Strike exposes poverty behind scenes at Yale

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1042175,00.html

On the first day for incoming students at Yale University, the first lesson for the Ivy League institution was labour relations. About 100 police officers in riot gear lined the streets of New Haven, where the university is situated, as hundreds of Yale's clerical and technical workers sat in circles at three major intersections, calling for improved pay and conditions.

For weeks now, Yale's colonial architecture has provided the backdrop for striking workers wearing sandwich boards demanding a living wage at the alma mater of the past three US presidents. With more than 200 professors moving their classes off campus at the unions' request, lectures for the past fortnight have taken place in restaurants, front rooms, church halls and the city hall.

Among the parents saying goodbye to their children was the leading Democratic presidential contender, Howard Dean, whose daughter studies there. As a student, Mr Dean tried to shut down the university's power plant in a previous strike. "The struggle was the same then as it is now," said Mr Dean, who graduated in 1971. "What is needed in this country more than anything is economic justice."

Two other Yale alumni standing for the Democratic nomination, Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman, also side with the strikers.

[pnorman]

1. This wasn't the first arrest for John Sweeney.

He was arrested along with over 300 other demonstrators in 1996; ALSO at Yale.

Hoping to revitalize their ranks, unions take the struggle to the campus
By John Perritano for the Advocate
It was already December, 1996 and nothing tangible seemed to be happening. After 10 months locked in a high-profile labor dispute with Yale, university workers were wondering if they would ever win a new contract. Meetings between the combatants were on one day, off another. A month-long strike earlier in the year by members of Local 34 and 35 of the Federation of University Employees had yet to yield a new agreement. Yale's insistence on allowing private firms into its dining halls -- responding to ever-increasing operating costs -- was resolute and a major hurdle in negotiations.

The two New Haven locals, however, were fighting for something more basic: a principle, they said, that went to the heart of Yale's responsibility to the surrounding New Haven community. The union argued Yale would use subcontracting to create a new class of low-wage, no-benefit employees who would not have the luxury of advancement and overtime. In addition, organized Yale graduate student teachers were making a renewed attempt to gain recognition for their union -- without much success.

As Christmas slowly approached, an end to Yale's labor distress seemed to elude negotiators. History, after all, was not working in the employees' favor. Organized labor in the United States was becoming an anachronism. After years of declining union membership, scabs seemed to replace striking workers at will. A series of recessions and a rash of corporate restructuring whipsawed the economy. Employers no longer seemed to care how many years you had on the job. Long before the unsuccessful PATCO air controllers' strike in 1981, the American union movement had been on a slippery slope. Unions had become America's ugly stepsister, tolerated by society but not much liked.

When John Sweeney and his insurgent slate of candidates wrested control of the AFL-CIO from Lane Kirkland in 1995, they began the daunting process of re-energizing American unions. It was in this context that the eyes of the entire labor movement focused on Yale and other college campuses across the United States. It is on these same campuses that the American labor movement stands poised to make a comeback.

In New Haven on Dec. 12, Sweeney, the son of a union bus driver, was arrested with more than 300 others during a protest at Yale. At the same time, union leaders were locked in secret meetings with Yale administrators, trying to fashion a new contract. Several days later, the doors opened and a new pact was announced. It's hard to say whether Sweeney's direct involvement and arrest spurred a new contract. But most agree that having the president of the world's largest trade union focus attention on New Haven didn't hurt.
>
>
http://old.hartfordadvocate.com/articles/labor.html

I think he was also arrested around the same time during the Detroit newspaper strike, but it's 2:30AM here in Seattle and I'll give myself and Google a rest.