Task Force Is Likely To Alter Benefits

The University-wide benefits review process started last summer will likely result in both cuts and increases in Harvard employees' health care and pension plans, Provost Jerry R. Green said yesterday.

Green, who chairs the task force, declined to comment on specific benefits changes it will recommend but said "other areas" besides health care and pensions could also be affected.

The task force has already made nearly all the decisions and will release its final report in May, he said.

We're pretty far down the road," Green said. "I don't think we're in the final stage, but we've gone from thousands of pages of data and tables down to a reasonable list of alternatives."

The task force's recommendations must go to President Neil L. Rudenstine and Harvard's governing boards for approval, according to Vice president for Administration Sally H. Zeckhauser.

Green said yesterday that the task force report's recommendations will be used as a guide during future contract negotiations with Harvard's Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW).

The task force's workings have provoked complaints from HUCTW leaders, who have said they were frozen out of the review process.

Green has countered, and said again in yesterday's interview, that HUCTW was invited to join in the process. HUCTW Co-president Donene L. William's said the advisory role offered by Green was not an adequate one.

"We're not going to be involved in any discussion which put us in an advisory capacity," Williams said yesterday.

Green said yesterday that the task force has worked to keep the union informed of its discussions.

"We hope that they will agree with the principles that have guided the benefits review," he said, " and that when it comes time to renegotiate their contract, we can do something that's fair to them and use the principles that guided the original review."

But HUCTW members should not worry unduly over the review process, Green said, since the task force report's recommendation will not affect them directly.

"The benefits that we are giving to everybody else are not the benefits the union is getting," he said. "Their benefits are negotiated by contract. So whatever we decide they are com- pletely insulated from it."

Williams said yesterday she is not concernedabout the impact of the report on union contractnegotiations because Harvard's faculty will opposeany benefits changes.

"I'd be surprised if any major changes come outof that task force," Williams said.

According to Zeckhauser, the Harvard facultywill not have veto power over the recommendations,on which only the Rudenstine and the governingboards will vote

Williams said yesterday she is not concernedabout the impact of the report on union contractnegotiations because Harvard's faculty will opposeany benefits changes.

"I'd be surprised if any major changes come outof that task force," Williams said.

According to Zeckhauser, the Harvard facultywill not have veto power over the recommendations,on which only the Rudenstine and the governingboards will vote