"There hasn't been the space yet for us to make real changes," says Nona D. Strauss, co-chair of the applied and physical sciences joint council and director of the Science Center. "We try to find generic issues that we really can affect, rather then policy issues that will be decided in another forum."

Steven B. Moomfield '77, a program director at Harvard's Latin American Scholarship Program of American Universities, says the program's joint council, of which he is co-chair, has mostly focused on promoting dislogue is general rather than implementing changes.

"I would not say we've had yards of concrete achievements, but rather that issues have come up that have been able to be solved," he said. "We tend to be, somewhat appropriately, reactive."

Moreover, union members say the effectiveness of the joint councils depends in large part on whether managers are willing to listen to employees and accept their input.

Often, Landau says, managers don't realize the benefits they gain from having more involved, more productive employees.

"It's like the feet of a duck," she says. "You don't see them because they're under the water. The duck looks like it's swimming gracefully across the water, but underneath it's paddling furiously. sometimes I get frustrated--I think it just takes time."

Barbara C. Yearkes, a secretary in the Physics Department who serves as the other co-chair for the applied and physical sciences joint council, says that she feels that Science Center Director Strauss, who worked her way up from staff member to manager, is very sympathetic to employees' feeling of powerlessness. But not all managers feel the same way, she says.

"I think we have a say in what goes on, but the managers don't really carry it further. They don't act on it," says union member Susan M. Barry, a staff assistant in the UHS Medical Records Department.

"What we're trying to do is different than what's been done at the University before and some people have problems dealing with it," says union President Williams, who has served on joint councils at the School of Public Health and the Law School. "It's a power-sharing relationship--some people don't want to share power."

Patricia A. Erb, a union member and staff assistant in the Mental Health Department at UHS, says that the going is slow at times. "Some managers, I think, are very open," she says, "while others sort of not their heads and then do whatever they want. It's like a creaking, old rusty machine."

Erb says, though, that some frustration union members still feel with the work-place also rises out of a common perception that the joint councils are remote from the average worker.

Williams says this is one of the top worries of union officials. "Making the joint councils connected to every worker is something we have a goal towards achieving--I don't think they are connected right now," she says. "People who aren't connected to them and don't understand them don't have any idea what they do."

Erb says the councils need to publicize themselves more. "I'd say the average person has heard of the joint council but doesn't know who's on it, or what issues they discuss."

Barry says, "A lot of people are aware of it, but not involved...I don't think people are aware of how much power they have."