Trade Unions Target Laboratories As Technicians Seek Better Work Life

Lab aides, though crucial to research, discover that it takes union campaigns to get their bosses' attention BOSTON -- Fifteen years ago, Kristine Rondeau wore a white lab coat and spent her day doing experiments in the physiology and biochemistry departments of Harvard Medical School. Today, her place of work is 67 Winthrop Street in Cambridge, headquarters of the two-year-old Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, which she now heads. Rondeau's career progression parallels an equally unusual transformation for Harvard, from a typical anti-union university to a model union shop. There and here, technicians have joined the ranks of academic workers trying to cope -- sometimes, through unions -- with the arrival of the modern university and its large, business-oriented atmosphere. Some 1,000 research technicians are now part of a union at Harvard, where last fall the two sides signed a contract that both sides seem pleased with (see story on page 7). And the parent union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, counts state-employed research technicians among their members in Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin as well as on campuses like Rutgers, Washington, and Florida State universities and the universities of Rhode Island and Iowa. Research technicians just don't get the recognition they deserve, believes presidential science adviser Allan Bromley. Speaking at a human resources conference in March, he said, "While a career as a highly qualified technician is considered a challenging and respected one in Japan and in Europe, too often in this country our professionals tend to be patronizing and unappreciative -- often conveying the impression that technicians are those who stepped, or fell, off the educational ladder prematurely. This is a pernicious idea, and one that needs rapid change." Bromley, for almost 30 years a professor of physics at Yale University, was referring specifically to the "forgotten middle," those laboratory assistants with no graduate education. But his words apply as well to more highly trained research assistants, some of whom jump off the educational ladder because of what they see and experience as technicians. All too often they end up leaving science altogether, driven out by low wages and a lack of professional advancement and recognition. Technicians differ from many other professionals in terms of their place of work, their responsibilities, and their training. And those differences challenge personnel managers and labor leaders alike. They are spread throughout a campus in an environment that Harvard associate dean Tom Schmitt compares to a modern feudal system. Their work varies from lab to lab and technician to technician. Senior technicians work independently. They provide continuity and keep labs humming when their professors are away. Their intimate knowledge of their subject frequently can shorten the time it takes for new graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to become productive researchers. "They are the most important resource they [scientists] have," says John Dentes, treasurer and personnel director for the Boyce Thompson Institute in Ithaca, N.Y. "If you're not nurturing them, then you're in trouble." Technicians enter a lab for different reasons. Many are young scientists seeking a few years' experience and a good recommendation toward graduate or medical school. Some decide to make it a career. "All of us at this level had aspirations of being a scientist, but somewhere we got stopped," says Jane Tucker, a technician at the Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass Like countless others, she took her research job in part to see whether she wanted to continue graduate work to get a Ph.D. She discovered that a research technician may be a dead-end job, but at least one still gets to do research. Currently, Tucker works part time for MBL in Woods Hole and part time on a field project in Alaska. "The life of a scientist with a Ph.D. is a tough one," she says. "It's frustrating to have to get funding year after year. They don't get to do the science anymore." Nor does it seem to her that scientists have time for a life beyond their laboratories. But people like her can easily feel out of sync with their co-workers. "You're in a very strange position, surrounded by people whose careers are going to be advanced, while yours is not going to be," says Jim Rundel, a former technician who now teaches about labor at Cornell University. Technicians face pressure to be working constantly, not to take breaks, and to work weekends and evenings, he says. "If you are not doing that, then you're not part of the team." But such hard work leads to a demand for greater recognition - - for example, joint authorship on a paper, or a role in designing experiments. Wherever labor matters come to a head for this group of workers, in fact, that desire seems to be paramount. "Dignity and participation in the workplace" was the main issue for technicians at Harvard, says Harvard's Schmitt, who oversees faculty and staff services. That's not to say low salaries aren't also a serious problem. For example, Rundel started work in 1978 as a research technician in a plant pathology laboratory at Cornell, with a master's degree, at $8,950 a year. In 1986, when he left, he was making $15,000 a year. His slow progression is not unusual. All too often, college campuses have a surfeit of talent and pay salaries that barely cover living costs. Rundel eventually decided he liked labor education better than lab work. A contributing factor was the dismal long-term prospects for research technicians. "As a technician, you acquire very specialized skills. Once the trend changes, those skills are no longer marketable," he says. Rundel has known long-term technicians whose professor retires and who then have very few options. "They are often very unhappy." --E.P. Few institutions are free of labor issues, which if left to fester can polarize a research community. But technicians don't always see unions as the solution. Research technicians at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., recently opted not to join a union formed by their fellow workers. Organizing efforts are sometimes defeated altogether, such as at Cornell University and the Boyce Thompson Institute, both in Ithaca, N.Y. In each case, however, the movements helped raise awareness about the concerns of technicians (see story on page 6). And the results, in most cases, are higher wages, better benefits, and increased security and career mobility. Despite the strife and tension, those involved say that the effort has helped build stronger relations between technicians and their bosses. Some observers trace those tensions to the changing nature of academia. As laboratories have gotten larger, their parent institutions have become more corporate-like. "They have become big businesses, and there's been a shifting of power from faculty to full-time, professional administrators," says Dennis Chamot, executive assistant to the president for professional employees, AFL-CIO. As a result, he says, "the individual is lost. They have no bargaining power with such massive employers." These changes have affected both faculty and their subordinates. A scientist's success is now measured as much by the amount of grant dollars as by the number of publications. The most ambitious ones hop from institution to institution in a never-ending quest for more space, more power, and more subordinates. Increasingly, they rely on technicians and assistants to do experiments for them. "They are a very important part of the scientific process now, not only because the grant writing has become more intense, but also because you see scientists involved more and more in promoting their science and going on trips," says Robert Granados, an entomologist in charge of plant protection at the Boyce Thompson Institute. And technicians do a lot more than just hold down the fort for the chief of the lab, he says. "The technology is moving so rapidly that we're [senior scientists] outdated very fast," says Granados. "So we are relying more and more on [younger] assistants." Many of those technicians are potential scientists taking time out of their studies for a first-hand look at life in the lab. But their ranks also include young researchers who are turned off by the grant-writing and teaching loads demanded of faculty and who opt to stay at the bench as someone's right-hand scientist rather than to continue their studies. Both kinds want -- and deserve -- recognition for their efforts. They are the foot soldiers in the war to maintain economic competitiveness, according to Allan Bromley, science adviser to President Bush. They are also a pool from which will come the next generation of scientists. Yet, too often they represent the "forgotten middle," and their concerns about pay, working conditions, and professional recognition and advancement get lost in the daily pursuit of science. "No one is speaking up for the research technician," says Granados, who worries that these foot soldiers are deserting the labs for better-paying jobs here. Despite their important role, technicians like Rondeau are finding that it sometimes takes a union drive before anyone pays them much mind. "One of the best ways to get management to listen is to threaten to become unionized," says John Dentes, personnel director at the Boyce Thompson Institute. He says he was left with lots of gray hair and holes in his stomach after last year's union drive at his institution, which was defeated by two votes. But he thinks that the campaign forced his institute to listen more closely to technicians' concerns. "Before I would oppose a union, I would very, very carefully look at all the options." That advice comes from Anne Taylor, the attorney who led Harvard University's unsuccessful opposition to the establishment of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers. "I think there's not enough thought about it, generally," she explains. "The union shows up, and you immediately round up to fight them. In some cases, that may not be the right thing to do." One hears such radical talk throughout Cambridge these days. Last fall, Harvard and its union agreed on a contract that is very different from what Harvard administrators, and even the parent union, expected. Although it has some of the usual clauses about pay and benefits, most of the contract discusses procedures for hashing out differences. "It's more along a European model," says Linda Lampkin, head of research at the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (known as AFSCME), which is the parent union of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers. Most of AFSCME's 4,000 contracts -- all of which are negotiated locally -- are less collegial and more rigid. "Usually we paint the employer in a more malevolent light," she says, and the contracts wind up spelling out a lot of specific rules about almost everything. Harvard's rolls count 3,500 clerical and technical workers at 400 sites in 2,000 departments and units. About 83 percent are women. Although the union campaigned with the slogan that it was not anti-Harvard to be pro-union, Harvard administrators were skeptical. They worried that a union contract would stifle the university's ability to deal with the demands of the rapidly changing and increasingly competitive research environment. Medical researchers had failed twice, over 17 years, to gain the chance to join a union. In May 1988, when the union finally won that right by a margin of 44 votes, Harvard complained of union harassment. Finally, in November of that year a judge dismissed the complaints as frivolous. That's when Harvard's experience began to deviate from what might be considered the norm for a newly unionized shop. First Harvard and the union agreed to postpone contract talks for two months. Instead, they set up informal meetings so both sides could air their concerns and desires. "We've learned that we need to be heard," says Martha Robb, a Harvard union organizer and a former technician. "But we also need to listen." When 170 negotiators (85 from each side) finally sat down to work out a contract, they were much more ready to compromise. These negotiators divided themselves among nine tables -- one issue per table -- and hashed out terms for wages, child care, health and safety, employee participation, affirmative action, health and dental benefits, pensions, and so on. "We made our strength clear by marching and protesting, but we also found we could be strong and effective by negotiating and telling our stories over and over again," says Robb. The benefits agreed upon would make any union proud: wage increases of about 32 percent over three years, increased employer coverage of health and dental benefits from 70 to 85 percent, increased tuition benefits, plans for a child care center, and $150,000 from Harvard for scholarships to cover day care costs. Even Harvard seems satisfied. "It [the union] has really approached it much differently than other unions have," says Taylor. "Much of what we feared hasn't happened." Instead, she calls this contract a model that will likely "be extremely attractive, particularly in areas that have not been unionized before." --E.P. "There was the feeling of being taken advantage of," recalls Peter Tufford, associate director of human resources at Cornell University, about a union drive seven years ago at his institution. The union failed to win the right to represent technicians there, but "we communicated that we do have policies [to cover the issues of concern]," he adds, and salaries were raised. But a union is more than just a means for venting one's grievances. "Most managers believe people form unions because they are disaffected and underpaid," explains Rondeau. "We don't see those things are relevant to organizing." Her philosophy is that, as adults, workers should want and be able to represent themselves intelligently. "Successful people are people who won't let others make decisions for them," she says. Such talk makes scientists' hearts skip a beat. Accustomed to a my-lab-is-my-castle hierarchy, many investigators are uncomfortable with the thought of having to answer to unions. "We felt it would interrupt the natural flow of scientific action," recalls Granados. "We would lose the aspect of employer-employee, colleague-colleague loyalty. If there was a dispute, there was this concern that somebody might step in and interrupt this team effort. I would be the third person in the interaction." Scientists also worry that a union would lock them into rigid rules that stifle an institution's ability to respond to the fast-moving, competitive research environment. For example, in response to complaints about such day-to-day matters as time spent on the job, scientists fear that a union might negotiate a contract that defines hours and duties. But unions advocate demur. "Technicians don't want to put a stranglehold on the research," says Al Davidoff, United Auto Workers (UAW) organizer at Cornell University. He stresses that the union worker stereotype does not apply to the research technician. Technicians don't necessarily want to be able to punch a time clock, he says, but they might negotiate for a consistent policy on compensatory time. Also, organizers argue, scientists often lack the right mix of skills to be good bosses. "So many supervisors have little to no training," says Martie Voland, once a research technician at Boyce Thompson and now a UAW organizer. "As graduate students, they don't have to learn to manage people." Dentes agrees that it's a problem, and since the organizing drive his institution has hired a consultant to teach scientists these skills. A written policy encourages the principal investigator (P.I.) to recognize and act upon contributions made by subordinates. "We're trying to sensitize the P.I.'s that it is very important not to forget the people at the bench," he says. Granados advises scientists to be open-minded when their technicians start talking unions. "You've got to try to understand it from their [the technicians'] point of view and be big enough to recognize that there are some inequities that need to be rectified," he says. Labor organizers stress that unions enable technicians to make changes in their work environment. "It tends to give people a little more self-confidence," says Jim Rundel, who participated in the drive seven years ago to organize Cornell's technicians and teaches about labor issues there. They also develop ties with others in similar situations. "You realize you're not the only one who has to come in at 10 P.M. and again at 6 A.M. to check an experiment," says Voland. At Boyce Thompson and Harvard, the labor movement has also addressed the fear of most technicians that their specialized skills will restrict career mobility. On Monday mornings, Boyce Thompson staff and scientists now attend informal seminars to discuss new techniques being used in their projects. There's also a Friday afternoon get-together. Harvard started a lunch-time series in which postdoctoral researchers and faculty demonstrate new procedures so that technicians can use these techniques to expand their careers, according to Tom Schmitt, Harvard associate dean for faculty and staff services. But even all of these outreach activities aren't enough to make unions appealing to some technicians. "I felt I could probably do as well for myself without the union," says Jane Tucker, a technician at the Marine Biological Laboratory who fears that unions cannot do anything about her biggest concern -- what she'll do if the grant that pays her salary is not renewed. With her 60 or so colleagues, Tucker decided not to be part of the organizing effort at the Marine Biological Laboratory. One co-worker, Marty Downs, didn't want to put in the time she thought it would take to make sure the union was doing what she wanted it to do. Finally, there is the issue of self-awareness. "I think it's [unionizing is] something that, frankly, does not even occur to most research technicians," says Rundel. For example, half of the technicians at Boyce Thompson are men who seemed to identify more with their supervisors than with their younger female colleagues who were trying to recruit them into the drive. "They think, `Oh, my God, I don't want to be thought of as an auto worker,' " says Voland.

Trade Unions Target Laboratories As Technicians Seek Better Work Life

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