The example of scholarship and connection that Art Perlo struck is awesome.  He is a pillar of the community in my life and I will never forget him.  I am devoted to my club and the vision the club has for the future of workers.  Thank you Art Perlo for showing me that vision and encouraging me to contribute because we are loved as people.  I will keep standing up for myself and the people I love against the interests of profit.

For millions of workers, getting through the pandemic has been a major struggle for survival, while the largest corporations have enriched their wealth.  The pandemic exposed the systemic, raw inequities in health, housing, and employment for Black and Latino families who suffered more losses.

These realities are shaping workers’ struggles emerging from COVID-19. One example is the epic battle for new union contracts and funding for the city now unfolding between the workers and the city standing up to Yale University.

When Yale University refused to negotiate a first contract with graduate workers following an overwhelming NLRB election victory in eight departments, it was clear that this $25 billion institution was relying on their Trump administration connections to torpedo recognition of UNITE HERE Local 33.

Instead of giving up in despair, the determined graduate teachers launched a “fast against slow.” Eight Local 33 leaders inspired by Gandhi, César Chávez and Martin Luther King, Jr. decided they would not eat or drink anything except water until President Peter Salovey begins talks. In Beinecke Plaza adjacent to the administration building and Salovey’s office, the union erected a structure which is staffed around the clock.

NEW HAVEN — Up to 2,000 union members and community allies filled Cedar Street at the Yale Medical School May 5 to support 986 union members whose jobs are threatened. Clerical and technical workers are concerned that their jobs will be transferred to Yale-New Haven Hospital, which is non-union. 

NEW HAVEN – Scores of Local 34 Unite Here members at Yale and their sisters and brothers from Locals 35 and GESO gathered on Cross Campus during lunch break last Wednesday for ballons, speeches and birthday cake. to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the historic strike by Local 34 clerical and technical workers which won their first union contract.

Despite current battles brewing, Yale’s new president, Peter Salovey, came by to shake hands with each of the workers, recognizing the respect they had won in the hard fought 1984 battle.
 
Two days later, on the actual anniversary, the Peoples Center was filled with retirees and current Yale workers telling their stories.  A video of strike photos taken by Local 34 member Joe Taylor was premiered, followed by a panel and then open discussion highlighting recollections of those who participated and led the organizing drive and strike.

Produced by Art Perlo about the historic 1984 Local 34 Unite Here union recognition strike. Narrators Art Perlo and Pamela Mouzon  Photos Joe Taylor

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) is 650 miles from the notorious anti-worker Smithfield Foods livestock processing factory in Tar Heel, N.C. On Smithfield’s killing floors and in New Haven’s healing wards, the workers have something in common. Their employers use illegal, anti-democratic union-busting tactics to deny a voice on the job.

In December 2006, the YNHH administration outraged workers, elected officials, clergy, the media and the entire community when they defied a conduct agreement and undermined a union election they were certain to lose. The hospital became the new poster child for why the Employee Free Choice Act (HR 800) is a top priority in the 110th Congress.

Retirement into poverty, or retirement with dignity? With one quarter of Yale’s employees likely to retire in the course of the next contract, this critical issue for workers everywhere has become pivotal in the strike against Yale University and its teaching hospital.

From sit-ins to hunger strikes at Yale offices, retirees have electrified the strikers and dramatized the issues for the whole community.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – As picket lines went up at Yale University and its affiliated hospital Aug. 27, striking workers were electrified by the news that eight union retirees had occupied the university’s investment offices. Denied food, water and bathroom facilities for five hours by Yale police, the retirees – all in their seventies – held their ground, protesting poverty-level pensions. They were joined overnight by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees President John Wilhelm, with union members standing vigil outside. 

NEW HAVEN – Nearly 5,000 workers are back on the job and negotiations have resumed at Yale University after a history-making five-day strike. It was the eighth in 35 years, and was remarkable in the unity amongst dishwashers, graduate student teachers, secretaries and lab technicians, represented by three Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) locals and Service Employees International Union (SEIU)/1199. They stood up against a corporate giant that trains the nation’s ruling elite.