Word: journeymen
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...University Personnel Office says that it hired blacks in order to train them as painters, on the assumption that when they became proficient they would be raised to journeymen. The facts, according to the painters and their union officials. present a quite different story. All of the black painters' helpers now working at Harvard were required to give references attesting to their previous painting experience. Many of the white helpers are experienced as well. When they came to Harvard for an interview they were told either that they weren't qualified, or. that there were no openings for painters...
...helpers have been promoted to journeymen painters, despite the fact that some have had as much as ten years' experience. No training has been given any of the helpers, including the one or two whites with no previous experience. They were not sent to union night school as the union proposed, nor were crew chiefs or journeymen painters told anything about training them. When a crew chief asked the paint-shop foreman. "What's a helper supposed to do?" the foreman replied. "Are you kidding? The same thing as any other painter!" It is not the union or the white...
...Harvard pays the helpers $2.86 an hour, while the journeymen who do the same work receive $3.72. Not that Harvard pays the full painters what it should. Journeymen painters in the Boston area working under a union contract receive $5.90 an hour ($6.90 come January). Larry Hodston, the shop steward of the Harvard painters, believes that this is the reason that Harvard originally started the "helper-3rd class" category which was not provided in the union contract signed two years ago. "Harvard couldn't even get a nibble from journeymen painters, even after an advertisement in a Boston newspaper." said...
...University says that the helpers have a regular grievance procedure whereby they can protest if they feel that they have enough experience to be journeymen. As one helper said recently, "a white painter filed two grievances, and ever since he's been given shit work and gets needled constantly." A white painter who has painted for Harvard for more than fifteen years said, "If you file a grievance, it'll hurt you later. Everyone knows this." Painters' helpers who have asked for promotion because of their experience have been told they have a "bad attitude" toward their work and have...
...also pay the trainees the same as the other painters because they will be doing the same work. The University should negotiate these things with the union now, when a new contract is being drawn up. The present helpers should be promoted and paid a wage equal to the journeymen's. It is time the University stopped hiring blacks for less, under false pretenses, so that it can save money. Harvard employed 60 journeymen painters in 1952 and 27 to do the job today-this is where the 12 helpers come...