Taylor Returns to Counsel's Office

Director of Human Resources Anne H. Taylor, who for more than a year headed Harvard's campaign to stop the election of a support staff union, will return to a position in the Office of the General Counsel after spending little more than a year as the head of personnel.

Taylor's decision to resign now leaves the post--a key one in the University's new relations with the 3400-member union for clerical and technical workers--unfilled, although an administrator said the University is currently looking for a replacement for Taylor.

Marie Manna, one of the leaders of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), which is currently finalizing its contract with Harvard, said the union had not asked Taylor to leave the position, but that added "support staff members were uncomfortable when she took the job, given the anti-union campaign."

Before HUCTW's election in May 1987, Taylor led Harvard's active campaign to encourage the clerical and technical workers at the University to vote against unionization. About three months after the union won its election, Taylor became director of human resources.

Vice President for Finance Robert H. Scott said that Taylor made an independent decision to return to her former position as a University attorney. "She wanted to return to General Counsel," said Scott.

"I'm talking to a large number of people to determine our needs at this time," Scott said, adding that the search will focus on people who can meet the challenges that the personnel office faces in cooperating with the largest union Harvard has ever had.

These challenges include implementing a plan, agreed on in principle by HUCTW and the University, to decentralize the personnel management system at Harvard so that local offices have more control and assuring that Harvard's salaries are competitive in the Cambridge market.

The biggest task facing the new director will be to implement all the provisions of the contract which HUCTW and the University expect to complete in the next few weeks. Contract provisions include a new short-term disability leave plan, changes in the pension plan and an elaborate system for coping with employee grievances.

The current negotiations between Harvard and HUCTW do not involve the provisions of the agreement--which were voted on in June--but the formal language of the contract itself.

Manna said earlier this week that given theresponsibilities of implementing the new unioncontract, she suspected HUCTW would have some partin choosing the new director but that she was notcertain since Harvard and the union had not yetdiscussed it.

An attorney in the General Counsel'sOffice-which handles all of Harvard's legalwork--said that Taylor is expected to have a widevariety of duties when she returns there. Theattorney said that "she may also continue her workin labor and personnel matters.