Word: gorski
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When David L. Gorski became chief of University police three years ago, he was given free rein to shape the department in his own image: that of a tough, no-nonsense city cop. Now Gorski is gone, and Harvard administrators are learning that the tough-guy image may not be the best one for the University force...
...Harvard's administrators thought the contract dispute was only a reaction to Gorski's sandpapery personality they were clearly wrong. Even after Wyatt named William A. Lee, a personnel administrator in Buildings and Grounds, as acting chief in April, the talks still broke down more often than a soap-opera heroine and still show all the signs of clinical death. As last summer wore on, with both sides trading charges and the new contract still unsigned, it became evident that the real question was far more basic than mere personalities: Given Harvard's firm commitment to a force organized along...
Certainly the police administration shows few signs of wavering in its new approach. "If Chief Gorski came through the door today, he would see the department being run the same way as when he left," Lawrence J. Fennelly, an agent in the crime prevention unit, says. Indeed Lee, who had no police experience before taking over the department, says his technique of handling his new job has been to supervise the supervisors: to let the assistants who came in with Gorski, and who clearly think like him, to decide many substantive issues. "They have the title, so let's give...
...plays a key role in the contract dispute--but again, there is a twist. Letteri and the other negotiators last spring rejected Harvard's offer of a 5 per cent increase, retroactive to last January (an offer the University has since withdrawn), arguing that the increased workload implied under Gorski's organizational scheme should earn them a larger increase. Through attrition, Gorski's hiring freeze has reduced the size of the force from over 60 officers...
Even more important, though, the Police Association sees the reorganization Gorski started as a threat to the union. As Letteri says, "The two big issues are job seniority and job security"; and he thinks neither concern seems to fit well into the new department structure. What the University considers simple measures to insure effective police work--such requirement of frequent physical examinations--have become, in the union's eyes, little more than sophisticated union-busting ploys. Neither side can be faulted for its concern; the problem is, in fact, that both Harvard and the union have arguments that...