"Mixing adversarial and cooperative relations...proves in one study after another to be the most successful form of employee involvement for all stakeholders," say the Bluestones.

But while Harvard managers and employees say the advent of the joint councils has been one of the most positive results of the union's focus on employee empowerment, even supporters say the councils need improvement.

There are 29 main joint councils at the University: one at each of the graduates schools and at Radcliffe, as well as 9 in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and several others representing central administrative departments, Harvard libraries and academic and non-academic centers and programs.

Nine other subdivisions of joint councils have been set up to deal with specific issues, and there is also a University joint council.

"There are different expectations now than I think there were four, five years ago of how workers should be involved in the workplace at Harvard," says Donene M. Williams, president of the union. "It used to be 'can we do that?' Now it's 'what do we do about it?'...It's a place where the union and the University can work together at the top levels."

Adrienne P. Landau, co-chair of the University Health Services (UHS) joint council, says her group has definitely given her more confidence in her job.

"My training and my experience and the sanction I've had to participate actively in life at UHS has given me more self respect," says Landau, a secretary in the office of health education. "I have more courage to express myself both within our department and more willingness to participate in life at UHS."

Joel C. Monell, administrative dean of the Education School and the management co-chair for the school's joint council, says his group has had several concrete achievements.

"I think we've been able to maintain a high level of workplace life for both workers and management," he says.

Recently, Monell says, his joint council formed a series of focus groups on career development for both union members and non-union clerical and technical workers--an issue the union has been pushing.

Monell's group also found issues of safety in the workplace pressing enough to form a subordinate joint council for health and safety, Monell says, part of a growing trend of sub-councils.

Both the Law School and the Kennedy School joint councils have formed sub-councils to focus on relations between faculty members and their assistants. Shari Levinson, a staff assistant at the Kennedy School faculty-faculty assistant joint council, says the groups were formed to get professors and staff talking to each other.

"A lot of strange things happen around this school because of not enough communication" she says. "There were very few [other times] when faculty members and faculty assistants sat down together."

Levinson feels the new joint council makes life easier for faculty as well, citing the creation last fall of an orientation program for new faculty members.

The joint councils, however, were originally meant to be forums of discussion, not decision-making bodies. As a result, not all joint councils can cite such tangible examples of their progress.