UHS Worker Files Grievance

An employee of University Health Services (UHS), who has said his supervisor harassed him because he supported the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), yesterday filed a grievance with the UHS Director, his attorney said.

John Principato, a UHS laboratory assistant who has worked in the bacteriology department for five years, first charged in April that his supervisor asked him about his involvement with HUCTW before the May 17 support staff union election.

Principato charges that every day for the past year his supervisor, Carol Wotschak, chief medical technologist at UHS, has put his mail into a specimen box containing human excrement. Wotschak declined to discuss the case.

Director of University Health Services Warren E.C. Wacker said yesterday morning that he had not yet been notified of the grievance.

"I don't know anything about it, and I couldn't discuss it if I did," Wacker said.

Federal labor laws explicitly prohibit employers from questioning employees about their support for a union, or harassing them for such support.

In May, Principato said the University had not heeded his complaint that he had been harassed for more than a year, and that he had decided to consult a lawyer.

Principato would not comment yesterday about the formal charges he submitted yesterday. But he did say that his working situation has grown more tense since he complained publicly.

"Harassment is still continuing, even in a worse way," Principato said. "There is no real solution yet."

The UHS employee said he is considering suing Harvard, but he will wait to make a decision until the University has completed an internal review of the case.

Principato's attorney, Wendy Kaplan, said her client's charges are currently receiving heightened attention.

"The central administration is aware of what'sgoing on now," said Kaplan. She declined todiscuss the case further.

Kaplan recently handled the case of formerFacilities Maintenance employee CharolotteWalters, who won $75,000 from Harvard for theUniversity's failure to address her grievances