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NEWS & LETTERS, OCTOBER 2003Solidarity helps Yale workers' strikeNew York--The second strike to hit Yale University this year, and the ninth in the last 38 years, ended on Sept. 18 with 4,000 university workers winning significant gains in wages and pensions. Clerical, dining and maintenance workers in Locals 34 and 35 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees struck for three weeks demanding compensation comparable to their counterparts at nearby universities such as Harvard and the University of Connecticut. Clerical workers will receive raises totaling 40% over eight years, with 32% for maintenance and dining workers. But the main issue was pensions. “Retiring with dignity” was the overriding theme. Before the strike, recent retirees with 20 years of service received $621 a month. Pensions will now increase by 35% over and above raises. Yale won two major concessions, an unprecedented eight-year contract, retroactive to January 2002, and a bonus system to increase productivity that pits workers against each other. Meanwhile 150 striking dietary workers at Yale-New Haven Hospital represented by SEIU 1199 rejected the hospital’s offer, but will return to work while negotiations continue. This strike drew national attention and support, all too rare for labor causes today. On Labor Day weekend Jesse Jackson--who has come to New Haven before to support striking workers--and 18 others were arrested during a show of support. Two weeks into the strike, a rally of 10,000 people from as far away as Las Vegas and from several national unions led to the arrest of John Sweeney and other labor leaders. Even presidential candidates Howard Dean and Joseph Lieberman lined up to support the strikers in person. Locally, there was overwhelming support for the strike. At the union’s request, over 100 professors relocated their classes elsewhere in the city to avoid crossing picket lines. While there was some notable support from students, others were ambivalent. During the bitter standoff, Yale hired two subcontracting agencies to bring in a cleaning crew composed mainly of Latino workers. U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro accused Yale of “cynical and disrespectful treatment” of Latinos, some of them undocumented, by using them as strikebreakers. Still, in a show of solidarity, 13 of those workers walked off their jobs and joined the picket lines. To understand the strike’s significance, it is important to see the relation between the university and the city that surrounds it. Around 2,800 factory workers remain in New Haven, which once had over 100,000 manufacturing jobs. De-industrialization has made Yale the city’s dominant employer. People now leave other companies to work for Yale, but from Yale have nowhere else to go. Such trends have created an even starker divide between the city’s wealthy university and its predominantly Black and Latino residents. Additionally, the university has been buying up real estate, raising rents beyond the reach of poor people and increasing homelessness. According to one resident, 20% of the homeless in New Haven hold jobs in the service and retail sectors. In other university labor news, 250 full-time and 350 part-time faculty at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University represented by the L.I.U. Faculty Federation ended a one-week strike on Sept. 11. They were able not only to stave off a proposed workload increase, but to decrease course load from four to three courses per semester. They made only nominal gains in benefits for adjunct faculty. Still under discussion are health benefits for newly hired full-time faculty. A new university proposal would create a two-tier system with new faculty having to cover half of the health care expenses for their families. Faculty at L.I.U.’s C.W. Post campus continue negotiations as they enter their third week of striking, although many full-time professors have returned to work. Their union, the C.W. Post Collegial Federation, is also fighting for higher wages, better health benefits and a decreased workload. --New York student sympathizer |
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