University of Southern California
Tuesday, April 30, 1974
UNIONIZATION APPROVED—Salaries, job classifications, and fringe benefits were the issues at stake as library assistants voted in favor of unionization. Pictured above are Charlie Hinman,
(right), a library assistant, and Elias Agel, a graduate student in comparative literature. DT photo by Gehrig Ikeda.
Medical Center strike averted; tentative settlement is reached
The planned strike by Los Angeles County workers, which would have included employees of the County-USC Medical Center, was averted when a tentative agreement was reached at 5 p.m. Friday.
Local 434. which represents most of the hospital workers, had authorized the strike on April 22. when 95^ of the voting workers approved it.
The tentative agreement will increase workers’ wages and fringe benefits nearly 8*7r but it is still subject to ratification by the unions.
Ballots were sent out to 60.000 workers in the county on Friday and Monday, and those who vote
will have the opportunity to accept or reject the tentative increases.
Results of the vote should be known by the middle of next week.
The strike was originally scheduled to begin at 12:01 a.m. Monday. Union and county leaders were concerned some workers were planning to either set up picket lines or boycott their jobs, despite the fact the tentative agreement had been reached.
Absentee figures released by all county hospitals for the three eight-hour shifts beginning at 3 p.m. Sunday showed that only 6.17r ofthe workers were absent,
Plans revealed for television department
BY MIKE MEYER
A proposal to create a new division, the Department of Television, within the School of Performing Arts will be submitted this week. Grant Beglarian. dean ofthe School of Performing Arts, said Thursday.
The division would become a branch of the Performing Media Department for approximately three years.
“Then, if it’s successful, a separate academic unit would be established,’' Beglarian said.
He said he expects the proposal to be considered seriously and sympathetically by the administration.
“The School of Performing Arts has a long history of success and achievement, and we feel we could certainly draw enough student response to start the program and keep it going,” he said.
The proposal has been in the planning stages for more than a year. If the new division is accepted by the administration, it will begin operation in the spring semester of 1975.
Financial support for the program is expected to be generated internally, mostly from student tuition, with no
subsidy requirement from the university.
“We are planning for the program to be self-financing over the three-year period that it is associated with the Performing Media Department.” said Beglarian.
“By the third year we expect the initial debts to be taken care of.”
The orientation of the program would be primarily toward the professional aspect of television, and toward the productive, creative and artistic uses of the medium.
It would be concerned with the education of directors, producers, and scriptwriters.
“We plan to bring in professional people from the television field to become faculty members, and many of our present instructors are extremely knowledgeable in the field of television production.” Beglarian said.
He said faculty members from the Division of Cinema may teach some of the classes in television, but the two divisions will be separate and the affiliation between them will be slight.
The Divisions of Cinema and Drama would create new
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compared to the normal rate of 7.27r.
Elinor Glenn, the head of the hospital workers’ union, had shop stewards appear at the beginning of all three shifts to announce the postponement of the strike.
A precautionary emergency service, the Health Services Command Post, which had been set up to coordinate communication during the strike, was closed at 9:30 a.m. Monday.
If the union workers vote to reject the terms of the tentative agreement, leaders ofthe unions say a new strike date will be set.
Gordon Nesvig, the county personnel director, said he does not expect a strike of any kind to take place, regardless of the results ofthe voting.
“I think the workers of Los Angeles County are more responsible than that.” he said.
Mort Sahl to perform today in Bovard
Mort Sahl, a political satirist, will perform today at noon in Bovard Auditorium.
Sahl popularized college concerts in the early 60s when students were becoming i ncreasingly involved in political activity.
His unique and blunt approach to political satire spares no candidate, party or policy.
Sahl is performing again after taking time off to write a book, which will be released soon.
The appearance is free and open to the public.
Library workers approve union representation
BY JON ALLEN
Staff Writer
Library assistants voted 60-33 Friday in favor of unionization, affiliating themselves with the Office and Professional Employees Union of the AFL-CIO.
The assistants, who are from the University library and its branches and the Hancock, law and medical libraries, are concerned with the university living up to commitments it has made in the past about salaries, job classifications, and fringe benefits.
Local 30 of the union will represent the library assistants in collective bargaining with the university involving the assistants’ needs.
The assistants are not yet members of the union. When the collective bargaining is completed and a contract is produced and signed, the assistants will join the union.
Their main goal is raising salaries to a level comparable with UCLA library assistants and establishing periodic salary increases to compensate for cost-of-living increases.
The assistants also want clarification of job classifications so that job placement and the establishment of salary levels will be easier.
Fringe benefits such as disablity insurance, longer vacations and a dental plan are some of the things the library assistants also want.
Steve Robertson, an assistant in the circulation department of Doheny and a member of the steering committee of the Library Assistants Association, said of the inequities between USC and UCLA, “If they can’t pay us like UCLA they should give us all an equal amount below it.”
“With the results of the election we have a fairly good mandate from the people involved.” Robertson said.
Roy L. Kidman, the university librarian, was not particularly pleased about the outcome of the election.
“One would always hope that it wouldn’t happen.” he said.
Kidman had been previously quoted as saying. “Going outside the university to bargain through a union will cost more in terms of resources. |t will also cost the university money.”
Robertson said of Kidman, “He has done a lot of good things, but we just can’t wait for the other things to get done. He wants the same things we want.”
Actual certification of the election results will be done by Wednesday, but it is almost certain there will be no problems.
A total of 93 out of 100 of the library- assistants involved voted in the election.
Officials of the university could not be reached for comments concerning the unionization.