Thousands of Yale workers strike
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) – Nearly 4,000 Yale University workers went on strike over wages, pensions and job security early Wednesday, a walkout that coincides with students’ return to the Ivy League campus. Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said the university planned to keep the campus running with managers and temporary workers, who were on hand to help students move into dorms. No new contract talks were scheduled.
“We’re still very far apart on the issues,” said John Proto, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Local 35. “We left the table telling them we’re sad and we’re willing to talk to them at any time once the strike is on.”
Picket lines went up as the business day began. Representatives of Locals 35 and 34 said they expected thousands of employees and supporters to take part. The Rev. Jesse Jackson visited the campus and planned to rally with the mostly clerical, service and maintenance workers.
Some workers and students had started a picket line Tuesday in front of the school’s investment office and yelled slogans such as “What do we want? Decent pensions! When do we want it? Now!”
The start of the strike coincides with the beginning of the semester. Upperclassmen began arriving Wednesday, and freshmen are to arrive Friday. Classes for undergraduates begin Sept. 3.
Connie Choi, a junior from Vineland, N.J., was moving into her room Wednesday. She said she felt conflicted about the strike.
“The things they are fighting for seem reasonable in a way,” she said. “But Yale is projecting its image also as reasonable. It’s kind of hard to take sides.”
Several Yale retirees spent the night in a conference room at Yale’s investment office, occupying the room as a protest of pensions they say are too low. Jackson visited them Wednesday morning. Other supporters slept overnight outside the building.
“We are here to keep the pressure on Yale to have a fair reckoning with these people,” strike supporter Josh Eidelson, a student from Bala Cynwid, Pa., said Wednesday morning.
Yale officials said their latest six-year contract offer was generous, with pay raises of 3 percent to 5 percent, pension benefit increases and signing bonuses of $500 to $1,500 for employees.
In a letter to students, faculty and staff, Yale President Richard Levin said the university’s offer “compares very favorably to recent labor settlements throughout the region and the nation.”
Local 35 seeks raises of 3 percent the first year, going up to 5 percent in the sixth year. Local 34 wants raises of 4 percent in the first year, rising to 7 percent in the sixth year. The unions also seek retroactive pay and want Yale to disregard Social Security benefits when calculating Yale pensions.
Locals 34 and 35 already went on strike once this year, for five days in March.
Strikes also have preceded eight of the last 10 contracts. The longest strike by Local 35 – for 13 weeks – was in 1977. Local 34 went on strike for 101/2 weeks in 1984 before agreeing to its first contract.
___
On the Net:
http://www.yale.edu
http://www.hereunion.org
AP-ES-08-27-03 1034EDT