First-year Yale student Ann Lane Rick woke up on Monday morning to strikers outside her window. She stopped on her way to lunch to briefly hear Rev. Jesse Jackson speaking to the picketing crowd. She was in the overcrowded cafeteria, where only freshmen are allowed to eat, when Rev. Jackson was arrested.
The strike moved into the streets, blocking traffic, on Friday, Aug. 29, as police arrested at least 80 people, including a national union president.
The incident was then repeated on Monday with the arrest of Rev. Jackson and 13 more protestors as they blocked traffic, after Jackson led a Labor Day march of over 1,000 people.
The strike started early Wednesday, Aug. 27, as students returned to campus. Yale management are keeping the campus open with temporary workers and the 60 percent of union Local 34 that crossed the picket lines for work.
Yale officials said their latest six-year contract offer included pay raises of 3 to 5 percent, pension benefit increases, and signing bonuses of $500 to $1,500 for employees. Local 35 wants 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.
The strikers are members of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union Districts 34 and 35 who represent more than 4,000 clerical, service, and maintenance workers on the Yale campus. Strikes during contract negotiations are nothing new to Yale. Since 1968, Union workers have gone on strike nine times during ten negotiations. The Unions are demanding that Yale give wage increases ranging from 3 to 5 percent in the next two years. Over the long term, the unions want hikes to reach as high as seven percent.
These strikes came in response to beliefs that Yale is lagging behind peer institutions in wages for its workers, much like complaints heard on Guilford’s own campus. Yale, unlike many of its peers, includes free healthcare and educational aid for its employees. The unions have also asked for retirement pay to be doubled, in response to a $200 million surplus in the pension plan. Yale notes that the pension plan is in an investment fund and therefore fluctuates, and has offered to raise retirement pay by nearly one-third.
For Yale students, who eat in overcrowded cafeterias and walk through picket lines, the issue is not cut-and-dry. “I generally favor the strikers. Both Yale and the unions make some really strong points and appealing offers. Then again, they both make some absurd and unrealistic demands,” said Rick.