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Seven part-time positions to lose benefits in July

BY DAVID H. MONTGOMERY

In 1991, Christine "Chris" Gaunt started working part time in Burling Library cataloguing. She only worked during the school year, and the job amounted to around 750 scheduled hours per year-well short of the 1,000 hour cutoff necessary for full benefits. After just three years on the job Gaunt's situation improved markedly. The college lowered its qualifications for benefits to around 700 hours, enabling Gaunt and others to receive health insurance, tuition remission and other components of Grinnell's generous benefits package.

"That was the greatest thing that ever happened to me," Gaunt said. Now, she said, she principally works here for the benefits.

Come this July, Gaunt may have a hard choice to make. That is because the college has changed its benefits policy back to the system of the early '90s. Gaunt and six other employees who work part time over the school year stand to lose their benefits if the college doesn't transfer them into jobs with more yearly hours.

It is unclear now how many of the seven will retain their benefits. In the past, many, including Gaunt, have worked hundreds of hours more than their schedule lists. Because health insurance cannot be granted retroactively, only scheduled hours count toward eligibility. President Russell K. Osgood said that the college hopes to recognize that many employees have worked more hours and change their positions to make those hours scheduled.

"One of the reasons we did this is to look at these positions and say, are these really 20-hours-a-week positions?" Osgood said. "Also, some of those people may leave and we may combine positions."

The change was effective last July for new hires. The college gave current employees an extra year under the old system.

Many of the half-time nine-month employees affected here work at their college job primarily for its generous benefits policy. Another library assistant, Brian Mitchell, works part time at the college and part time at Hy-Vee. If the college does not shift him to a benefits-eligible job, he will have to go full-time at Hy-Vee.

The five other employees at risk of losing their benefits include another library assistant, one worker at the college's preschool, one in the Health Center and two program assistants in academics.

Osgood said that under the previous system, it was actually easier for staff to gain benefits than faculty, and that the administration wanted to change the rules to set one standard. He said the college did not consider lowering the faculty eligibility threshold to match staff.

"You can't have different benefit eligibility rules within an institution," Osgood said. "You want to have É one standard. The standard for faculty is basically what comes out from the underlying law for pensions."

The Federal Employment Retirement Income Security Act requires that benefit-giving employers pay retirement benefits for employees who work more than 1,000 hours per year. Under the new change, Grinnell will use the 1,000 hour mark as the threshold for both retirement benefits and the rest of its benefit package.

Assistant Treasurer Jim Mulholland, who handles benefits for the college and played a central role in formulating the change in policy, said that the decision was not based on financial imperatives.

"It's not about whether we've got the money to pay for it or not," Mulholland said. "It has to do with whether you're providing benefits on a reasonable basis."

Mulholland said the old benefit policy was "not appropriate." "You don't provide benefits that cost more than what you pay somebody," he said.

One possible consequence of the change will be to make it more difficult to hire and retain talented employees for the half-time, nine-month positions. Gaunt said that for her position, a weekend circulation desk librarian, offering benefits is a "really smart move."

"[In] a non-benefit position, you'd probably be hiring and training someone every year," Gaunt said.

Mulholland agreed that offering benefits for positions that does not usually receive them was a competitive advantage for the college, and that it was possible that the college would see more turnover as a result.

While Osgood and Mulholland insisted that the benefits change was the right decision for the college to make, the affected employees see things differently. Mitchell, who has worked here for 11 years, said he enjoys working in the library and is hoping that he can keep his benefits and remain here with more hours. He worried that individual employees like himself and Gaunt could be forced to leave their positions here.

Gaunt is in a unique position. She spent six months in prison last winter and spring after crossing a police line at a protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas, and was terminated from her position when her sick leave ran out. After reconsideration, the college decided to keep her on the job, but since returning Gaunt has been restricted to only her scheduled hours. As the college looks at which positions regularly work more than 1,000 hours of work per year, Gaunt-who in the past has worked as many as 1,400 hours yearly-could be at a disadvantage.

She sees the issue primarily in moral terms. "This decision seems so utterly and totally un-Grinnell-like," Gaunt said. "It is not like Grinnell College to take away a benefit package from employees."

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