Word: steiner
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...York-based union with a membership of about 25,000, first cast its eye on Harvard three years ago, few observers believed the union could organize the workers in the face of the University's high-powered opposition. As the union drive wore on, their skepticism seemed justified; Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, relied on an expensive team of Ropes and Grey lawyers to tie up District 65's bid for an organizing election in a maze of legal challenges. Harvard contended that the union could not organize just the Med Area, but rather that Med Area...
...Harvard's formidable briefs, and in early 1976 the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) accepted Harvard's argument. But later that year the parent NLRB in Washington startled University administrators by agreeing to hear the union's appeal-an extraordinary development, and one that Steiner now says gave him the first indication that Harvard's position might not be invulnerable. Then last May, the NLRB delivered the real shocker, reversing the regional Board decision and ruling that the Med Area was a "separate community of interest" that District 65 legally could organize apart from the rest...
That decision marked the turning point in Harvard's anti-union strategy. Rather than pressing Harvard's case back in a regional board hearing, Steiner decided to drop the legal argument and fight District 65 on the workers level. Reserving its right to revive the legal issue in federal court if it lost the election, the University agreed to an early date for the balloting, and then shifted into a high-gear information campaign "to talk the workers into seeing its side of the argument." As usual, the Harvard strategy was carefully conceived--even if the workers opted for District...
However, Harvard's personnel office is not noted for taking wild risks, and the five-week campaign that followed the NLRB's decision was a masterpiece of political maneuvering. Steiner and Daniel Cantor, director of personnel administration, orchestrated a campaign that included frequent meetings with Med Area workers and the distribution of 12 pamphlets questioning the motives and effectiveness of District 65. While Leslie A. Sullivan, chief organizer for District 65, characterized the University's efforts as "scare tactics," Steiner holds that the entire effort was aimed at informing, rather than indoctrinating the workers, and that Harvard at all times...
...Steiner would not estimate how much the campaign cost the University. "We worked very hard and put in a lot of time, no doubt--but we did everything as inexpensively as possible. The dollar expenditure was low," he said...