This Just Bothers Me

Hello All,

The Boston Globe reported in December that Harvard paid five managers salaries
of: $3.9 million, $4.4 million, $4.9 million, $6.3 million, and $6.4 million.
That's right--millions of dollars per person, per year! These administrators
were handsomely rewarded for managing the University's huge endowment,
currently about $29 billion.

The Harvard Crimson reported in January that the University just bought
yet-another property in Allston, worth almost $2 million. The Crimson reported
in February that Harvard received nearly $1.4 billion in funding from the
National Institutes of Health. And Harvard can expect a chunk of the $10
billion for biomedical research from the government's economic stimulus
package.

Despite all its wealth, Harvard plans to use any drop in the massive endowment's
value as an excuse to cut jobs. HUCTW members get laid off every month, and
management is hinting strongly that much deeper cuts are coming. *Please join us
in a rally against any layoffs by Harvard, this Thursday March 5, at 12:30 p.m.,
in front of Holyoke Center in Harvard Square!* SEIU, another union on campus
facing severe cuts, will hold its own protest action, also this Thursday, at 4
p.m., in front of Holyoke Center.

In Solidarity,

Geoff Carens, Union Representative, HUCTW/AFSCME local 3650

This letter arrived in my email inbox yesterday. It kinda turns my stomach and makes me feel like Unions are not my favorite things. Let me say up front I have issues with the Harvard Endowment. It is hard to imagine how an organization that claims to be non-profit can be in fact turning such a gigantic profit and still hold its head up....

I think it is horrifying how much fund managers get paid, but I'm pretty sure the industry standard is they get paid based on performance of the fund. So, when the fund did well, the managers did well (or a bit more than well, let's be honest). In this letter they fail to mention what years those salaries were paid. Maybe it was this year, but maybe it wasn't. Paying someone that way isn't a practice I would encourage continuing, but I'm also fairly sure the Union at Harvard also benefited all the years that the endowment did well. They surely negotiated our 4% increases (2% more than the rest of the workers here on an annual basis) due to the increased income the U had from its endowment. Also, I don't hear Union officials offering to give up the 4% salary increases in the interest of keeping more people employed. I'd forgo my raise if it meant someone else would keep their job.

I have no idea why Harvard continues to buy land in Allston, but it does. As for the grant money the letter talks about. I think the Union is most misleading in the letter with this information. Grants never come in as unrestricted, use for operating budget, money. An NIH grant is going to be for some kind of health related research, likely at the Medical School or School of Public Health. The portion of the stimulus that goes toward biomedical is also, clearly, earmarked to that subject. It isn't going to pay for kitchen workers and building cleaners to pick up.

My guess is that without these grants, the projects would not exist, so there isn't extra budget money that will be freed up by the receipt of this money. Even if it was, Harvard's 'every tub on its own bottom' standard would still prevent it from being really helpful. Whatever money that is freed up stays in that school's budget. There is no collective pot that it would go into to help out schools like FAS that pull 50% of its annual money from endowment income.

Maybe I'll sing a different tune if Harvard does lay people off and I'm among them, but I just think this email does nothing but try to incite workers with information that isn't wrong, but definitely isn't right either.