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Yale employees end strike

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Yale University employees, including janitors, cafeteria workers, secretaries and graduate-student teaching assistants ended their five-day strike regarding wages and pensions Friday.

This strike is the seventh at Yale since 1968 but the first in which graduate-student teaching assistants have come together with blue-collar and clerical workers to protest.

However, this extensive strike reared obstacles for Yale. University officials were forced to close all but one of the dining halls on campus and then give rebates to undergraduate students, enabling them to purchase food at off-campus restaurants.

In addition, several classes were canceled when the graduate-student teaching assistants failed to show up. Many teaching assistants also refused to grade papers or issue grades to students in their sections.

Rather than canceling class, some professors opted to move their classes to different churches in the surrounding area so that students would not be forced to cross picket lines while walking to the respective buildings. Some classes were also held in city buildings as well as other university buildings.

Although strikes have ceased, the approximate 4,000 workers that have been without contracts for at least a year, with most expiring in January 2002, still have not had their demands met. In addition, those same employees have not received a pay raise in two years.

Contract talks will resume this week in hopes of solving the issue at hand. The strikers have threatened to hold another walkout if their demands are not met to the fullest.

Despite these arguments, the majority of workers have been offered annual raises of 3 to 4 percent, along with a six-year contract from Yale. However, the unions have different ideas in mind. They want retroactive raises of 3 to 4 percent for the first year and then raises of 8.5 percent for the Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Union Local 24 and 5.5 percent for Local 35 for three years, along with a four-year contract.

Overall, the unions are asking for higher wages and better pension plans. In addition, they are pushing for the university to establish some sort of process that would ultimately enable graduate students to form a union. The Graduate Employees and Students Organization that represents teaching assistants as well as other graduate students has been asking for an opportunity of this sort for more than a decade.