Provost Green Should Stand His Ground

There they go again. The Crimson staff, spouting their tired Marxist rhetoric, are once again lamenting the sorrowful state of some of the world's best-paid clerical and technical workers. So why are we not crying?

Perhaps because the staff's position is so flawed, it's almost humorous.

First, they scoff at University administrators' concerns that the sky-rocketing costs of employee benefits plans need to be reined in before they pose a serious threat to Harvard's financial health. It seems the staff hasn't heard of the nationwide obsession with benefits--does the Clinton health care plan ring any bells?--or the fact that every respectable corporation this side of Havana is reviewing employee health insurance options, pension plans and the like.

Next, the staff attacks Provost Jerry Green and other administrators for not including "union representatives" on the task force to review University-wide benefits, alleging that the crafty Green has devised an evil plan to include only "highly-paid administrators in the group--the kind of people who will be least affected by a shift in benefits policy."

This ridiculous claim, is, to quote the staff, "just plain wrong."

Indeed, it is the union whose members will be entirely unaffected by the results of the benefits review package. Yup, you read that correctly.Entirely unaffected.

You see, union benefits are determined by negotiation, every three to five years. The latest contract was signed last year, and is valid through 1995. The University cannot arbitrarily set benefits for its unionized employees, as it can for non-unionized staff--like faculty and administrators, for example.

Thus, the only reason the clerical and technical workers are concerned is that, if Harvard does the smart thing and trims the costs of its employee benefits program, the unionized workers will have less of a case to make next time they sit down at the bargaining table and argue how unfairly they are treated relative to the rest of the University.

Indeed, counter to the staff's claims, the benefits review will greatly affect the administrators who sit on the task force--there benefits will likely be cut.

Curiously, the staff does not mention the lack of faculty representation on the task force, even though faculty members will also be affected by its findings. Perhaps that's because faculty members realize that the true nature of the task force's mission is to conduct a thorough, fair review of the benefits package without any partisan "representatives" fighting for "workers' causes" and injecting political motivations where they don't belong.

Provost Green should stand his ground. He should not name union activists to a task force whose findings don't directly concern them. He should insist that, if the union wants to have any input, it should quit whining and join one of the same advisory committees every other interested constituency on campus has joined.

But Green had better be careful. If he doesn't watch out, The Crimson might next stoop to calling him a capitalist.