Benefits Will Be Issue In Talks

While he thinks a task force's changes in Harvard's benefit system are laudable, the alterations have generated concern and will be an issue during contract renegotiations for the Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), President Neil L. Rudenstine said this week.

The changes, announced in June, include, among other significant differences, pegging Harvard's contributions to health insurance premiums to a percentage of the lowest-cost health plans available, pro-rating to some degree health benefits for parttime employees and slightly lowering the University's annual contribution to the faculty pension plan.

The administration expects to save about $10 million yearly from the changes.

Rudenstine praised the work of the task force.

"Given the complexity of the issue and the tasks to be done it was about as through and thoughtful and fair and equitable a result as one really could hoped for," he said. "As a total package it's about as thoughtful as I could have hoped for."

Rudenstine said that he personally had received only two letters about the changes, but said that most who had concerns would be more likely to communicate them through other channels.

He said that while there has been a fair amount of concern regarding the charges in faculty pensions, so far only the Law School has set up a formal committee to deal with inquiries and explanations.

But Rudenstine said that those who seem to be providing the most feedback are part-time workers.

"In terms of the overall trajectory in respect to pensions and everything else it seemed the most equitable thing we could do," he said. "[But] I think the people who have been most concerned have been the parttimers."

Donene M. Williams, president of HUCTW, also said that part-time workers seem to have been hit hardest by the upcoming changes--although she differed with Rudenstine in her opinion of the plan's equitability.

"This set of changes is just such a

hostile attack on part-time workers acrosscampus," Williams said. "This is something I justcan't comprehend. I never thought the Universitywould do something this mean."

She said that the union, whose benefits are setby prior contract and thus unaffected by thechanges right away, has been holding informationalmeetings about the changes around the campus.

William said that she expects the University to"push as hard as it can" to get HUCTW to acceptthe full set of benefits changes when its contractwith Harvard expires next June.

"Everyone on campus assumes they did it to theexempts to get a head start," she said. "We'recertainly not going to accept the changes becausethey say it's more consistent....We'll continue totake the stand applying to negotiations that wealways have."

Rudenstine said that he expects the benefitsquestion to be a substantive one when contractnegotiations begin next summer.

"Realistically, it will be a factor in thenegotiations," he said. "It's bound to be one ofthe important issues on the table."

But he said he thinks the union and theUniversity can have a "thoughtful" talk about it.

"It's going to be a complicated conversation,but there's no reason why it shouldn't be areasonable conversation," Rudenstine said.

Rudenstine said he expects the preliminarytalks to begin in the middle of the year, but thatthe University has not had any serious discussionwith any of its employee unions about the issue.

Tim Manning, director of labor relations in theoffice of human resources, said that he has hadsome "educational" discussions with the unionsacross campus. He described reaction as "mixed."

"There's generally a strong sense that weneeded to do something...because of costprogression," he said.

But the discussions are not likely to remainmerely educational for too long--all of the sevencontracts Harvard has with its employee unionsexpire at some point in the next 14 months,Manning said.

"Hopefully we won't have to wait until thecontracts expire [to come to an agreement onbenefits]," said Manning, who will be theUniversity spokesperson for the contractnegotiations

hostile attack on part-time workers acrosscampus," Williams said. "This is something I justcan't comprehend. I never thought the Universitywould do something this mean."

She said that the union, whose benefits are setby prior contract and thus unaffected by thechanges right away, has been holding informationalmeetings about the changes around the campus.

William said that she expects the University to"push as hard as it can" to get HUCTW to acceptthe full set of benefits changes when its contractwith Harvard expires next June.

"Everyone on campus assumes they did it to theexempts to get a head start," she said. "We'recertainly not going to accept the changes becausethey say it's more consistent....We'll continue totake the stand applying to negotiations that wealways have."

Rudenstine said that he expects the benefitsquestion to be a substantive one when contractnegotiations begin next summer.

"Realistically, it will be a factor in thenegotiations," he said. "It's bound to be one ofthe important issues on the table."

But he said he thinks the union and theUniversity can have a "thoughtful" talk about it.

"It's going to be a complicated conversation,but there's no reason why it shouldn't be areasonable conversation," Rudenstine said.

Rudenstine said he expects the preliminarytalks to begin in the middle of the year, but thatthe University has not had any serious discussionwith any of its employee unions about the issue.

Tim Manning, director of labor relations in theoffice of human resources, said that he has hadsome "educational" discussions with the unionsacross campus. He described reaction as "mixed."

"There's generally a strong sense that weneeded to do something...because of costprogression," he said.

But the discussions are not likely to remainmerely educational for too long--all of the sevencontracts Harvard has with its employee unionsexpire at some point in the next 14 months,Manning said.

"Hopefully we won't have to wait until thecontracts expire [to come to an agreement onbenefits]," said Manning, who will be theUniversity spokesperson for the contractnegotiations