Union Okays New Plan For Parking

A union representing 300 skilled Harvard employees has acted without consulting its membership to reach an agreement with the Harvard Personnel Office on the controversial employee parking problem.

The Allied Crafts Maintenance Council-which until last week was advising its membership to ignore the new parking fees-is now calling on its members to pay the $40 charge, as a result of an agreement reached last week.

The agreement calls for Harvard to give Council members a 27 cent per hour pay increase effective Feb. 22, 1971. The pay increase was originally scheduled to take effect April 1, 1971.

Edward W. Powers, assistant director of Personnel, said that the five-week advance in the pay increase will make up for the $40 employees will be charged for parking.

Others Object

Many Harvard employees are objecting to the agreement, however. "I am positive the employees would turn down the paid parking program," John O. Carroll, a painter, said yesterday, "but the union never took a vote or consulted us before making this deal with Harvard."

When asked whether the union had taken a vote, James A. Damery, a spokesman for the Crafts Council, said he had no comment to make.

The pay increase, which will cover the first year's parking charge, only affects the 300 members of the Crafts Council. Unions representing Harvard's other 1300 organized employees have filed no complaints about the new parking program, and these employees, along with Harvard's approximately 11,400 non-union staff, will have to pay the parking charges without compensation.

Non-Union Members

Non-union employees have been unable to make an appeal to the University about the parking charges, Toby L. Plevin, a library employee said yesterday. "Harvard does not have to negotiate with any employee not associatedwith a union, so we have no way to complain about the parking charges," she said.

The new parking regulations require all faculty and staff to purchase parking permits, costing from $10 to $90, in order to park on Harvard property.