To the Editors of The Crimson:

Today's suspension of Alan Balsam, Sylvia Gallagher, and John Shaffer is one more example of the antidemocratic nature of Harvard management. When kitchen workers walk out in protest against a threat to fire their shop steward, Harvard suspends three union leaders, threatens the rest; and says that it is being generous not to fire everybody. Harvard acts like a dictator, as if it thinks it owns its workers. These anti-democratic practices must be stopped. Harvard should let Alan, Sylvia, and John go back to work, with full pay, and erase the suspensions from their records.

Students and kitchen workers have given concrete support to each other several times this year. The kitchen workers' union worked with students to stop Harvard from eliminating breakfast in several Houses, and students have actively supported Sherman Holcombe against the harrassment and discrimination that he has faced. Many of us will be around over the summer, and we will be watching Harvard's actions carefully. If Harvard continues to harrass union activists, it will face a storm of student protest in the fall, perhaps even larger than student support for the Harvard printers' strike two years ago. We urge all students to support and talk to the kitchen workers in their Houses.

--the Radcliffe-Harvard chapter of the New American Movement

--the Organization for the Solidarity of Third World Students