University, Union Ink New Labor Deal

The University signed an agreement yesterday with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) which will provide greater compensation for nominally part-time or "casual" employees who worked full-time hours.

Over 400 employees will be affected and, although the compensation packages differ, most of them will be converted to the HUCTW full-time union payroll.

The packages differ in size from $250 to $3,000 annually, depending on how much is owed to each employee, and will pay out over one to four years. While both University and union officials could not cite exact dollar amounts, both said the total cost for the University would be in the millions.

Casual employees are classified as employees who work less than 17.5 hours a week or for less than three months total. They typically receive less pay, are not granted benefits and have little job security.

A joint statement was released by the University and the union yesterday after the agreement was signed.

"It is a strong settlement for our employees," said President Neil L. Rudenstine in a statement. "...The Union and our staff deserve a great deal of credit for the creativity, thoroughness and constructive spirit they have shown throughout this process."

This whole process was set in motion back in the spring of 1998 when the union started to bring the issue to the University.

Partially spurred on by the public attention of the Living Wage campaign, University officials began to attempt to get a numerical understanding of the problem in front of them, and negotiations intensified over the summer.

In the last few weeks, the hang-ups have focused on exactly how to compensate for past work and benefits lost.

"It was really, really hard. A lot of really smart people worked really hard. The pattern of casual employment is so variable," said University General Counsel Anne Taylor.

Partially because of the University's highly decentralized record-keeping systems and the intrinsic variability of casual employment, the actual number-crunching was a Herculean job.

Staff members from the union and the University both devoted months of time to try to figure out the scope of the problem. At one point, a Microsoft Excel file included 70,000 lines.

"I think in the beginning, [HUCTW Director] Bill [Jaeger] thought we were being peevish. Then we gave them the data, and they were blown away," Taylor said.

Yet the work is far from over. As far as the financial ramifications, the University in many ways signed a blank check. Taylor and Jaeger could only estimate that the total money to be paid out was in the millions.

"We have reached this agreement and signed it and we still don't know how much it's going to cost us," Taylor says.

While nobody knows for sure how much the deal will cost, Jaeger says this is money the University should be spending.

"This is going to cost them a little money, but, frankly, money that they can spare," he said.

For University and union officials, the task of figuring out the exact numbers still lies ahead.

"Until we go through this line by line, we won't know. It really means a lot of people are going to have spend a lots of weekends at the office," Taylor says.

As far as the union is concerned, it felt it held the upper hand in negotiations from a legal and moral standpoint.

"They had a lot of public relations and legal vulnerabilities and they were smart to deal with it," Jaeger says.

The union in the past has been very vocal about its concerns, expressing them through pickets of Mass. Hall and even meeting President Rudenstine at the airport after he returned from a vacation.

And through the course of investigating how other institutions were dealing with the contingent workforce, Taylor came across a case where the Department of Labor had gone after Time Warner for similar abuses of part-time employees.

Both union and University officials said that moral considerations played a role in the University's action.

"My marching orders were from the top to do the right thing," Taylor says.

"The institution does have a heart. [President] Neil [L. Rudenstine} and Harvey [V. Fineberg '67] care a great deal about this and this is why a fire got lit under this."

Rudenstine took the unusual measure of personally writing letters requiring employment data from the deans of Harvard's schools and also cut short personal obligations to attend labor meetings.

Even the union says it believes that the University isn't some gigantic version of Uncle Scrooge.

"I think the University leadership has a soul...These people have souls and hearts," Landeau said.

And for Jaeger, the University's actions indicate perhaps that Mass. Hall is moving in the right direction.

"It is a good sign, not just in this issue, but because the right people are thinking about the right questions than any other time in the last four years," he said.

The union is still figuring out how it will incorporate its new-found members and how to celebrate this victory, but it still has other concerns.

The Living Wage Campaign has specifically not affiliated itself directly with the union's efforts, instead focusing on its mantra of $10 an hour for all Harvard employees.

"Of course, we applaud Harvard's actions on this...and see no reason they can't apply the same compassionate logic to their other employees," wrote Aron R. Fischer '99-'00, a campaign organizer, in an e-mail message.

But for the union, they say they have won their most important battle. Full time employees will be paid for full-time work, including benefits and union security.

"The pendulum is swinging now in the right direction. There are clean rules and strict guidelines. The jig is up...the days of unregulated use of the casual payroll is over," Jaeger said.

And it seems in many ways that both the union and the University, while haggling over the details, are seeing at least partially eye-to-eye on the importance of Harvard employees.

"These people are central to the University--we have to include them. They are our partners in a very substantial way," Taylor said.

"We all would grind to a halt if these people weren't here with us."