by Betty Gabrielli
This month the Oberlin College Office and Professional Employees (OCOPE)--one of the first clerical or library unions in the US to be established at a private educational institution--celebrates its 25th anniversary.
"The only way the union can become mature, strong, and healthy is through the firm commitment of every single administrative assistant to the concept of collective bargaining as the only effective means to fair wages and working conditions and to our dignity as working people," wrote library administrative assistant Jean Binford in a June 1976 OCOPE newsletter. Binford was involved in the union from its beginning. She was one of a number of employees in 1969 who formed a steering committee. Among its members were Faith Adams, Lois Gaines, Adele Gittler, Kathy Hale, Virginia Ives, Lucy Kapuscinsky, and Mary Wellington. Of these eight, only Binford and Gaines, an administrative assistant in the office of communications, are now employed by the college.
"The impetus for the administrative assistants to organize stemmed from several forces occurring on the campus in the late 1960s," according to an administrative history of the union prepared by the Oberlin College archives. "Oberlin College felt the turbulence of the times in the growing discontent among the students and employees." The college's service employees organized in 1968 as the Oberlin College Employees Association (OCEA). "The ability of labor and the student body to raise their concerns demonstrated to the clerical and technical employees that with solidarity they could attain an equitable return for their labor," Elizabeth "Lizz" Frost '88 wrote in "Ahead of Their Time," a 1988 seminar paper now in the archives.
The catalyst for forming the steering committee occurred in 1969, Binford says. "The last straw came when the personnel office changed the work week and abolished the traditional 'free days' provided to allow office workers days off during spring and fall breaks." Other issues included a low salary scale, a lack of standardized promotion procedures, rising starting salaries not matched by raises for seniority, distribution of merit raises without increases in the cost of living, lack of credit for work experience before employment at Oberlin, and no set personnel policies regarding vacation, personal days, and sick leave.
The members of the committee reached out to other employees, holding lunchtime meetings and soliciting support. In the process, the committee members discovered within themselves and demonstrated, Frost said, "strong organizational skills, vision and political finesse." In early 1970, an initial vote was held, and out of 179 full and part-time administrative assistants who cast their ballots, 92 voted to establish an organization to deal with the college; 87 said no. In April, a second election was held to decide whether to create a union. That vote was 147 to 68, and the result led to the forming of OCOPE as an autonomous local union.
OCOPE's first contractual agreement with the college in 1971 established "sick leave, health insurance, and vacation benefits," formalized grievance procedures, and outlined a provision for a salary schedule, according to former assistant archivist Lisa Pruitt ("Preliminary Guide to the Records of OCOPE/OPEIU Local 502," 1988).
One of the union's first actions was to urge the administration to review and reclassify members' positions as administrative assistants. The college then worked with OCOPE to create guidelines for a general redistribution of resources based upon job description and years of service, resulting in a review of all administrative assistant positions. The outcome provided a common standard for clerical and technical employees' wages and other monetary compensation.
In 1978 the union decided that it needed an international affiliation. After a series of presentations by a number of such groups, the membership voted for an affiliation with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), and OCOPE became Local 502.
Gains achieved since then include 1984 provisions for increased paid maternity leave, vacation leave between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, and an arrangement for crediting employees for sick days not used during the year. The 1987 contract granted some tuition remission for administrative assistants' children to attend college, a provision enhanced in the 1991 contract.
In the late 1980s OCOPE issued a formal proclamation criticizing the college for investing funds in South Africa and sponsored a film series on the plight of the American workers and the role of women in the labor movement. In the 1990s, with members of the administrative and professional staff, it formed the labor/management relations board, a forum to discuss minor problems, perhaps preventing them from becoming major disputes.
Binford says that watching the union over the last 25 years grow to its present 170-member strength while make huge changes in working conditions at the college "has restored my faith in the ability of people to change their lives and to change the world."
Betty Gabrielli is a staff writer in the office of communications.