Edward B. Childs, a cook in the Adams House dining hall, is probably going to get his benefits cut, and he doesn't know a thing about it.

"We've received zero information," says Childs, the co-chief steward of the College's dining hall workers. "We demanded negotiations and they didn't give us any. The only thing I got was a letter saying they have decided what to do."

Childs, like many unionized employees, has been left in the dark about the University-wide benefits review. For the past eight months, Harvard's top financial and administrative officials have conducted an intensive investigation of the University's employee benefits program.

But that process has been plagued from the start by an ever-escalating battle between outgoing Provost Jerry R. Green, the director of Harvard's benefits task force, and the leaders of several unions, especially the 3,600 member Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW). Many laborers, like Childs, claim they have been shut out of the process.

The public battle between HUCTW and Green has been particularly ugly. The union refused to participate under Green's terms, and the union's demands that they be allowed to have a representative on the task force.

The stakes are high, and it is Harvard Employees who stand to lose the most because of the rift. With HUCTW shut out, the University will likely begin cutting benefits--effective January 1995--without having even interviewed unionized workers as part of its study of the issue.

Benefits Task Force

Harvard formed a benefits review task force last year for the stated purposes of cutting costs and examining the benefits needs of faculty and staff. That group is scheduled to present its report to the Corporation, Harvard's senior governing board, later this month.

The task force consists of administrative and financial officials from the graduate schools, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the central administration. And that was what drew the ire of the union.

"In our view it is highly inappropriate and nearly impractical for a group composed entirely of top administrators to conduct the kind of review you announced," HUCTW said in a letter sent to task force members in mid-November.

Union President Donene M. Williams complained that HUCTW had not been invited to join the task force. But Green and Acting Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Jane H. Corlette said HUCTW officials were welcome to join task force advisory committees.

"I think they recognize that the task force is set up for the purpose of reviewing benefits, but...it's not the kind of group that has representatives," Green said. "It's simply a group of benefit experts."

Green and HUCTW officials had clashed before. In the summer of 1992, the provost accused the union's leaders of spreading "disinformation" in an effort to affect the then-contentious contract negotiations between Harvard and HUCTW.

In this case, Green sent a letter to the union expressing surprise at organizers' discontent with the process. Enfuriated HUCTW leaders fired back, claiming their exclusion from the task force was part of a power play by the provost.

"The process that [Green] describes is not one that includes any sort of respectful partnership," Williams said. "We're willing to talk on a mutual basis, as long as we come to the table as equals. We have to work together to define the problem and define the solution."