Bozzotto says the University tries to divide the union from the students by saying increased wages will push up tuition.

"The food service contract is a microdot in that situation," he says. "Harvard determines tuition on a much larger scale than that."

According to Bozzotto, negotiations with Harvard have never been easy. He and Local 26 have had to resort to short-term strikes when previous negotiations with the University became heated, as in 1983 when the union held a sit-in at the Holyoke Center.

Bozzotto, who describes himself as a "non-violent direct confrontationalist," has in the past picketed President Derek C. Bok's home and those of other members of Harvard management--as in 1986, when the University threatened to contract out food service at the Faculty Club and divide the Business School workers from the union's benefit structure.

Bozzotto says he chose this tactic because negotiations were taking place during the summer, when it would have been futile to picket the University.

At that time, he says, "You could throw a hand grenade in Cambridge, and it wouldn't hit anybody."

"Harvard sometimes has that elitist attitude that they don't need any advice," Bozzotto says. "But the dining halls cannot be run in some kind of vacuum without student input," he says.

"I believe each contract and work force has its own personality, and the last thing I want to do is impose my personality on that," says Bozzotto, who says he sees himself as spokesperson for the workers. "The Harvard workers are leading the direction we go, as it should be."

In March of 1990, Bozzotto's term as president of Local 26 will end, and the Local 26 leader says he is unsure whether he will run again. He says that he would like to allow the union's "younger leadership to grow and expand."

Over the last seven years, he says he has concentrated on building a strong middle leadership.

"There are an abundance of people who have the foresight to lead Local 26," Bozzotto says.

"I haven't given enough thought to what I will do," he says, adding that a campaign for political office is not in the cards.