Labor leaders from six foreign countries, together with eight representatives from American trade unions, last week completed an intensive 13-week course at the University under the Trade Union Program--a unique academic experiment in administrative training designed to help labor officials meet their responsibilities as executives.

This fall's session was highlighted by the largest attendance of European union men in the ten-year history of the Program. Six officials from Austria. England, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway came to Harvard under the auspices of a special scholarship plan set up by the Economic Cooperation Administration. Only two men from abroad had enrolled in the course over the previous nine years.

As a result, the 1951 course was arranged with special emphasis on the international aspects of union problems, and one of the eleven courses taken by the Trade Union Fellows was designed primarily to acquaint them with the history of the labor movement in other countries.

E.C.A. officials are reportedly very satisfied with the training received by the European students, and plan to send another group of men to Harvard in February for the first spring session in the history of the program.

Although the University has long offered training on the executive level for business administration and Civil Service work, the idea of a Trade Union Program did not receive particular attention here until 1941. Some of the ground work for the program had already been laid, however, through a series of weekend labor-management seminars on industrial labor relations sponsored for several years by Lamont University Professor Sumner H. Slichter.

Birth of Program

After a series of talks in the fall of 1941 between University officials and labor leaders from all parts of the country, President Conant, in January 1942, approved a committee report calling for the establishment of a nine-month training program to be given annually in the field of union administration.

The period of duration was later shortened to 13 weeks since many officials cannot be spared from their union duties for a full academic year. The present plan nevertheless covers most of the work included in the longer version.

The Trade Union Program is jointly sponsored by the Business School, the Department of Economics, and the School of Public Administration. The tuition fee of $400 for the session is paid by the trade union which sends the students, or, in the case of foreign labor leaders, by national congresses of the sponsoring organization.

Some unions also pay fixed allowances for basic expenses to their representatives at the University, and others have continued to give their members their regular salary and expense allowance while at Harvard.

Four-Man Rule

The administration of the program is in the hands of four faculty members--John T. Dunlop, James J. Healy, Benjamin M. Selekman, and Slichter, who chairs the executive committee. Healy is in charge of the actual operation of the program.

The teaching staff for the sessions usually consists of a mixed group of University instructors and professional experts from various fields. This year's roster included Slichter, who conducted a seminar on collective bargaining, and Clinton S. Golden, lecturer on Labor Problems and formerly labor adviser to the E.C.A., who taught the course on international labor relations.

One of the special facilities in the University maintained for the Trade Union Fellows is the Labor and Industrial Relations Library, one of the largest of its kind in the country. It contains back issues of more than 300 union journals, including all publications issued by international labor organizations. Students in the program can also make use of the library's extensive collection of trade union constitutions, labor agreements and arbitration awards.

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