Summer
Trojan
Vol. LXVII, No. 4
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Friday, June 28, 1974
Library union files complaint against
labor
USC
■m y
ISRAELI PHILOSOPHER—Abraham Kaplan, Israeli philosopher and lecturer spoke on campus Thursday on "Ethics in Politics." Kaplan, who is from the University of Haifa delivered a similar lecture, "The Psychology of Terrorism," on Wednesday. Photo by Michael Sedano.
BY SYLVIA DISANTI
Editor
The union representing university library assistants has filed an unfair labor practices complaint against the university with the National Labor Relations Board for what it believes to be violations of the National Labor Relations Act.
Local 30 of the Office and Professional Employees International, which is currently involved in salary and compensation negotiations with the university since the assistants voted to unionize in April, filed the report on behalf of the assistants who number about 100 in the campus branch libraries.
Charges filed state the university has failed to grant the assistants a 5% cost of living increase granted across the board to other university employees, failure by the university to consider or review indepth proposals, failure to provide a negotiator with sufficient au-
Personnel director named; assumes position Monday
The appointment of John H. Schneider of Boston University as Director of Personnel for the university will become effective Monday, a spokesman from President John R. Hubbard’s office said today.
He'was chosen by Hubbard from a list of four finalists selected by a search committee which considered more than 400 applications nationwide.
“It is Schneider’s special expertise in the areas of job classification and salary administration which will make him a most welcome addition to USC,” Hubbard said. “His first assignment will be to establish realistic job classifications and wage and salary program for non-
academic staff positions on campus.”
At Boston, a private urban university, Schneider served as manager of compensation and benefits and was involved in the development of a data-based personnel system which included a job classification and compensation program. He also expanded employee benefits and started an affirmative action plan.
“Schneider will have the complete support of the administration in his new position and will report directly to me to assure him of the clearest channel of communication,” Hubbard said. “Full budgetary support will be provided as needed to develop
and implement the proposed systems. The existing employment office staff will be increased and Schneider will begin to build a viable personnel system that will suite the USC needs,” he said.
Schneider was formerly an employee relations administrator at General Dynamics in Massachusetts where he was involved in training, management appraisal, and manpower development.
He is a graduate ofthe University of California at Berkeley and holds a master of business administration degree in industrial relations from New York University.
thority to bargain for the employer, failure to provide relevant information on personnel matters and data, delaying unduly on others, and engaging in unfair labor practices.
The university’s negotiators, from the Los Angeles law firm of Musick, Peeler and Garrett, however maintain that although they have not had an opportunity to cost out all of the union’s economic proposals, they have carefully reviewed them. “Based on such review and preliminary estimates of the cost of such proposals, it is clear that the cost would be many times the cost of the increase the university has budgeted for July 1, the negotiators said in a letter to library assistants on June 19.
“We wish to make it very clear to everyone that it is the intent of the university that the bargaining unit employee receive, in one form or another, every cent of the funds budgeted for such increases. However, we also realize that the union has economic goals in these negotiations other than salaries, as is clear from union proposals. Accordingly, we cannot see how it would be feasible or appropriate, at this stage of the negotiations, for the university to unilaterally allocate the budgeted funds to specific economic categories. Indeed the allocation of such funds is one of the major purposes of these negotiations,” the letter said.
Gloria Busman of Local 30, who has been sitting at the bargaining table, said that the university is stalling. “The university said it is saving the money to meet the demands specifically promised. But when the raise was promised, there were no strings attached. Negotiations could take quite a while,” she said.
“The assistants feel the 5% raise has nothing to do with the negotiations,” Steve Robertson
said, a member of the assistant steering committee and representative on the negotiating team. Robertson said the assistants were promised that the raise would be effective July 1 during a meeting on March 26 with Zohrab A. Kaprielian, vice-president for academic administration and research, about a month before the assistants voted to unionize.
On May31, the assistants asked for a confirmation of the increase. “The university said it would get back to us,” Robertson said.
The university did respond to the assistants in a letter the following week which stated that the negotiator’s position. They would get the raise eventually. “While we can see no feasible alternative but to defer the previously scheduled effective date of such increase, we wish to emphasize that the total amount budgeted for such increase will be allocated in some form to the bargaining unit employees, who will suffer no economic loss whatsoever,” the letter said. A review of the job classification system, which was also scheduled for implementation July 1, was also deferred.
In response to that letter, the assistants sent a petition and letter to John R. Hubbard, president of the university on Tuesday to protest the delay.
Busman said that charges were also brought against the university in hopes that it would bargain more directly. “The employer is not bargaining in good faith. Those at the table don’t have the authority to dot an i’ or cross a‘t’ without reporting back to an un-named management committee because they have no authority to commit the university,” Busman said.
Harry R. Stang, one of the lawyers acting as a university negotiator, said that proper authority has been given. “People
(Continued on page 2)
NEW BUDGET BY AUGUST
board freezes funds
BY MARJIE LAMBERT
StafT Writer
The Student Programming Board froze all funds Thursday that it had allocated for use in 1974-75.
The unanimous vote came after a student referendum had shown a 547c to 46rr preference for the abolition of mandatory fees.
If the Board of Trustees approves the end of mandatory fees at its meeting in October, collection will be discontinued after the fall semester.
The programming board had based its budget on collection of fees during the fall and spring semesters, in addition to an undetermined amount remaining from the 1973-74 budget.
An estimated $70,000 will be collected in September. This amount, plus the amount remaining from the last fiscal year, will constitute the budget for the 1974-75 year.
New Budget
The programming board also voted to pass a new ^budget by Aug. 1.
Programs
No new budget hearings will be held, as the members expressed the view that previous hearings had fully acquainted thorn with the budgetary needs of each program.
The programming board has several alternatives in writing a new budget. It can cut each program's budget by a flat percent.
The programming board can write a whole new budget, reviewing each item line by line.
The method most likely to be utilized, however, will be special consideration of a number of important programs, and a Hat budget cut for the rest.
Some programs will have to be cut entirely, as they would need the entire original allocation to be implemented.
Although funds will be collected only in the fall if the trustees approve the results of the referendum, the budgets for the spring semester will not be automatically slashed.
Fall activities emphasized Some spring programs will be funded, but the financial emphasis will be on fall activities.
The programming board is still in existence until either the Student Caucus or James R. Appleton, vice-president for student affairs, dissolves it. The board has no expiration date.
Although several people have advocated a refund of the fees collected in September, such a move is not feasible because it requires the approval ofthe trustees, who will not meet again until
October.
Should the trustees approve the abolition of the mandatory fees, there will be no student programming.
The Voluntary’ Student Association, considered by some to be an alternative to the programming board, is currently seeking recognition from the university.
Should the association be officially recognized, it would be initially organized as a club. In order for it to function as a student government, a referendum would have to be run and appro ve d by t h e st u d e n t s, g i v i n g the VSA that authority.
Although there can be no members ofthe VSA until the group is officially recognized and funds are collected on a voluntary basis—not necessarily in conjunction with
registration—several students who were major figures in the campaign to defeat continuation of mandatory fees have expressed their concept of how such a voluntary system would function.
Voluntary government?
They see it as a form of voluntary student government and are optimistic about the number of students that they think will join.
Other persons involved in student governance, however, are not so optimistic.
There has been some speculation that the administration might fund certain activities that have been funded by programming fees in the past, but the reaction has generally been that the university did not have the surplus funds necessary.
There has also been some discussion of formulating an entirely new student government. with the Student Caucus being a representative branch, but nothing concrete has materialized as yet.