Staffers Vehemently Criticize Job Cuts

Most staff workers had forecasted the news for months, and the unprecedented fiscal slump had left no budget-cutting measure too improbable to consider. But the reality of losing 275 employees in one sweep has nonetheless aroused the bitterness of staff members who learned Tuesday morning of the downsizing to come.

“The whole process has been handled so poorly. It’s been unforgivable, insufferable, and unconscionable,” said Richard E. Kaufman, a librarian in the psychology department. “It’s been painful to watch. The whole process has been incredibly stressful because nothing’s been explained, really, or mitigated up until now.”

In a letter to faculty and staff at Harvard Law School today, interim dean Howell E. Jackson wrote that 12 people would be notified by five o’clock tomorrow that they would be laid off.

And at a meeting last week, personnel informed 32 faculty assistants at the Law School that two of them would have to go, according to faculty assistant Maura H. Kelley, who said she found the gathering “very upsetting.” She said the convened staffers were given 48 hours to accept a voluntary layoff, but only one faculty assistant stepped forward to take the offer—leaving a looming job cut whose victim has yet to be determined.

“It’s been very hard to focus on work…The morale is in the toilet,” said Kelley, who decided not to take the early retirement package this spring. “I’ve worked here for 28 years, and I’ve been here in the good times and the bad times—this, to me, is the worst of all times.”

Most staffers expressed irritation at the amount of secrecy surrounding an issue that affects their livelihood. The letters from University President Drew G. Faust and Vice President for Human Resources Marilyn Hausammann were “a bunch of fluff” indicative of a dearth of leadership and guidance, Kaufman said. The administration had been withholding information in “this incredibly repressive secrecy” up until the final moment—when the ax was already poised to fall.

Administrators informed of the layoff plans were cautioned by the University to avoid any discussions with staff workers prior to today’s official announcement, according to an administrator who asked to not be named in order to protect the confidentiality of his colleagues.

“There’s no transparency here. We’re not being told anything until it’s already a done deal, and that makes it harder to keep working,” said Kelley, who noted that in her area, staff workers, who have wide-ranging grasps of administrative expenses and operations, had not been consulted at all during the planning for this past year’s cost reductions. “I wish that Harvard would act in a more forthright manner,” she said.

Though the announcement has inflamed resentment, several staffers said the news did not come as a surprise. Rumors of job cuts had begun to circulate as early as November, when the University announced a hiring freeze on most staff positions, and the possibility further solidified with the announcement of the early retirement incentive program in February.

But even towards the end of the school year, Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, vehemently denied that the administration had selected specific individuals for layoffs. Many conjectured that job eliminations would be announced after Commencement activities.

“It’s awful because everyone’s been talking about this for days,” said Beth Baiter, shortly after receiving the e-mail this morning. Baiter, a staff assistant at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, said the sense of unsettling expectation preceding the arrival of the news provoked speculation among her colleagues

“On Friday, everybody was saying, ‘Monday is going to be Black Monday; we’re going to hear,'" she said. "But people were increasingly concerned when nothing came out yesterday. Then they said, ‘Alright, it’s going to be Black Friday.’”

Most of the schools across the University will inform staff workers of the layoffs this week, but the Medical School, FAS, and central administration will begin the process next Monday. Baiter said that the spaced-out timeline will only induce hand-wringing from staff workers awaiting the day that their division breaks the news.

“Why in the hell are they doing that? This means that people who didn’t take the package—who probably should have—are going to think, ‘Oh my God, I’m on the chopping block,’” Baiter said. “Everybody’s going to be totally uneasy all week long.”

—Staff writer Esther I. Yi can be reached at estheryi@fas.harvard.edu.