Class struggle in the Ivy halls

[Charlotte Kates <ckates@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>X-Sender: ksm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 21:13:11 -0500
>To: labr.newsline%conf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>From: Scott Marshall <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Class struggle in the Ivy halls
>
>**Class struggle in the Ivy halls: Campus protesters, not
>just students, as labor draws the line**
>
>(Reprinted from the May 18, 1996 issue of the People's
>Weekly World. May be reprinted or reposted with PWW credit.
>For subscription information see below)
>
>By Joelle Fishman
>
>NEW HAVEN - There will be two commencement exercises at Yale
>this year - the traditional graduation for some 1,500
>undergraduates and what Meg Ricco, chief steward of Hotel
>Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 35, calls a
>"people's graduation."
>
>While the one may be keeping with tradition, the second -
>scheduled for 9 a.m. May 27 on the New Haven Green - will be
>remembered for years to come as one where workers and their
>families, from as far north as the Canadian border and as
>far west as Las Vegas, came to New Haven to confront the
>arrogant union-busting of one of the nation's most
>prestigious universities.
>
>"Yale is where the next generation of corporate leadership
>will come from," Vinnie O'Brien, an AFL-CIO staff member
>from Washington, D.C., told the World, "and we are going to
>show them early in their career that it doesn't pay to try
>to bust unions."
>
>Local 35, representing 1,200 service and maintenance
>workers, had to strike repeatedly in the 1960s and 70s to
>win decent benefits and conditions. In 1984 Local 34,
>representing 2,500 clerical and technical workers, was
>organized in a groundbreaking 10-week strike.
>
>Both locals are now in a bitter strike to protect and extend
>their past gains. Yale wants the right to subcontract any
>job any time, to institute major cuts in wages, benefits and
>job security and to cut medical benefits for retirees.
>
>O'Brien, assistant field director for the AFL-CIO, said the
>fight at Yale is where the AFL-CIO decided to "draw a line
>in the sand against corporate greed and in defense of
>workers rights." (See interview this page.) Richard Trumka,
>AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, and Rev. Jesse Jackson head the
>May 27 speakers list. When O'Brien arrived in New Haven
>three weeks ago to head up the out-of-state organizing for
>the protest at Yale's graduation, he immediately asked for
>reinforcements. The Washington office responded and within
>days three more organizers were sent to New Haven to help
>mobilize participation. Painters Union General President
>A.L. "Mike" Monroe has called Yale's insistence on
>subcontracting "a declaration of war on working families."
>
>Yale University, the second wealthiest university in the
>country, is the largest employer in New Haven, the fourth
>poorest city in the country. The university's governing
>board, the Yale Corporation, includes some of the nation's
>most vicious union busters - men like Al Schact, a director
>at AT&T who presided over the elimination of 40,000 jobs
>earlier this year as that company pursued maximum profits
>and higher stock prices.
>
>The $4.5 billion Yale Corporation is determined to turn the
>living wage jobs, which Yale workers have won through
>organization and struggle, into minimum wage, casual,
>temporary and part-time day labor exploitation. The largest
>number of part-time, non-benefit level workers are
>concentrated in the city's African American and Latino
>neighborhoods.
>
>"This affects everyone," Mark Wilson, a Local 35 rank-and-
>file leader, said. "The corner store, the barber shop, the
>laundromat, the churches. Our sons and daughters will be
>working at Yale and I for one am not going to allow them to
>destroy the last good jobs in our city."
>
>Rory Jones, who works 17 1/2 hours a week agrees. "I'm a
>casual worker and because I work less than 20 hours a week,
>I have no benefits."
>
>Jones said casual workers saw only one way to solve the
>problem: "We had to get a union, so we voted to join the
>union right in the middle of the strike."
>
>The decision by casual workers to join the strike was not
>the only show of solidarity by Yale workers. Throughout the
>struggle for a new contract the unions have rejected
>proposals by the university that have been deliberately
>crafted to divide the work force and pit one section of
>workers against another or to pit the present work force
>against those who will come later. Workers spurned Yale's
>offer to guarantee the jobs and wages of current union
>members in exchange for unlimited subcontracting rights.
>
>"If we agreed to that," one worker told the World, "we would
>be in the situation where parents agreed that there would be
>no jobs for their children."
>
>Sandy Rosen, co-chair of the Solidarity Committee of the
>Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HHC) said,
>"What happens at Yale very much affects what happens at
>Harvard. Harvard is trying to do the same things Yale is
>trying - a policy of subcontracting and substandard wages
>and substandard benefits. If we nip it in the bud at Yale we
>can do the same at Harvard," she said.
>
>"Because we take this so seriously at Harvard," Rosen
>continued, "my union, together with Jobs with Justice, is
>sponsoring a bus to the May 27 rally, along with a caravan
>of 20 to 25 cars." The unions at Yale realize they, along
>with the entire labor movement, are in a life and death
>struggle.
>##30##
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