Cuts in Staff Benefits Planned

Edward B. Childs, a cook in the Adams House dining hall, is probably going to get his benefits cut, and he doesn't know a thing about it.

"We've received zero information," says Childs, the co-chief steward of the College's dining hall workers. "We demanded negotiations and they didn't give us any. The only thing I got was a letter saying they have decided what to do."

Childs, like many unionized employees, has been left in the dark about the University-wide benefits review. For the past eight months, Harvard's top financial and administrative officials have conducted an intensive investigation of the University's employee benefits program.

But that process has been plagued from the start by an ever-escalating battle between outgoing Provost Jerry R. Green, the director of Harvard's benefits task force, and the leaders of several unions, especially the 3,600 member Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW). Many laborers, like Childs, claim they have been shut out of the process.

The public battle between HUCTW and Green has been particularly ugly. The union refused to participate under Green's terms, and the union's demands that they be allowed to have a representative on the task force.

The stakes are high, and it is Harvard Employees who stand to lose the most because of the rift. With HUCTW shut out, the University will likely begin cutting benefits--effective January 1995--without having even interviewed unionized workers as part of its study of the issue.

Benefits Task Force

Harvard formed a benefits review task force last year for the stated purposes of cutting costs and examining the benefits needs of faculty and staff. That group is scheduled to present its report to the Corporation, Harvard's senior governing board, later this month.

The task force consists of administrative and financial officials from the graduate schools, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the central administration. And that was what drew the ire of the union.

"In our view it is highly inappropriate and nearly impractical for a group composed entirely of top administrators to conduct the kind of review you announced," HUCTW said in a letter sent to task force members in mid-November.

Union President Donene M. Williams complained that HUCTW had not been invited to join the task force. But Green and Acting Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Jane H. Corlette said HUCTW officials were welcome to join task force advisory committees.

"I think they recognize that the task force is set up for the purpose of reviewing benefits, but...it's not the kind of group that has representatives," Green said. "It's simply a group of benefit experts."

Green and HUCTW officials had clashed before. In the summer of 1992, the provost accused the union's leaders of spreading "disinformation" in an effort to affect the then-contentious contract negotiations between Harvard and HUCTW.

In this case, Green sent a letter to the union expressing surprise at organizers' discontent with the process. Enfuriated HUCTW leaders fired back, claiming their exclusion from the task force was part of a power play by the provost.

"The process that [Green] describes is not one that includes any sort of respectful partnership," Williams said. "We're willing to talk on a mutual basis, as long as we come to the table as equals. We have to work together to define the problem and define the solution."

According to an article in the May issue of the Harvard Community Resource, the University hired Towers Perrin, a benefits consulting group, to help with the process.

In addition to the advisory groups, Towers Perrin met with faculty members, exempt staff members and retirees to determine "What faculty and staff valued in the benefits package and the relative importance of each aspect of the package," according to the Resource article.

But the firm did not meet with unionized Harvard employees.

A UHS employee and member of HUCTW, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says he has received little information about possible cuts, despite his union membership.

"All I've seen is what's in the Gazette, and that's been kind of skimpy," he says. "We're kind of in the dark. We don't know what the union's going to do."

Subsidy Choices

At the May 17 Faculty meeting, President Neil L. Rudenstine said the task force's report might suggest that the University subsidize only the least expensive of the seven health care plans it currently offers to faculty and staff.

In this scenario, employees would have the option of paying the University in order to upgrade their insurance plans from the least expensive level, Rudenstine said.

Last fall, the University revealed that it had accumulated a $52.2 million deficit in benefits spending over the past five years. But Rudenstine said the law does not permit the University to sustain annual deficits of $10 million or more in funding.

For faculty and non-Union staff, the task force proposals would become effective on January 1, 1995. Union workers would not be affected until their contract comes up for renegotiation next year, but Harvard is certain to use reduced benefits benchmarks in future labor negotiations.

Childs says he expects the unions to preserve a greater measure of security for their workers.

"For the faculty and exempt workers, they are forcing these cuts down their throats. It's really unfair," says the Adams House cook. "They're telling the faculty not to organize. They're taking advantage of them."

In the Faculty meeting, Rudenstine claimed that the task force proposals would shift the burden of health care costs away from lower paid staff. That change would come. it seems, because higher-paid employees would have to pay directly in order to maintain their current extensive health care plans.

But Williams said last month that the proposed cut would not help many lower-paid employees. "The effect of this will be to force more workers into the least expensive plan, and for most workers, anything more will become virtually unaffordable," she said.

Currently the University contributes 85 percent of its employees' medical costs based on the "weighed average" of the seven University approved health care plans offered to faculty and staff members.

"Now the University will peg its contribution to the lowest approved plan, and employees who want more coverage than that can buy up," Rudenstine said.

Still, the president acknowledged that cutbacks will be felt by all. And with statements like that, Childs and other ill-informed workers are bracing for a blindside to their benefits.

"Harvard's not doing very good by workers today," Childs says. "People are demanding and need more insurance."

The cook thinks such tactics are hypocritical for a University whose researchers have been some of the staunchest advocates of providing universal health insurance.

"Harvard's trying to participate in a national debate on universal coverage," Childs says, "and at the same time is trying to undercut benefits here."