeepers jobs were becoming a big part of it. Every chance we could, we would kick up more dirt, and both sides were becoming desperate not to lose this fight.

     Our negotiating team that year was very much the same as it had been two years previously. Joe Menzyk had the president’s duties, but Dennis was still on the team, as were Mike Eaton and Glenn Meakim. The new additions were the two housekeepers, Diane Benoit and Emily Nicole, and Paul Ryan. Paul, like me, was a relatively new face at Smith College, but he was capable of speaking up and rattling management’s cages. Diane was a fairly reasonable and intelligent person who made logical and persuasive arguments, and did not back down easily. For not giving in or backing down, it was hard to find a match for Emily. She had no undue respect for Garvey or the other managers and would not be bullied. She earned herself a spot right next to him at the corner of the table where their team came to an end and ours began. It was very effective to have her right next to him, because as soon as he would start bellowing she would start bellowing right back. You couldn’t make out either one of them, but it was a sight to behold. They would both be red in the face, hollering. Garvey’s best weapon, the bluster, was taken from him, and he looked ridiculous, while Emily looked less so, because of the stakes she was fighting for and her motivations. Emily was also doing something all of us wanted to do, but few could. She embodied the rage of all of the members of Local 211 who had been bullied and humiliated by this man. Eventually the management team began to arrange themselves so Kathy Zieja took the position of honor next to Emily, and was therefore between her and Garvey. This may have dampened the conflict somewhat, but it didn’t stop it.

     The heat of the housekeeping consolidation, combined with Bill Newman’s clever tactics must have proved too much for Chip. One day, when we sat at the negotiating table, we were introduced to a new attorney on the College’s negotiating team: Bob Gelinas, a more senior attorney from the same firm. Bill, and some of the more experienced members of our team had already met Bob, and Bill actually had a great deal of respect for Bob, though they were clearly from opposite ends of the political and legal spectrum. It had been a little more comfortable before, knowing that our attorney had nothing but contempt for the other guy. Now we were nervous, having the impression that we were doing battle with Bill’s mentor.

     Bill’s respect for Mr. Gelinas proved warranted on his first day in negotiations. Part of Bill’s strategy had been to tie together certain College proposals with some of ours. This is a typical part of the process. As the negotiations move into the later stages, and both parties are familiar with the opposition’s proposals, some of the proposals having undergone some changes as a result of negotiations, the parties start proposing packages of proposals that would be acceptable to them. This helps to create handles on the large number of issues on the table. Bill had begun tying together some of the College’s proposals with proposals of our own. These weren’t the full-blown packages of the later stages of negotiations, but smaller pairings of issues, one or two from each side. Each of the proposals involved were hated by the other side. Bill had taken the Union’s proposals that were most repugnant to the College and tied them up with proposals we hated equally, using logic only a lawyer could love. The whole purpose of this tactic was to slow things down, and it was beginning to have that effect.

     This was the state Mr. Gelinas found us in, with Jack frustrated that he couldn’t gain ground in these areas. We went through the entire state of the negotiations item by item, for the benefit of Mr. Gelinas. As we came to each of the College’s issues that Bill had paired with ours, and discussed the deadlocks we had reached, Mr. Gelinas suggested that the College withdraw each of those proposals, in turn. In each case, he saw through the advantage Bill was gaining by the pairing. In each case, the College lost little, if anything. In one case the College had been trying to get some AIDS related policy referenced in our contract, and we didn’t want it in there due to some of the language in certain parts of the policy. Mr. Gelinas asked Jack what the College was trying to do with the proposal. "I take it you’re interested in propagating the College’s policy in this matter." Jack assented. "Then I submit that you’ve done that. The Union is in possession of the policy, and its members are bound to the policy on the same basis as every other College employee." The proposal was withdrawn, and our matching proposals were thereafter dead. We knew we were dealing with a different beast from that day forward. Chip would attend most of the meetings, but Gelinas was the College’s big gun from then on.

     As the summer played out we renewed our efforts to delay the implementation of the College’s plan. If we could hold out now until the students returned to school, we would have another weapon to help us -- student opinion. Perhaps the students would sympathize with the housekeepers who took care of them and knew them so well. We would never find out. As the meetings wore on, Jack grew increasingly irritable. One day as our meeting proceeded, much like others before, it was apparent that we weren’t getting through to Jack at all; even less than usual. In the middle of one of Bill Newman’s clever arguments, Jack stood up, saying, "That’s it. Forget it." It wasn’t like Jack to be so red in the face, and so implacable, even in anger. He threw down on the table a packet of information, telling us that all of the housekeepers and their jobs were terminated. Instead of negotiating a change in the jobs, as defined by their job descriptions, he would start with a whole new set of job descriptions. The packet he had thrown on the table was a list of the new job descriptions. We had less power to negotiate the new jobs, and the College was on better footing to defend job descriptions that hadn’t even been tried. On what foundation could we make a claim that the jobs wouldn’t work?

     Now at last we could see the results of the ServiceMaster study. There they were, right down to the new job assignments, including surveys of all the facilities, and time studies of how long it would take to do the jobs. We never found anyone that was watched at work by anyone at ServiceMaster. The most we could see of their research process was an ongoing tour of the houses, a traveling band of suitcoats in the summer heat, all with their clipboards, and shiny shoes. It would take approximately one week for a person to survey all of the buildings on the campus, carefully noting floor space and bathroom fixtures along the way. Their tour went on for several weeks, so we were never sure whether they went to all of the houses, but we could see them here and there. It turned out their study was full of incorrect information concerning the number of shower stalls in a house, or the amount of floor space, or the time it would take to complete certain jobs. In some cases particular duties peculiar to a specific job were left out, and in one case their job description left out one story of the house!

     That study said what it was supposed to say right from the very beginning: that we had too many housekeepers and we had to get rid of some of them. That’s what ServiceMaster was paid by Smith College to tell them, and that’s what they told them. This was a pattern that would repeat itself. Where topics of intense interest were concerned, management can hire an outside consultant to tell them the bad news. If you pay someone enough they’ll tell you all the bad news you want. Consultants can be a worthwhile investment in a small institution like Smith, where an unpopular decision by College Hall can make life difficult. Once they have the highly professional advice of a respected team of experts they are duty bound to follow their advice. My opinion of consultants who do this is that they are business vultures living off the carcasses of destroyed jobs. The last thing they care about is the people who are going to get hurt. After all, those people are the ones whose money they’re being paid. The College paid ServiceMaster good money to help them take it away from those housekeepers, and they were to continue to pay them lots more. That was the mistake they made. Once the dirty work is done, get rid of the consultants. Keeping them around will only hurt you once the cutting is done.

     In the end we were able to settle for a 25% reduction in jobs, which amounted to 12 lost jobs instead of 16. Two years later we were able to get four more jobs back after the College consolidated Housekeeping with Dining Services, which gave Mr. Garvey control of the department, and resulted in the dismissal of four Housekeeping Supervisors. Four new Senior Housekeeper jobs were created, with the opportunity for the advancement of four housekeepers into those positions, and the subsequent availability of the four positions they vacated. The housekeeping jobs were coveted by many of the women in Dining Services due to the similarity of the work and pay, but with an 8-4:30 schedule. (No man has ever been employed as a housekeeper by Smith College.)

Contract ratification

     The major issue of our contract campaign thus settled, the rest of the negotiations were over rather quickly. I had taken a more involved role in the negotiations and the formulation of proposals. I also had come to know the contract very well, and was one of the principle defenders of the contract at the ratification meeting. This is a process every contract has to go through. The negotiating team comes to some agreement with the opposition, and then brings the revised contract to the union membership for a vote. No contract is perfect, and every contract we brought back for ratification left something to be desired, but there is tremendous motivation to sell the agreement you’ve made to the members. First a lot of energy went into that agreement, and we really felt we had done our best, and therefore this was the best agreement we were going to get. The attorney wants the contract ratified because part of his job is to help us get to that point. The process of negotiating is a prolonged attempt to wear down and weaken the opponent, and nerves tend to get rubbed raw. The last thing anyone on the team wants is to go back and do it some more.

     The membership looks at the contract and sees what we didn’t get. They know generally what’s in the agreement before the meeting, so they come ready to let their complaints be known. Anticipating some resistance, Bill used a bit of strategy to sell this contract at the ratification meeting. He spoke to the membership about the status of the agreement and the battle with the College, emphasizing that only a strike would get us a better contract. Then before voting on a contract, he asked that we take a strike vote in case we need to go back to negotiate some more. The strike vote was taken, and after it the ratification vote. The contract was accepted. The vote in favor of a strike was about 15% of those present.

The transition to presidency

     When school opened in September 1990, the housekeepers had a new boss. The four housekeeping supervisors were still there, and Mr. Johansen still ran the Physical Plant, but between them there was a new layer. Kenn Hurley, an employee of ServiceMaster, and his secretary, Serving the same Master, now had an office suite in the Physical Plant building.

     I had been working in what was considered a medium sized house feeding 65 students for two years. The people I was working with were great. We had a lot of autonomy in doing our jobs, and we got along fine. It was a job from heaven for me, and although I had other professional opportunities, I wanted to stay.

     The previous school year, I had participated in a seminar for staff, students and faculty entitled "Multicultural Organizational Development," which was facilitated by an organization called Equity Institute. The seminar was a part of a college-wide effort to deal with racial problems on campus. My eyes were opened to the reality of racism in my own department, in my union, and in myself, and I wanted to do something about it. I had accepted an invitation to participate in a second seminar called "Training of Trainers," where we would develop the skills to conduct workshops of our own among our peers. I was happy to be working for an institution that would put such effort into healing their racial problems. My desire to keep my job at Smith, and my renewed interest in racial issues were both factors in my decision to run for President of the Union. The handful of requests I received from various people in the union were a factor, but I had the idea that as President, I would have a lot of credibility to start introducing workshops on class and race issues, which I could provide myself, with the help of an existing network of trained facilitators.

     At the November meeting, I was elected President, with Joe McNeish as Vice President, and Paul Ryan as Secretary-Treasurer. Paul and Joe both started working at Smith the same year as I did. The three of us would be the heart of the union leadership for three stormy years. All of the other members of the Executive Board were hired at the same time, or the year after. This was a mini revolution in union leadership, because the leadership had been dominated by people with a lot of seniority for years. Glenn Meakim had served as Secretary-Treasurer for ten years, and in 1988, a new Secretary-Treasurer had been elected, but he was hired as a supervisor during his tenure, dragging Glenn back into the job. Now, with Paul taking over, we were assured of Glenn’s assistance for as long as it was needed, but this was our only reliable link with history.

     Especially for the Secretary-Treasurer, there were a lot of officers’ duties that were not written anywhere. The union’s record-keeping was generally atrocious. I received a four-drawer file cabinet filled with the records of past presidents. Things were filed in a useless system, that was helpful in deciding which folder to put something in, but not for finding anything. Anything older than three years old was in large envelopes marked with the year in which the enclosed material was dated. I had little training in file management, but I was able to find what I needed to operate, and set up a system for finding that stuff, eliminating the need to look into the unorganized parts of the drawers.

     Our new Executive Board took office in January. Our first challenges were the tests by the Administration. When a new Executive Board would assume leadership, the first thing the College would do is start trying all of the things on their wish list that the previous E-Board had prevented. This meant people were passed over for jobs in favor of employees hired much later, bypassing the seniority considerations guaranteed by the contract. It also meant people being denied sick pay, or people being unfairly disciplined, or people being passed over for overtime work. A lot of problems were coming up with the Housekeeping department as well. Suddenly we had a very large number of grievances to handle, including a couple held over from the previous year. We were kept fairly busy learning the ropes of the grievance procedure, and tackling these issues. I also had to develop some skills in running the monthly meetings. We relied on the experience of Glenn Meakim, and the advice of Bill Newman, whose office was quickly becoming familiar to us.

The greivance procedure

     The semester was taken up with these new experiences, and ended with a list of about 12 pending grievances filed by the Union against the College. Local 211’s grievance procedure was similar to other union grievance procedures. It usually begins with a written letter briefly describing the grievance, followed by a meeting to discuss the claim. The grieved party then responds to the grievance in writing. The procedure will generally be comprised of several steps similar to this, each starting with some written communication, followed by a meeting, and a written response. The first step is generally an appeal of some supervisor’s action to his or her superior officer. Each subsequent step constitutes an appeal to a higher level of authority, of the results of the previous step. Grievances can be brought by either party to the contract, but the preponderance of grievances are filed by unions, as was the case with Local 211. The grievance has to be an incident that is interpreted by the grieving party as a violation of the contract, or of the law. The procedure is not for complaints.

     One feature of the Local 211 grievance procedure that was not typical was the deadline for filing the initial grievance letter. Ours was six months. Much more typical would be a period of one or two weeks. Grievances generally need to be settled in a timely manner, and the typical procedure reflects the realities of the industrial world. The difference in our procedure reflected some of the realities of working at Smith College. Our workers are not guaranteed work in the summer. Often this means that many or all of the members of the Executive Boars are off campus for the summer. Effectively, our union doesn’t fully function in the summer. We don’t hold any regular meetings in the summer. Only the biennial ratification meeting or the infrequent need for a special meeting would bring us together in the hot season. For this reason, the longer grievance deadline was agreed upon in the contract. It didn’t always work in our favor, however. A six month deadline tends to ensure that a grievance will be filed close to six months after the incident that caused it. This leads to dissatisfaction with the procedure on the part of the grieving union member. Often the grievance hasn’t been settled until a year after the incident in question occurred.

     Ultimately, the grievance, if it hasn’t been settled by the preliminary steps, is taken to an arbitrator, who acts as judge at a hearing. He hears from both parties, who can present arguments and evidence, and interview and cross-examine witnesses. The arbitrator’s decision is final as far as the parties to the arbitration are concerned. In a case where the employee feels that his/her interests were not protected, s/he can take the case to court on his/her own. The union member can also file an unfair labor practice against the union, on the basis of a failure to represent, although this is relatively uncommon.

     In the winter and spring of 1990, every Dining Services grievance was denied by Paul Garvey at step one. A grievance meeting with Paul Garvey is a unique experience. Having read the union’s grievance letter, and being aware of the nature of the problem, Mr. Garvey always began the meeting with his reasons why the grievance was no good, listing all past sins of the grievant and the Union, pertinent or not. Kathy Zieja would typically be on hand to take notes. She could also remind him of any sins he may have omitted and, more importantly, she could correct his not infrequent errors, lest he give away the College’s case with poorly chosen words. In other words, she was there to pull his foot out of his mouth. Eventually the chance would come along to interject a word or two on the merits of our case. If we could get a complete sentence out of our mouths we were doing well. Every attempt to explain our point of view was usually met with a repetition of the first soliloquy. After an hour of this, the union representatives would leave the office of the Director of Dining Services, having heard the College’s position several times, and perhaps without ever having fully stated the case the Union was presenting. We would then receive the College’s reply to the grievance, in the negative. If the response did not come by the two-week deadline, the lack of response constituted a denial.

     Every grievance was filed at step two, and was ignored by Jack Simpkin. The denial at step one, and Jack’s silence at step two, left arbitration as the only possibility of addressing the grievances. An arbitration generally costs at least one thousand dollars. Arbitrating all of these cases would have been too expensive. Most of the grievances had merit, but some of them were only being pursued due to the persistence of the grieving member. The new Executive Board had been challenged by a series of objectionable actions on the part of management. The Union responded by filing grievances. The College responded by stonewalling on every grievance. To choose from among the grievances only those we believed had merit was itself problematic, since we hadn’t had substantive discussion on the other grievances. We would be in the position of giving up some of those grievances without a fight. Also among those grievances were some that had merit, but would be a waste of resources to pursue with an arbitration, as would be the case if the solution to the grievance would be a payment of several dollars to one person. These are some of the issues a union has to struggle with in the area of grievances.

     I don’t know if the College’s response to grievances is typical of other employers, but Smith College doesn’t like grievances. The Union’s view of the grievance procedure is that it’s a necessary tool for enforcing the terms of the contract. But mention the word grievance within earshot of a Smith College supervisor and you will get a pronounced reaction, either in fear or anger. I came to believe this was a result of Garvey’s management style. He managed by fear and anger, and his supervisors all reflected it. They were all scared or angry. You could see the change come over someone over a period of several years after they were hired as a supervisor whether they were promoted from within, or hired from outside. Slowly they all seemed to change to fit the authoritarian, fear and anger model. One of the things a supervisor would be reprimanded most harshly for would be too lenient treatment of an employee, or sticking up for an employee in a conflict with another supervisor.

     By the end of the school year the best solution we could come up with was a temporary one. We reached an agreement with Jack Simpkin, with the help of Bill Newman, to postpone all of the grievances until after the summer. My first semester as President of Local 211 had passed, and I had not even had a chance to begin the anti-racism, anti-classism program I had envisioned. The summer passed quietly while I worked at another job off campus. I was still in town, so I was available for the occasional questions, or reports of managerial abuses. When school resumed, I had new hopes of clearing the docket of all of the old grievances and beginning the workshops. As it turned out, Smith College was about to embark on a course that would bring about a period of unprecedented institutional change, though it would be a change that none of us had anticipated.

The '90s in earnest

     The year started out very much like any other. The staff worked to open the houses and the kitchens and dining rooms for the incoming students, and convocation and the beginning of classes flew right by. We had our regular meetings, and discussed the formation of the contract negotiating team, of which I, as President would be an ex facto member. Some of the issues of interest for the contract began to surface, and were discussed. We held a meeting with Jack Simpkin and Paul Garvey and their retinue to deal with all of the grievances. It was sort of like a mini-negotiation. We made agreements to drop some of the more specious claims, settled a few more, and one or two ended up going to arbitration.

     We had never lost an arbitration by the time I left Local 211, but part of the reason was that we were careful about the cases we would arbitrate. We would happily bring a tough case to arbitration, but only when the case had merit in our eyes. The Executive Board has the right to refuse to arbitrate, or even grieve at step one or two, any case it feels is not in the best interest of the union. This leaves a lot of room for unions to be lazy or corrupt in processing members’ grievances, but we used it conscientiously. We never balked at filing a step one or step two grievance. We gladly brought all matters of contention to the bosses. We had the philosophy that it was in our interest to pursue all matters brought to our attention at least as far as we could take it ourselves. By engaging in the fight we were building unity, showing that the fight of any member was the fight of the union. We also wanted to send the message to the College that we were serious about what we were doing, and we were anxious to commit ourselves to any battle they would care to wage. We would soon have more than we bargained for.

     In November of 1990 a memorandum was sent out from Phoebe Reese Lewis, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, addressed to the heads of the academic and administrative departments. I don’t remember how I got my hands on it. The copy I received had been addressed to a faculty member and photocopied. The memo was an invitation to a "community forum" entitled "Financial Responsibility and Financing the Future." It began with the words, "THE MATERIAL INCLUDED WITH THIS MEMORANDUM SHOULD BE SHARED WITH ALL MEMBERS OF YOUR DEPARTMENT." It was not sent out to the members of Dining Services or Housekeeping. In fact, it seems that the forum was really intended for faculty and administration. This was to be the fourth of five such forums held that month. The first three, concerning the attraction, retention and motivation of faculty and staff, and the "essential characteristics...of the Smith educational experience," had already gone by.

     The community forum thereafter became the favored medium by the Office of the President. As Smith’s fiscal crisis unfolded, community forums would be held on health care, consolidation and reorganization, and would eventually become a monthly affair. They proved effective for providing form to the idea that as a college, Smith had the obligation to include the members of the community in it’s decisions. Although for many years, this was never the case, the present crises would create an atmosphere where closed-door decision-making would be seen as an offense to the supposed autonomy of the faculty. (They weren’t worried about what we thought about it.) In fact, the faculty were powerless to change the decisions of College Hall, which, as a decision-making body, included the heads of faculty departments. The average faculty member could be made to suffer should s/he push their opinions too far. So the question was, how does the College push forward unpopular decisions, while deflecting accusations of autocracy?

     In effect, the community forum was a forum for the officers of the College to announce to the community what the community had decided to do - the old saw about giving us our opinions. They were conducted in such a manner that the decisions were still in the discussion stages when the forum was held. In the few cases where they were indiscreet enough to broadcast their position it could be seen at the time the decisions were enacted that their position hadn’t changed at all in response to the community input. The other important function of the community forum was the blowing off of steam. The angry outbursts from the community seemed to indicate that the community was ready to explode. I was new enough at the game to believe that this would be a sustained response, and held hope that the force of the will of the community would overpower the administration. That, of course, was not to be.

     The series of forums announced by Chairman Lewis were the first of such meetings. The one I attended on fiscal responsibility set the tone for the early community forums in anger and defiance on the part of the community, and in disingenuousness and doublespeak on the part of the panelists. The intelligence of the arguments revealed the faculty status of the audience, but did nothing to conceal the emotion they attached to the College’s plans. The details of the Trustees’ plans are irrelevant here, but they were obviously going to require a significant reduction in operating costs. My friends and I were encouraged by the response we were seeing from the faculty at this meeting, but we need not have been. The Trustees were eventually to find a way to quiet them down.

The beginnings of an organizing model

     Our first job action came in the Spring semester of 1991 after a SEIU educational conference I attended with Vice President Joe McNeish. At the conference we studied the principles of contract negotiation and organizing. We were interested in the essentials of a contract campaign, because we had negotiations coming up, and we knew there would be some real issues on the table. We were also interested in the organizing aspect because that seemed like the hard part. The best summation of what we learned is the statement of an organizer named Kurt, who was attending the convention. We would trade stories with him and when we were describing the dilemmas we were facing in dealing with the issues at Smith, he would come back to the same phrase, "Go pick a fight." The fight was the tool for building organizational strength. In short, nothing unites like a common enemy.

     On the way home, Joe and I were putting together what we had learned. We decided to have a demonstration at Smith College that would dramatize our situation to the community. We wanted to be audacious enough to attract attention, but not so radical that we would scare away our own members. There had recently been a death in the service staff, a member of SEIU Local 263, the union in the Physical Plant. We felt some outrage at the fact that Smith had put on a rather big affair with buffet receptions upon the recent death of the Treasurer of the College, but when this service staff person had died they barely acknowledged it.

     The wife of the deceased was a member of our union, a housekeeper. We decided to raise money for the widow as a gift from our union, and as a way of commemorating her deceased husband. In order to further dramatize our economic circumstances we chose as a way of raising the money a pencil sale, literally selling the pencils from a cup, like a panderer. The pencils said, "Smith works because Local 211 works." We held our pencil sale on the steps of John M. Greene Hall, the large auditorium which sits right on the main road, with signs telling what we were doing. The sale took place at noon, while traffic was busy, and people could leave their workplace and come buy a pencil. We had a portable public address system, and when the crowd was thickest I gave a little speech about what we were doing. Reporters from the campus newspapers were there, with a photographer. We couldn’t get the local press there, but we had a front page headline with a picture in the Sophian.

     This action gave us a taste of what it could be about. We raised money and gave it to someone in a time of need, earning her gratitude, and the respect of all of the housekeepers. For months afterward, the picture from the Sophian was on the union bulletin boards in most of the kitchens, signifying that the members took pride in the act. We demonstrated to the College and ourselves that we could have an impact on community opinion, and we could at least draw the student press. Some of us took the risk of publicly disregarding work rules by being out there longer than our break period, but there were no repercussions.

     In one move, with a little planning, we were able to publicize our situation, begin to build unity in our organization, begin to heal an old rift in our organization, and help one of our members in the process. The many pulled together to help the individual. The individual was helped, and so were the many. The front page picture was on the bulletin boards, and the pencils, with our slogan, were to be found everywhere our members went, for many months. There was a new rapport between the Executive Board and the housekeepers, as now they had a reason to believe we were on their side. Thus this one action reverberated through our organization for some time afterward, and revitalized us. Also as a result of this one action, Joe and I became recognized by workers around the campus as champions of worker issues. We were thereafter consulted on many issues by workers within the unions and without, and we would continue to benefit from new access to the currents of information among the workers. One action is, of course, not enough. We would have to continue to find new ways to "pick a fight." For the next several years, this would be the least of our problems.

The storm builds

     In the midst of the first round of community forums, another memorandum was issued by President of the College, Mary Maples Dunn, concerning healthcare insurance. In one year, the cost of insuring the healthcare needs of the College had gone up 30%. The Board of Trustees had decided that something must be done to control the costs. They asked the Office of Personnel and the Benefits Department, under the command of Jack Simpkin, to come up with a plan for controlling this rising cost. The Board encouraged the Administration to "consider plans which involved a sharing of costs by the College and its insured employees." The Office of Personnel had come up with a plan and submitted it to the Board of Trustees, the memo explained, but the Board had decided to delay implementation of the plan while additional study could take place. What really happened is that the plan, which would require for the first time, contributions from individual planholders, leaked out to the community through some service staff members on the Benefits Advisory Committee, whcih reported to Jack Simpkin, and which had been consulted on the issue.

     The news of what was seen as an attempt at secrecy unleashed a fury on the campus, especially the faculty, who were in a position to demand inclusion in the deliberations, and the recommended plan was put on hold. In the interim, however, there would be an increase in the cost of insurance to family subscribers, still leaving many people angry. All of this was done without significant input from those affected. The Benefits Advisory Committee would not suffice as community involvement in cases of such extreme change. "Community participation in discussion of the issues" was promised in Mrs. Dunn’s memo.

     This memo was followed closely with another, in which President Dunn set forth her plan to begin regular community forums. The first two would occur before the end of the school year, and would be used to discuss campus communications, and the healthcare plans, respectively. These first two community forums were noisy, raucous affairs, which were very well-attended. There was much complaining and yelling, despite administrative attempts to keep things under control. They had placed microphones in the aisles for people to use, but most just stood at their seats and hollered their messages to the red-faced Mrs. Dunn, who stood on the stage, flanked by some of the other officers of the College.

     In January, a new series of forums began, led by Jack Simpkin, to discuss the details of the healthcare proposals to the Board of Trustees, who were to vote on them later in the semester. It was Mr. Simpkin’s job to get these healthcare changes done. The series of meetings produced little change in the proposal, which was adopted by the Board of Trustees at their meeting that spring. What of the resistance that had been shown earlier on by the faculty? Their voice had quieted somewhat along the way, and upon the Trustees vote, there was no hue and cry from them, despite the fact that the plan still contained many of the features they had protested. Also on the Trustees’ docket that weekend was a proposal to increase the amount the College contributed to the pension fund on earnings above $34,000 per year. This group did not, of course, include anyone from our union. It did, however, include all of the faculty.

     There was thereafter no protest from among the faculty. In fact, when we later were to reach out to members of the faculty for support, there were very few who were willing to give any, and those who did were themselves wary of any personal repercussions. One of the realities we learned was that the faculty at Smith, by virtue of their decision-making power on curricular and related issues, were legally considered management. This limited them in the types of support they could give to other workers and their issues. Indeed, management assistance could actually impede our progress in some cases. During an organizing drive, such assistance would be vulnerable to attack as company support, which can be challenged as an unfair labor practice, and potentially destroy the organization.

     As we prepared for the upcoming contract negotiations, the College had begun announcing a budget "shortfall." Staffing reductions, and the elimination of at least one entire department, the laundry, were among the measures proposed to address the situation. The announcement came in May that 35 positions would be eliminated from Dining Services, including the complete elimination of the DRA position. By this time, Local 211 had begun to reach out in coalition with students and other staff in the United Student Employee Delegation (USED). Our tactics included actions, demonstrations and leafleting under the USED banner as well as statements in the local press, and Smith publications, including our own newsletter, and our contract updates, the last two of which were distributed primarily on our union bulletin boards. We had the help of students in making many posters and leaflets, which were distributed on light poles around campus, and handed out on the sidewalks downtown.

     One of our disputes was with the slippery wording the College used regarding "shortfalls. " Often the word "deficit" would be used interchangeably, creating the image that the College was spending more than it was taking in. Smith College’s 1990 tax form shows that the College took in over $12 million in "excess revenues," the term used to designate the profit of a non-profit organization. They had a shortfall, not because they were spending more than they were taking in, but because they were spending more than they wanted to. Our public relations battle washed up on the rocks however, as the public had already come to accept such corporate downsizing, and saw no problem with a non-profit, tax-exempt employer doing it. Indeed our problems would have to be seen as puny. Just across the river, at UMass, similar reductions in staffing and spending were underway which dwarfed ours in terms of the numbers involved. Our painstaking press releases and hour-long interviews ended up being twenty-line blurbs on page 19. Often our "direct quotes" were out of context, inaccurate, or not even grammatical.

     Our only hope was with the opinion of the Smith College community, and again, we were beaten there as well. We initiated a letter-writing campaign, and distributed a package with some instructions, addresses, and sample letters to send to Trustees, alumnae and students. Through our friends in USED we sent copious materials to some of the various Smith Clubs, which were affiliated through Smith’s Alumnae Association, appealing to all to take up the question with the administration and the Trustees. The replies we got were mixed. Many sympathized with us, but some felt we were overdoing it, and that Smith was justified in making these reductions. A few of the replies were hostile. One of the drawbacks of organizing with students was made apparent here. Student protest has become somewhat ubiquitous over the years. They are an attractive group to organize with, because they can be so readily mobilized, but it is also very easy for the opposition to dismiss their opinions for the same reason. Alumnae, perhaps remembering their own fiery youths, from the relative comfort of their current surroundings, were often condescending toward the students who had addressed them. We had to wonder what kind of responses the College was getting directly from them.

New bargaining strategies

     The major issues for our contract negotiations in 1991 were healthcare, job security, and training and relocation. We were to hold the line on healthcare and benefits, make some provisions for protecting members’ job security through improved seniority rights, create some kind of training program for displaced DRAs who wanted to stay employed at Smith in some capacity, and find an equitable way to distribute what jobs remained (after the cuts) among our members. Of these, the most pressing was healthcare. The College was determined to have this issue negotiated in time for the beginning of the fiscal year, July 1. The Union, of course, wanted to delay the settlement of this issue as long as possible, and get any kind of concession we could get. The College was proposing changing carriers, and increasing the amount of employee contribution, including out-of-pocket expenses such as co-payments, and a reduction in prescription overage. The Union wanted no changes in any of these areas. The College was determined that the changes, painstakingly deliberated, would occur, and would occur on schedule.

     The Union engaged in every delaying tactic of which we could conceive, all the while trying to get movement from the College on any part of Section 18 of the contract, which covered all of the benefits. If they wanted agreement on the changes they were proposing to the healthcare insurance, we would agree to it in exchange for improvements in other parts of the benefit package. We had long been arguing for an improvement in the maternity and paternity leave plans, and we felt that now was the time to make those improvements. We drew up detailed proposals providing for extended leave with options to collect sick pay or Annual Leave pay during the period of absence, with full retention of job rights. Annual Leave was a term which described time off with pay that could be taken at down times, designated by agreement, in lieu of actual holidays, the observance of which presented hardships -- one of the unfortunate aspects of being employed in providing what the College termed essential functions.

     As Bill Newman continued to support the development of real leadership in Local 211, he introduced into our strategies the policy of giving the members of the negotiating team charge over different issues. Each member would be expected to be heard from in the discussion concerning the issues over which s/he had charge. As President, I was given control over the bargaining itself. The team would establish an agenda for the next meeting, mapping out the progression of issues we wanted to press, the attitude we wanted to project, and contingencies for possible College responses. I would present the proposals to the College, at first for one section of a meeting, later for entire meetings. It felt like being on a tightrope, far above the safety of the earth, but I was mindful of the considerable support I received, particularly from Bill and Paul Ryan, but also from the whole team.

     Bill continued to fill the role of chief negotiator, with responsibility for a large part of the arguing. This policy contributed to the confidence of the negotiating team, and the health of the union. When it came time to meet for the ratification of the contract, it would be union members arguing in support of the issues they themselves had spearheaded, and not a paid attorney. This was a healthier state of affairs because, as Bill well knew, it was better to achieve partial success on our own, than to achieve a more complete success by virtue of the tactics of an expert outsider, however sympathetic and intimate he may be with the union’s issues. By virtue of these and other militant tactics we were then employing, we were moving more in the direction of an organizing model of unionism, and away from the service model.

     At the time there were no provisions for maternity leave, although most women received fair treatment, but there were cases where workers were pressured into returning to work earlier than they felt comfortable, and not all workers received the same treatment. Often when employees returned after childbirth, their old jobs were not made available to them and they were forced to take other positions, usually lower in pay. In effect, administrative personnel had a maternity leave plan, though not in writing, since they were paid salary, and were not penalized for taking time off for pregnancy, delivery, or post-partum care at the recommendation of a doctor. Given that many women were economically forced to work, insecurity on the job that was related to their childbearing was especially threatening, and we saw it as an infringement on basic rights. Local 211 made numerous proposals for maternity and paternity leave provisions, and various configurations of proposed improvements to the College’s healthcare plan. This was partly an attempt to secure improved benefits, but suspecting that the College intended to force their plan upon us, we desperately came up with proposal after proposal to forestall it.

     This effort was one that concerned some delicate issues of strategy. One of the essential tools of negotiation is the caucus. No important agreements should be made without giving all members the opportunity to express their point of view on the subject in private session where candor can be protected. Agreements of lesser importance can be made at the table with a poll of the team, especially when the terms are known to be agreeable. Every member should feel empowered to call for a caucus whenever they don’t feel right about any agreement. We used the caucus extensively in this part of the negotiating process to keep developing new proposals. We had to be creative in devising new formulations, bringing in new elements to the proposals. We were struggling to avoid impasse. Impasse is like a dirty word to a union negotiator. Impasse is reached when the two parties have demonstrated that they will not move from their positions. A state of impasse allows the management to implement the terms of its last best offer unilaterally as the new set of working conditions. This is a state of affairs the union must avoid. Our proposals had to be substantially different each time to avoid a state of impasse, since Jack’s position was not changing.

     There was a question as to whether one can bargain to impasse on one issue of the contract, as in this case, on healthcare insurance. Our position was no, you could only have impasse when there was no issue in the entire contract upon which there might be movement. Jack’s position was that impasse could be reached on one issue, and that issue could then be unilaterally implemented. Though we were sure this was way too broad an interpretation of the law, we wanted to avoid any implication of this thorny issue, so we brought on those numerous proposals. We used the caucuses to carefully plan our strategy and make adjustments to the proposals so we could avoid the impasse issue.

     The struggle over benefits brought another player into the negations: Eileen Corbiel. Eileen was a competent and loyal member of Mr. Simpkin’s staff. She had what she thought was a benevolent view towards the College’s employees, and was employed to help them utilize the benefits they were entitled to, but there was a limit to this benevolence. Her view of what the employee should be entitled to conformed strictly to that which the College, in its infinite wisdom, offered, and fell short of the views of the union. She was responsible for the formulation and administration of the various benefit plans and digging up all the facts pertinent to the College’s case. She was called upon to present those facts, in the form of various charts and tables, to us over the bargaining table. Ms. Corbeil presented herself as a reasonable, rational person, dutifully reporting the facts as she had found them, but administrators have this tendency to become emotionally involved in the support of their contentions, like there’s something morally wrong with questioning them.. Knowing that there was more than one side to this story, we challenged every aspect of her analysis in what amounted to a third-degree cross-examination. Her response to this stress included a swelling and reddening of her neck until it was so obvious that it was difficult to avoid staring.

     But the College did not budge on any counterproposals to their benefits package offer. When the end of the fiscal year was at hand, Mr. Simpkin informed us that the new benefits package was beginning on July 1st for every department at the College. Our contract had expired in the absence of a new agreement, and would not be continued on the old terms, as had been the practice in the past. That situation would allow the existence, temporarily, of two benefits packages, one for us, and one for everybody else, which they were desperate to avoid. The only terms of the old contract that would continue to be observed were the current wages. The healthcare plan, on the new terms, would be available to us when the negotiations had ended. In the interim, Local 211 employees were without a healthcare plan, a tactic used to increase the pressure on us to come to an agreement.

     By this time, the College had seen the emergence of USED, the student-labor coalition that had appeared almost overnight, and seemed to be everywhere. They had seen demonstrations and pickets, leaflets being distributed all over town, posters stapled to every telephone pole ringing the campus just as the Alumnae were coming to visit for the Commencement festivities, and students and staff wearing black armbands, mourning the loss of the DRA. Overall, this was an unprecedented show of opposition to College policies, even if it was in response to an unprecedented College show of disregard of any responsibility it might be said to have with regard to its staff, students, and the surrounding community. Now they would again up the ante. They shoved the healthcare plans down our throats, with Simpkin declaring that this was the College’s final offer on Section 18, and they would refuse to bargain over that section any further, adding that we had reached a state of impasse on that issue, over the objections of Bill Newman.

     The next day, Local 211 filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. Now we had a tangled mess. We were losing at least twenty-five jobs that year, after a similar number in housekeeping at the previous contract negotiation. Our healthcare plan was being ripped to shreds, with new measures including unprecedented employee contributions and reductions in service, including in many cases the need to start over with a new family physician. The College made only the barest of pretenses of negotiating over benefits, which resulted in our filing the unfair labor practice charge for failure to negotiate, or more specifically surface bargaining, the term given to carrying on the appearance of bargaining even when there is no intention of substantial bargaining. What remains today of the NLRA of 1935, or the Wagner Act, declares that workers have the right to bargain with their employers through an intermediary of their choosing (the choice our members made when they elected us to their negotiating committee), and that employers have a legal obligation to negotiate with their employees, should the employees choose to represent themselves in this way. The negotiations are to be held in actuality, not just in form, with a good faith effort presumed on both parties to come to an equitable agreement. This principle was directly and deliberately violated by the College. The presumption of good faith was a mockery in these negotiations.

Tough choices

     That heavy-handed maneuver was among the last acts of Jack Simpkin as Director of Personnel of Smith College. Jack was among the 167 employees who took advantage of the College’s Voluntary Separation Plan. The VSP was a package designed by Simpkin and his Benefits Group, headed by Eileen Corbeil, to buy out some long-term employees and offset the need to lay off workers. Simpkin and his team worked to the specifications of the Trustees as part of a special Voluntary Separation Plan Review Committee. The Plan went through two revisions, actually to improve it. It was unleashed upon the community on May 7, 1991. The staff of Smith College tossed and turned collectively through sleepless nights, contemplating the ramifications of The Package.

     Suppose I take The Package, where does that leave me? Can I retire? What if Mrs. So-and-so takes The Package, how will this office get along without her? What of the older members of Local 211? Was this a good plan for them? I deferred to the College’s policy of allowing the individual come to his/her own decision, and avoiding any interference. My personal opinion was that if someone was considering retiring in the near future anyway, or was young enough (the minimum age was forty) that s/he might use the lump sum to seed a new venture, it was a good plan. Otherwise I thought an employee would do better by continuing to work if they thought they would stay two years. It wasn’t a good plan for retiring early. Enough people thought it was a worthwhile plan though, that it more than offset the potential layoffs, and some departments had to hire to fill vacated positions. Dining Services broke even; by the time summer had passed, enough people had left voluntarily, some taking The Package, others resigning in the usual pattern of attrition, so that everyone had a job, and every job was filled. Some of Dining Services’ displaced people found refuge in the Housekeeping department, where there were no further reduction this time around, but overall, 167 people took The Package, when the College was only trying to eliminate 85 positions, leaving many positions vacant.

     The reshuffling of people and jobs occupied much time and consideration. The initial awareness that there would be a problem came from Mike Eaton. "What if," he asked, "someone with a lot of seniority has their job cut? Are you going to lay them off, and let someone who’s only been here a year keep their job?" He argued that the entire department would have to be rebid. There was no question over whether we would uphold the principle of seniority. It’s one of the cornerstones of the labor movement that the time one puts in at a job has value, and should be respected. Seniority is also part of the glue that binds people into a union, the individual believing that there’s good reason to stay on the job and in the union. But our contract contained no provisions for bumping, and by implication contained the principle that someone holding a job should be entitled to keep it. How could we reconcile these two less-than-compatible principles.?

     Few people argued for absolute security in the jobs that weren’t cut. There were quite a few who argued along with Mr. Eaton for straight seniority. I recognized the principle that was implicit in our contract, speaking for those who are happy in their jobs, but I would never have argued for weakening the principle of seniority. Straight seniority also seemed too cruel to those who need not be affected, but to me the seniority principle was the more important of the two. I originally leaned toward figuring out some compromise position. In our negotiations with the College Mr. Garvey was arguing in his overbearing way for a compromise of that nature. His attempts to sway us helped push us all in the opposite direction. I came to feel that what would be best would be that which would be most disruptive of Garvey’s ordered little world; one extreme or the other, straight seniority, putting new people into every job in the department, or displacing members of long standing, so as not to disturb those people not directly affected.

     The Negotiating Committee determined to put it to a vote of the body, and to decide it amongst ourselves. We would then put that proposal to the College. As I worked on the proposals for consideration I was hoping for a rebid on all jobs. I just couldn’t throw seniority away. I designed the proposals so that anything could happen. What it really came down to was a question of what jobs would go up for bid by those who would remain working in Dining Services. We knew that jobs that were vacated voluntarily would be put up for bid as a mater of course, so which other jobs should go up for bid? The job that would be changed in pay rate? The job that changed in hours? What about the jobs that wouldn’t change at all? This was how I was to present the proposals to the union. We presented what we were planning to the College, and argued that it was the members that should decide. They somehow agreed to go along with what the members decided.

     We held a meeting to consider this proposal, and it was attended by the largest number of Local 211 members I’ve ever seen assembled outside of mandatory departmental meetings. We had over 140 people there to decide this issue. This meeting was a real test of all my skills as President of the Union. The material we were considering for the vote was unusually complicated compared to the issues we normally considered. It was also highly charged material as it concerned the potential displacement and relocation of hundreds, if not all of our members. I had to explain and defend, with considerable help from Paul Ryan, Joe McNeish, Glenn Meakim and the rest of the negotiating committee, the proposals themselves, the actions and decisions of the committee, as well as the current state of the negotiations. Many aspects of the negotiations and the specific proposals under consideration had to be explained and reiterated. Finally the proposals were brought to a vote, one by one, with the pusillanimous verdict more closely resembling Garvey’s vision of the outcome than my own.

     This is a difficult position for a leader to be in. I had done everything I could to inspire the union to militancy, again with the help of my companions on the Negotiating Committee, and watched them timidly crawl into the bosses’ tent. On the other hand I couldn’t argue with those who would keep their jobs unchanged if they could. I sympathized with them, but felt that only the most drastic solution to the problem would dramatize the terrible nature of what we were all going through. The palliative of saving some people from the insecurity of moving into different positions, played into the College’s propaganda that they were doing everything they could to accommodate displaced workers, and that the unions were responsible for the real unrest sweeping the campus. Well only the union was able to reach the members and enact their will, such as it was.

     In response to the vote, I put together a proposal for a special bidding procedure. The result of the vote left one other problem in its wake. What of the member who holds a job that won’t be placed up for bid, but who wants a chance at a different job? If we allowed such people to bid, as the Mike Eaton straight seniority protagonists desired, it would then leave some number of unfilled positions to be filled by a series of subsequent bids, each potentially creating new problems of its own, and some number of extra workers who should end up with a job, but wouldn’t have one. I submitted a proposal, first to the Negotiating Committee, which, by the way had always contained a quorum of Executive Board members, and therefore had authority to make decisions on behalf of the Union, then to the College over the bargaining table.

     The proposal first stated which jobs would be available for bid: Any newly created positions, positions of employees who would be subject to layoff (by virtue of a relatively low seniority number), any other vacancies known at the time of the preparation of the bidding materials, and any jobs voluntarily relinquished by employees who wished to participate in the bid. The last group was the answer to the dilemma. If an employee wanted to participate in the bidding procedure, s/he would have to make his/her job available to others as well. The proposal then listed who would be eligible for the bid: employees whose jobs were eliminated, employees who might be subject to layoff (again, by virtue of a relatively low seniority number), and those employees who voluntarily relinquished the rights to their jobs in order to participate in the bid. This proposal passed, and proved effective in producing the orderly results most people seemed to want.

     Two years later, in the negotiation of the following contract, this proposal was made a permanent part of the contract, as subsequent consolidations of dining rooms made similar disruptions part of the landscape. For the more than one hundred years of Smith College’s existence and the more than fifty years of the existence of Local 211, these provisions never became necessary until this time. As a section in the Collective Bargaining Agreement of SEIU Local 211 and the Trustees of the Smith College, it stands as my graffiti: I was there. I cannot feel an unmixed pride in this, though. It’s dirty with equivocation, and I carried out the task over my own disagreement.

The negotiations continue

     The special bid took place in August, and the school year began soon several weeks later, with Local 211 coming to work for the first time without a contract. Jan Keefe had taken over negotiations for Jack Simpkin. If we thought the assistant would be easier to deal with, we were mistaken. Ms. Keefe would make a much more amenable partner to Chip Dougherty. Where Jack was a tough negotiator, he at least could admit to the realities of our situation, and seemed to have some understanding, if he lacked any compassion. Jack liked to fight, and he liked to win, but his position, true to the principle of good faith bargaining, was not in every case immutable. Jan was a professional clerk who made her way up through the ranks by virtue of devotion to duty and boss. Analyzing data and applying formulas precisely were her stock in trade. Now that she was in charge, she seemed lacking in any of the originality or creativity that marked a leader. The main thing she knew how to do was stick to her position unflinchingly, and this she did remarkably well.

     Her strongest concerns seemed to center around a concept of order. A contractual agreement that allowed some less-than-full-time employees to collect full time benefits was not seen as the accumulated result of a series of compromises over many years, as exemplified by the Annual Leave provisions, but as something that was simply wrong. She fought vehemently over details that Jack had clearly deemed not worthy of his attention, like our payroll deduction plan that worked over a period of thirty weeks, while all other employees at the College were either on a 52 week or 40 week schedule. This caused her staff to have to put in extra labor to the otherwise streamlined, computerized system. Years of sitting by while Jack allowed these injustices to accumulate seemed to have built up a certain level of contempt in Jan, directed particularly to the more radical members of this thorn in her side, this union. At one point, in response to some statements Paul Ryan had made in the Contract Updates he regularly circulated to the rest of the staff, she referred to him as a terrorist. This dissent that centered around the leadership of Local 211 had spread its influence to the student body and the unorganized staff at Smith, and truly represented, to Jan and other administrators, the forces of disorder at the College.

     As the negotiations ground down toward the end, the sessions, as is typical of the later stages of negotiations, were becoming longer, more grueling, and more heated. As the issues, mostly tied up in complicated packages, seem closer to resolution there is a tendency to keep the sessions going longer, later into the evening and maybe past midnight. There is a resultant tendency to compromise in order to reach agreement as meetings continue into the night and seemingly threaten to continue forever. One such night, very near the end of negotiations, in a meeting that had dragged on until 11:30, we seemed on the verge of agreement. By this time we were discussing all of the remaining issues as part of one big package, including wages. The difference between our positions was real, but not large.

     The pattern of the day was negotiation followed by caucus followed by negotiation. At each negotiation session one party would propose their version of an acceptable settlement package. At the following session the opposite team would propose their view. There might be some discussion of details, or persuasion or coercion in these sessions as well, but both sides know the other’s positions well by now. After receiving the proposal, we would caucus to evaluate it and arrive at a counterproposal. Most of the decisions were unanimous, but we would take votes by show of hands on the more contentious issues. It can be very difficult to decide to drop a proposal at this point after fighting hard for it and wanting it and believing in it, but knowing that it’s not going anywhere.

     It seemed like the College’s strategy was to get us to agree to the package they had presented us from the beginning of the day. Each time their proposal was essentially the same thing. By this time healthcare had been shoved down our throats, but we were still waiting for the NLRB finding on our charge. The wage offer was pretty good, but there were important issues, concerning job security, maternity leave, retroactive pay, a signing bonus, and a rather small issue favored by the housekeepers that would amount to one half day’s pay per year, still on the table. We were close, but it appeared to me, through my bleary eyes, that if we were to reach an agreement that night, it would be by our coming closer to the College’s position. They had been badgering us and threatening us for almost twelve hours, and everyone surely wanted only that it should end. The College had just given us their proposal, along with the usual threats and admonishments, and it was now up to us to start giving stuff away. The discussion in the caucus grew heated several times, and it was all starting to get to me.

     Suddenly I stood up, started putting away my notebooks and papers, and said, "That’s it, I’m done. Let’s get out of here." Bill looked up at me like I had gone crazy. He wanted to settle too. I fully intended to simply walk out, hopefully as a group. Call them and tell them we’re outtahere. Bill convinced me to at least stay until we could set a meeting. This delayed my departure by about thirty minutes.

     The meeting was set for two o’clock the next day. It was perfectly reasonable to expect that we could settle that evening. We couldn’t begin right at two because Bill was late. He arrived at two-forty and announced that we needed to caucus before beginning. But first he had to call his office. After talking to someone there he hung up and said he had received a call from the NLRB, and he was going to return the call. This conversation took about forty minutes, but by the time it was done, we had gathered from Bill’s end of the conversation that the NLRB had found in our favor. What’s more, he learned that the College had been notified at one-thirty, the previous day. They had tried to push us and bully us into agreeing, all the while knowing we had a favorable NLRB finding regarding their ridiculous bargaining practices. They wanted to keep the NLRB ruling out of the bargaining process.

     Now, this is no great victory. When a complaint is filed with the NLRB, there are three things that can happen: they can find against you, and the case goes no further; they can "Collierize" it, putting it on hold to see if the issue can be settled through other channels like negotiation and mediation before taking any action. Getting a favorable finding on a complaint at this point means that the NLRB agrees to represent you in a court of law, and bring your case before a judge. In a charge of failure to bargain in good faith, what would be the remedy? Maybe, if the defendant in the case has a long record of abuse, there might be some tangible penalty applied, but generally the judge enjoins the defendant to bargain in good faith. Back to the negotiation table where it all began.

     In light of the contract negotiations the charge might have some value. The meeting that afternoon, once we had caucused, consisted of Bill dragging the College’s team over the coals for about ninety minutes, accusing them of dishonesty, and of manifesting their intention, as the charge alleged, not to conduct real good-faith bargaining with our union. It was all true, but there was very little we could do about it. The leaders of the College team denied that they had known, and tried to conceal their knowledge of the charge. Then he announced we would have to postpone the remainder of the meeting so we could have a chance to evaluate the present situation. The charge might have some value as a bargaining chip. The College didn’t want to see this news hit the newspapers. In the end the NLRB charge was on the table as part of the final settlement package. It’s hard to say what the effect of it might have been, but as a matter of strategy, the underdogs have to grab onto anything they can get their hands on.

     We may have lost some of the value of the NLRB ruling as a bargaining chip when the story appeared soon after in two of the local papers. The negotiating team was against keeping the secret, as we wanted our members to be informed about it, and see some of the value of it for themselves, and when reporters started calling me it was clear they already knew something about it, and there would be a story printed about it in any case. There wasn’t time to consult with Bill on the matter, but a canvas of the team gave me the green light to talk to the reporters, so we could get our point of view across. Bill was a bit disappointed about this, because there would be less reason for the College to move in their bargaining positions, since they wouldn’t be able to suppress the bad publicity.

     Nevertheless we settled, with the College’s benefits package firmly lodged in our throats, a healthy salary increase, and a signing bonus. We also won retroactive pay, with the warning from Ms. Keefe that we could not assume in the future that we would receive retroactive increases if we failed to settle before the contract expired. Apparently this was another of Jack’s messes she intended to clean up. The signing bonus was something we had proposed earlier on in the negotiations, and had been considered by the College all along, as a way of selling the contract without affecting the base rate of pay. We were far apart in the actual numbers, though, until after the Unfair Labor Practice charge. So the value of the charge turned out to be approximately $150 for each of our members. Cheap for disobeying the law.

     Convincing the membership to accept the contract was made easier by the relatively large percentage of salary increase. We also fought to do something unusual with the wage agreement. One of the years the wage increase was the same dollar amount for everyone. Therefore the people who got the highest percentage increase in pay were the lowest paid members of the union. This was a proper way to represent the whole membership because the majority were at the lower end of the pay scale. Usually when the wage increase is a straight percentage the lower paid employees get a smaller actual increase in pay. The difference between the top and bottom pay rates widens, dividing our interests slightly. When the gap remains the same for one year at least for that year it shows that the negotiators, who are on the higher end of the pay scale are capable of negotiating on behalf of their lower paid sisters. This may have helped our credibility.

     We needed all the help we could get. The vote was still close, and the discussion intense because we lost so much in healthcare benefits, and the demise of the DRA position still seemed imminent. We had to rely so heavily on Bill Newman for legal advice and assistance throughout the campaign, and our legal expenses were so high, that some hostility toward him had begun to develop. At previous ratification meetings he was present to explain and defend the contract. This one we did by ourselves. It was an important step for us really, because the matter should be in the hands of the workers. The workers should be sufficiently educated to consider the proposals as a group and evaluate them. We were taking this responsibility upon ourselves now.

DRA! Let them stay!

     Throughout the negotiations, Local 211 and USED had staged rallies and produced leaflets, agitating for the cause of the DRA jobs, and generally doing everything we could to expose the hypocrisy of the College’s actions and propaganda. A committee had been meeting to discuss cost-cutting measures that could be enacted in place of the removal of the DRA jobs. The committee had good representation from the community, and they eventually conceived a plan that rescued some of those jobs. The radical element of the College however, still didn’t trust them. We continued to agitate and demonstrate for the restoration of those jobs. The drive culminated in a candlelight vigil one evening in January, as the campus awaited the report of the committee. The Union had held the election of new officers at the usual time, but instead of swearing in the new Executive Board at the usual meeting, we swore them in at the beginning of the vigil. This was my last act as President of Local 211. When we were later to put our signatures to the contract we had just ratified, it would be Joe McNeish who would sign as President of the Union.

     The parade was quite a success. Hundreds of people were there, carrying candles, chanting, "DRA! Let them stay!" We marched around the campus to gather at the President’s house. The crowd began to collect as the tail of the parade caught up to the head, and the chanting grew louder, hoping to call her out, and confront her. She wasn’t home. This was a possibility we hadn’t considered. It would seem anticlimactic to simply end like this. Someone got the idea to circle the nearby quad, a rectangular area enclosed by dorm houses. As we paraded through the quad, our numbers encircling the roadway around, chanting and yelling, lights came on in all of the houses. People looked out their windows, and cheered us on, blinking their bedroom lights on and off.

     After experiencing this crescendo we wound our way back to Mary Dunn’s house. Some of the first there had time to begin getting into mischief. One group was at the President’s mailbox dripping candle wax onto her mail. People were surrounding the house, propping their candles onto every imaginable surface, sticking them there with the melted wax. I was prompted to give a speech to the crowd, as a closure, so I jumped up on a ready platform next to her doorway, and thanked everyone for coming, and urged them to continue agitating for fairness at Smith. The crowd then began breaking up, and I walked toward my car, looking back worriedly at all the candles that were still there, burning. As I got to the end of the driveway, a car approached, and entered the driveway. As it passed me, I could see Mary Dunn inside!

     People came scrambling back from all angles shouting and jumping, and when the President emerged from her car, the chant resumed, "DRA! Let them stay!" Mrs. Dunn had to step gingerly over burning candles to climb the stoop, and stopped there to address the crowd. She assured us that everything would be all right, and answered a few questions before disappearing inside. Now we had a fitting end. Still worried about those candles, I returned to the quiet, candlelit scene after getting my car, and went around and blew them all out. The last thing we needed was to get blamed for burning down the President’s house.

     That night I still worried that we might be blamed for causing the expense of having workers come out to clean up all the candles, so I went to work early the next day, and collected them all. I contemplated at that time, the nature of crowds; the herd instinct. There was always the danger that things could get out of hand in such a situation. The crowd is dangerous and unpredictable, but the crowd is the only real weapon that labor, or the radical, or the underdog has. Those who have the power to make decisions have the law on their side. When challenged, they have the power to place their opponents outside the law, leaving lawlessness the only alternative to capitulation.

     The Working Committee on Dining published its findings, and its plan, having already won the approval of the President and the Trustees, on January 20. Unfortunately the DRA job savings would be at the expense of other jobs, and the plan conveniently allowed Garvey, a prominent member of the committee, to sink his teeth into some new construction projects, as part of the plan involved renovations to kitchens to expand their capabilities. The College was willing to divert some funds toward physical improvements as long as it didn’t go to paying workers. Dining rooms in some houses would close, while others would be improved for "consolidated" dining. The union still found this proposal unsatisfactory, because we would still lose the same numbers, though some losses would be delayed, only now we would be losing higher paying jobs. We had the answer however, to the question as we raised it, and the DRA position was preserved.

     In the Spring semester of 1993 Smith College announced its new maternity and paternity leave plans. The new plans looked almost exactly like some of the proposals we made to the College during negotiations, but the College, at that time, wouldn’t agree to them. Now, with the announcement of the new benefits, came the announcement that these benefits would be made available to the entire campus, except the unions, who would have to negotiate for them. Local 263 quickly "won" the new provisions in their negotiations, leaving only the members of Local 211 out of the plans. These developments signified a new trend in labor relations at Smith. The College had become accustomed for years to a labor relations climate that put little strain on their policy making. Now they had to deal with a union who wouldn’t simply take what they were meting out. When the College tried to overcome the obstacle we presented by using all the power they had at their disposal, we responded by resorting to what little power we had at our disposal, thus breaking the rules. By administering the maternity leave policy this way they were signaling the advent of the Christian era of labor negotiations at Smith. Henceforth, when a union was smitten by the College, they would be expected to turn the other cheek.

Reflections

     In 1992 I was not holding any office with the union, but I was publishing the newsletter, as my one duty that kept me in touch with union affairs. My object was to set an example for other members by taking on one task that would be of help to the Executive Board. I also served as a sort of shadow E-Board member. I had become, over the years, the person to ask when one had a question about grievances, contract interpretation, workers’ rights, or stewards’ rights and duties. I was also the person that was contacted by people outside the union, sort of like an Ambassador. I wanted other people to grow into the roles I had assumed and develop informed opinions of their own.

     I always felt, like Eugene Debs, of the International Brotherhood of Firemen and the American Railways Union, that the union should not be built on personalities. The duties of running a union should be accepted by all members as an opportunity to learn, or simply to serve, to help. The knowledge should be something that’s shared by all, discussed at the lunch table, not by a bulwark of three who are then sequestered to do all of the union’s bidding, and little else. In reality, I found no quicker way to end a conversation with most of my fellow workers, than to begin talking about the union, especially my personal views, urging participation from all, and vigilance at all times for any injury to a fellow worker.

     John L. Lewis, of the United Mine Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, seemed to follow a different approach. It seems to me that Lewis had ample opportunity to study Debs, and perhaps learned from his mistakes. Lewis built up a political machine within his union that centered on what we call today a cult of personality. Where Debs constantly tried to put himself in the background and the issues in the foreground, Lewis pushed himself to the front and brought his issues with him. This was exemplified by his threatening Governor Murphy of Michigan, during the General Motors sit-down strike, to be the first to take a bullet if the Governor decided to use force to remove the strikers. Lewis, like Debs, built organizations. Where Debs achieved a mixed degree of success in building organizations, and influencing policies, Lewis built up the mineworkers into the most formidable union in American history, and then founded the CIO and built it to a level that dwarfed the UMWA, bringing millions of unskilled laborers under the union umbrella for the first time. Despite Debs’ mixed successes, he was reportedly loved by all, friend or foe. Lewis, despite his unprecedented success, was loved only by the mineworkers, and hated by just about everyone else.

     The danger to an organization presented by Lewis’ model is that democracy can be suppressed in favor of the will of that charismatic individual, as was the case with the UMWA. On the other hand, it seems that people have a difficult time uniting behind an idea. Possibly the individual is always tempted to adjust the ideal to his or her own views, resulting in splintering of the group, or perhaps ideas are just too hard to hold on to. It seems that people are best united when they’re united behind a dynamic leader, or in opposition to an outside threat, which itself usually takes the form of a dynamic personality, perceived or portrayed as evil. While Lewis’ organizations may have suffered under his autocratic rule, as was charged by his detractors, they prospered as a result of the united front they presented. Debs’ organizations may have suffered from a lack of his personal influence.

     I was following the philosophy of Debs, who, like Lewis, was only a name in history to me. I knew nothing of their philosophies or their struggles, though in my own humble way I was engaged in the same fight. When I had a leadership choice to make I always deferred to the union membership. The decision was theirs, the power was theirs. Partly this was my philosophy, that any power a leader could have was derived from his or her followers, partly it was because I really didn’t want anything from the College for myself, only a strong organization for the union. The things that I think make a union strong are unity, education, and frequent exercise. By exercise I mean the exercise of its rights -- hearty engagement of the whole union in grievances and contract negotiations. Ideally, there should also be some involvement in community issues outside the union. The union should see itself as an entity that is part of the social fabric of the community. Part of the union’s exercise regime should be either organizing the unorganized, or some other community outreach. These exercises have the side effect of improving internal unity. Education can have the same effect, when one learns about the alternatives to the hard work of building unity and the mediocre results they have yielded. I think the struggle at Smith College would have gone differently had I realized this dichotomy at the time.

     Each of the Presidents of Local 211 had different styles. Dennis Seymour, who was President when I was sworn in, was like a foreman. He prided himself on brief, effective meetings, and didn’t like to get bogged down in minutiae. At the time of his presidency this was quite adequate. Contracts and grievances were fought for and settled in a timely manner, and picayune grievances were usually dismissed, and certainly not pursued beyond step two in any case. No real campaigns were waged, but this didn’t hurt the material interests of the union, at least in the short term, since this period was marked by relative calm.

     After Dennis, Joe Menzyk took the helm, and I served on his Executive Board. At this time grievances were pursued a bit more vigorously, and the contract negotiations were a bit more intense, but we didn’t conduct any comprehensive campaigns. The negotiations involving the housekeepers occurred during his presidency, and as a group they became more demanding during this period, so we had to respond in some way. As a result, this group generated a greater number of grievances that were pursued than they had in the past.

     Next was my turn, and it seemed to me, all hell broke loose. Just as we had begun to prepare ourselves to take the advice of Bill Newman, and conduct a real campaign to fight for ourselves, the fight became a necessity. Joe, Paul and I went to various workshops to learn about comprehensive contract campaigns, grievance strategies and arbitration techniques, and began to change the way Local 211 did business. We took just about every viable grievance to at least step two. In preparation for the contract campaign we lifted every rock to build the most extensive list of demands we could. We took every opportunity to stand up for the rights of the members and have it known that we were doing so. Monthly meetings became much longer as every voice was given a hearing, and we took some time each month to urge the membership to become involved. I wanted a democratic and active union that would reflect the will of its members. I learned that one of the hardest things to do was to bring down that gavel. There was a fine line that separated giving someone due consideration and allowing him/her to monopolize the meeting. Often it was after I had gotten the feeling that I had allowed a discussion to continue too long when our best ideas would emerge.

     The next president was Joe McNeish, who continued along the same lines, but some of the members of the Executive Board became frustrated, some resigning, because they felt they were being cut out of decision making. Joe consulted precisely whom he thought he needed to, made his decisions, and carried them out. Often I knew of some of his decisions and was surprised to find out that some E-Board members hadn’t been informed. I held no office at the time, but was consulted for advice and strategy. I feel that Joe’s style represents what I consider a sort of managerial way of doing things. Although some people were angered by his approach, claiming they were being left out of the decision-making, I saw it as a more common style, the result of a lifetime of messages being thrown at us by corporations through advertising and the circumstances of the workplace, teaching us how we’re expected to get things done.

     I felt Joe’s approach was much better than some previous presidents because he actually did a lot, and his solutions and strategies often brought the results he sought, especially on grievances. In this way, he was more effective than I was. There was no difference in our points of view, just in the processes we chose to express them. He has remained on the E-Board as Vice-President since then and has served well in helping the union stay as active as they have. Today, Local 211 presidents have begun to sound more like the managers we used to fight, often siding with the boss on an individual’s lack of qualifications, and worrying more about what the boss thinks than what the members think.

United we stand...

      Concurrently with the negotiations in 1991 I decided that I didn’t like the way our union members were sucked in to the United Way campaign at Smith. Garvey would have these departmental meetings with the staff and present some United Way propaganda, and encourage our contribution. We were urged to make a pledge and return the envelope as we left the meeting. He was proud of the fact that his usual heavy-handed tactics produced the best turnout of all the departments of the College. When the results were tallied, the members of Local 211 were subsumed in the identity of Smith College, in whose name the donations were given. At Smith, our contributions were attributed to the Dining Services department and the housekeeping department. Our union wasn’t mentioned at all. Meanwhile, Garvey’s tactics had begun to lose their appeal as the same organization that pinched our wallets spurred us to make greater contributions.

     I decided that Local 211 would make the donation on our own behalf. I spoke to the Director of the local United Way, and he talked me out of doing it entirely on our own. He cited other examples of unions who had tried this, and the donations always dropped off, because the employer was able to remove the donations from people’s paychecks. I didn’t want to hurt the donations so our union could take credit for giving, so I joined the Smith United Way committee and told them how I wanted to handle the collection of donations so that they would be counted on behalf of Local 211. Our group once again gave at one of the top levels at the College. If the results were tabulated based on income, we might have been the top level of donations. When any results were published, by the College or by the United Way, it was under the name of Local 211.

     It was a success, but once again I had built myself a dilemma. If I didn’t personally continue to run this campaign, it would whither, because nobody else was willing to even help. Of course this was disappointing to me, because I believed that it was beneficial to us as a union, and the members each shared in that benefit, but nobody wanted to help. I ran this campaign with waning enthusiasm for the next several years, eventually dropping it when I decided that there were better charities to which to contribute. The collections from our union afterward were subsumed into the department’s contributions again. This experience was the beginning of the end for me. I could see the extent of what I would be able to do, and it wouldn’t be enough. I and what few people I could get to help me would be isolated and left with the task of running the organization. We would never fight as a group. With the NFL Players strike as a contemporary example, I concluded that we were showing the signs of being too comfortable to fight. Our members had too much to lose to risk sacrificing it.

Negotiating revisited

     It wasn’t very long after the end of 1991 negotiations when it was time once again to prepare for the 1993 negotiations. The ‘91 contract was signed on April 30, 1992, almost a full year after the beginning of its term. We were taking nominations for the next bargaining team at the October meeting, less than six months later. We had actually come to an agreement in mid-November of 1991, but there are always some hang-ups. Usually these result from a misunderstanding, or someone’s unreliable memory. In this case there were some changes made by the overzealous neatnick, Jan Keefe, in the materials we were sent for review before signing. She couldn’t resist cleaning up a few messy, insignificant items that we failed to consider in our overly-lengthy negotiating process. It was nothing important, but it resulted in a fight over wording that lasted a couple of months, delaying the signing that much more than usual.

     As the preparations began an animosity toward our attorney was being manifested by a small group of members, one of whom was pushing to have her father assume his role as chief negotiator. In Parliamentary Procedure she wouldn’t have been able to get a second to this motion, but her arguments were resonating with increasing numbers of the members, though nobody was interested in seeing her dad take over. Even some of Mr. Newman’s supporters and friends could see the great expense that attorney’s fees represented in our negotiations, and the desirability of limiting it. I argued in favor of keeping Bill as our attorney, but soon I saw another way. I proposed to the negotiating committee that we do it ourselves, and elect a chief spokesperson from amongst ourselves. This proposal was accepted and within minutes I was elected chief spokesperson. We submitted this proposal to the union with the amendment that we could call Bill into the process if we felt it was getting over our heads. The proposal was accepted.

     One of the arguments the College repeatedly used against our proposals was how it would look to the students. This theme was hammered into us until we began to believe it, and it had become a very useful tool for them. We knew though, that many students would not be adverse to our proposals. They were posturing as though their hands were tied by student opinion. In order to counteract these claims, we arrived upon the strategy of including students in our negotiations. We made this one of our proposals to the membership before the school year was over, and it too was accepted. It took us a while to get the students together, since they all left town after commencement. When some students returned for summer internships we contacted several of them from our dwindling USED phone list. We had a couple of meetings with the students who had volunteered to catch them up with the negotiating process, which had already begun.

     I had to work hard to keep up myself, with the new responsibilities I had taken on. I had to focus a lot more on the presentation of our ideas at the table. We worked out agendas in advance in the hope of controlling the meetings. We wanted to spend as much of the time as possible focusing on the difficulties of our members, and the need for improvements in our situation. At times we would have to allow the pendulum to swing the other way, but we remained diligent in spotting the opportunities to hammer home the themes we wanted recognized. The theme of the negotiations from our point of view was "dignity and respect."

     The issues at the table were not altogether that big. My position I took before the negotiations began was to pare down the number of proposals to those that were most important and focus on them. The internal politics of the union made this difficult, as each group saw their pet proposals as the most important, and the negotiating team fell back into the old pattern of trying to appease every group. We still went to the table with over sixty proposals, most of which were to be discarded. We let go of issues only when we were compelled to do so. It was a painful process. Although the group elected me to be their chief negotiator, I was in the minority on most issues. I found I had a hard time winning adherents to my positions, and then having to fight for things I didn’t personally support. This was what the union elected me to do. They didn’t agree with me on many issues, but they thought I would do a good job.

     One thing I would change would be to have a better discussion of the ground rules. Our practice in this area more closely resembled an occasional threat by management as to the consequences of some behavior they considered intolerable. We seldom brought up ground rules, and the management response was invariably to bridle at any suggestion of restraint on their power. We avoided this uncomfortable discussion, taking solace in the theory that we had not been restrained by agreement from doing anything we might want to do. This was merely illusion. The Union need not have worried about being restrained at the bargaining table. We were restrained in many ways already. The tactics available outside the bargaining process were more important to our cause, and had they been properly developed - another change I would have wished for - our progress at the table would have been better. The ground rules discussion is also a good opportunity to affirm the rights you do have at the table, and to discuss employer practices that might seem unfair.

     The biggest issue of the negotiating process turned out to be the process itself. It was about the eighth negotiating session when we brought the students in with us. We were all seated and waiting when the College team came in. We introduced the students as new members of our negotiating team to the members of the College team. We had lined up in our agenda all of the questions in response to which the College used the student opinion ploy. We began to plunge into the issues, but the College wanted to discuss the new members of our team. They said they wouldn’t negotiate with the students. They were the College’s clientele. We argued that they had no right to dictate to us who was on our bargaining team, as several NLRB decisions indicated. The College team got up and walked out. We had not prepared for such an eventuality. Somehow we actually believed that the College would negotiate with us. This essentially ended our session for the day.

     We tried again two weeks and several sessions later when the tone of the discussions was getting worse, and had the same result. We filed an unfair labor practice charge for failure to negotiate with the union’s chosen representatives. The negotiations were breaking down. It had become a bitter, humorless struggle. We had brought Joe Twarog, a regional representative for SEIU into the sessions, and then Bill Newman. Eventually we had a mediator from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) in the sessions. His role was minimal. A couple of times he helped to ensure that there would be another meeting, by helping to schedule times, and the existence of a third party in the room helped to temper the demeaning attitude with which the College team, principally Keefe and Dougherty, treated us, but beyond these I didn’t consider his help very valuable.

     Eventually the NLRB issued an initial finding in our favor, essentially backing up our claim that we could put whomever we wanted on our negotiating team. The decision came late enough in the negotiations that we were dissuaded from bringing the students back into the process in the interest of reaching a settlement. We had reached the stage in negotiations where the settlement package was on the table, and the College’s position was no longer amenable to retroactive pay. We had some show of support from the membership at one rally before a negotiating session. We came to the building with over fifty members, during work hours, who wanted an audience with the College negotiating team. As we walked into the receptionists office, the members filed in with us until the office was filled with as many of us as would fit. Ms. Keefe and attorney Dougherty came out of her office and the crowd peppered them with questions and statements of support for their bargaining team. Jan handled herself quite well, but the quaver in her voice gave away her nervousness. Her willingness to weather such storms without flipping out helped the College stay in control.

     We ended up settling for just over 2% per year. We didn’t win retroactive pay, but this loss was partially alleviated by a small signing bonus. We had a clause inserted in the first section of the contract saying that it was the intent of the College and the Union to "maintain an atmosphere conducive to the dignity and respect of all individuals..." But the College insisted that this clause would not be subject to the grievance procedure. This was ironic since the tone of the discussions had become so bad that we didn’t even shake hands after reaching agreement and signing the contract. Another development was the inclusion of the special bidding procedure to be used for future consolidations, which were foreseeable given the results of the Dining Committee in 1991.

     At the ratification meeting things were again heated. I didn’t have to run the entire meeting, but just described the agreement we had reached with the College, and answered questions. The contract passed closely.