OCOPE Seeks Student Support
BY ARIELLA COHEN

After 30 years on campus, union branch Local 502 knows the campus well. Especially how much students love candy. Prepared with that knowledge — and a whole bunch of mints — members of Oberlin College Office Professional Employees labor union took to Tappan Square this past Monday. 
Anticipating upcoming contract negotiations, the union’s solidarity committee has begun efforts to rally community support. This July OCOPE will renegotiate their three-year contract with the College and the newly-created committee wants to make OCOPE heard. 
“We created the committee because the contract negotiations are vital in improving working conditions. Membership wanted the committee so that administration knows that we are not just a group of women, or an executive group, but we are a big strong group of union people who will stick together,” Reserve Room Specialist and OCOPE President Julie Weir (OC ’86) said. 
While all sides agree that student support would be beneficial to the union, there has been no formal working relationship recently. “I wouldn’t want to see students involved too much, it wouldn’t be appropriate but it would be good to know, and have the College know, we have support,” member of Solidarity Committee and Administrative Assistant Virginia Tansey said. 
In addition to her work with OCOPE, Weir officiates as vice-president of OPEIU, OCOPE’s international umbrella union. While as a student Weir was not specifically involved with OCOPE, she does recall active union support. 
One bit of campus lore involves a students’ alliance with CDS workers to fight a particularly distasteful management surveillance technique. Dressed in lab-coats and carrying clipboards, student activists mocked the efforts and took it upon themselves to survey the college’s administration. The method of micro-management was dropped. 
Current groups relish the idea of local activism. “SLAC has offered to do anything we can to support them in the contract negotiations. We don’t know what form that support will take, but we are excited for the opportunity to work with them and support their struggle,” senior and co- chair of Student Labor Alliance Coalition Catherine Cristiani said.
While no particular issue dominates preparation for July’s negotiations, changing economic realities may prove troublesome. Healthcare issues worry many of the negotiators. “The cost of healthcare is rising at incredible rates and the question is how much Oberlin College can afford and how much workers will participate in costs,” Director of Human Resources Ruth Spencer said. Across the country healthcare concerns pervade management-labor relations. 
“The economic situation is tough for everyone. I am sure health care will be a big issue, it has been in the past. We have it better than most though,” Jean Binford, library technical assistant, said. One of the original founders of OCOPE in the late 1960s, Binford has witnessed many changes in college working conditions. 
“Negotiations are a lot harder today. In some ways it’s easier because we have a contract and over the years we have gotten what we need, but over the years the College has gotten tougher. So we need to get tougher. We have necessities, but the big issues are harder fought now,” Binford said.
Later this spring Binford will retire from the college. 
As technology transforms the office, the job of the administrative assistant, in turn, changes. Employers, especially those in university settings, require higher levels of education and experience from workers. 
“With the job skills constantly changing you always have to ask, is our wage meeting what we are asked to do?” Weir said. 
Questions of fair treatment surface in all labor situations. While unions bring vast improvement, grievances still occur.
“Certainly within the College the importance that administration places on faculty supervisors makes for hierarchical positioning. I don’t know if it’s the hierarchy but there are power differences. They forget that they need to treat administrative assistants with a certain respect and that causes tension. It is rare but still comes across, sometimes in subtle things like administrative assistants not receiving invitations to college community events. Little things reveal this attitude, but there has been improvement and it is specific people involved, not necessarily the community as a whole,” Weir said.
Just as OCOPE serves professionals and para-professionals, separate unions support the needs of other campus employees. Although some university faculties are unionized Oberlin professors remain without one. “I don’t anticipate faculty wanting to be unionized. Group think is not the common think at Oberlin,” Spencer said.