editorial
What we got here is a failure to communicate.
ARA wants to use the month of April to discuss
the demands of the dining hall workers (but will
begin "a new minimum wage for all hourly
employees on our payroll at the University of
North Carolina, Greensboro, of $1.80 per hour" on
April 5).
The workers are willing to negotiate providing
one of their demands is met now; that demand is
that "no food service employee will be dismissed
by ARA Slater Catering Service during the course
of this action or any other time without proven
justification. No employee of ARA Slater Catering
Service will be otherwise harassed or intimidated
by any management personnel."
The meeting of this demand seems both
reasonable and just to us. The workers on strike are
making tremendous personal sacrifice; a sacrifice
that many of their fellow workers are simply
unable to risk. Common decency demands that
every possible effort be made to settle this strike as
soon as possible.
' We call on ARA to guarantee this simple, basic
right of the strikers; and we call upon both sides to
enter into negotiations immediately to settle this
dispute. ARA was able to reach a settlement at A
& T in less than three days; why should it take a
full month at UNC-G? A multi-million dollar
corporation can afford prolonged negotiations; our
dining hall employees cannot.
The workers' demands are so similar to those
agreed upon at A & T that there is no moral
justification for stalling negotiation.