Negotiations between the University and its largest union the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), have historically been difficult and this year is no exception.

Union members have been working without a contract since June 30, while HUCTW representatives have been meeting with administration officials every day for the last several weeks to work out a new contract.

Negotiations are currently divided over HUCTW's benefits plan. University benefits were revised by a task force last fall.

Union leaders say some of the benefits cuts--among them a decrease in total health care coverage for part-time workers--proposed by the University are "unacceptable."

But both sides say they do not want the negotiations to degenerate as far as they did in 1992, when an outside mediator had to be hired to solve the dispute.

The 1992 negotiations dragged into January of 1993 because serious disagreements over compensation led to break downs in the negotiating process.

"I'm very hopeful that this could be a less protracted negotiation than we had in '92," HUCTW Director William Jaeger said in an interview last week. "It's a healthy enough process to hope we could reach an agreement."

And Merry D. Touborg, a spokesperson for the Office of Human Resources says that some of Harvard's other unions have not objected to the University's new benefits plan.

"Bear in mind some of the unions have negotiated new contracts and accepted the benefits changes," she said in an interview last week.

The Big Issue

The fact that the new benefits package is an issue is not a surprise," Touborg says. "We knew that it was going to be a major negotiating issue."

"The most difficult issue in negotiations right now is benefits," Jaeger said at HUCTW's rally on June 28th. "More specifically, the University is proposing that we agree to a package ofbenefits changes which were devised by a group ofhighly paid top administrators last year."

The task force of 10-top level Harvardadministrators spent most of last year evaluatingthe benefits for faculty and staff. The alladministrator makeup of the task force was a pointof contention among Harvard's staff from thebeginning.

The task force's recommendations were intendedto cut costs, since the University was reporting a$10 million structural deficit and Jaeger concededthat the proposed benefits reductions would savethe University about one million dollars a year.

The task force issued its report recommendingsignificant changes in the fall of 1994.

Under the expired contract, Harvard contributed85 percent of the total health costs under anyplan.