Yale TAs strike; force cancellation of several classes

Hundreds of graduate teaching assistants at Yale University staged a one-day strike yesterday which led to the cancellation of dozens of classes. The Graduate Employee and Student Organization, a group representing about half of Yale's approximately 2,200 resident graduate students, is seeking larger stipends for teaching assistants, lower health care payments, and a system of grievance procedures similar to the one used by full-time employees. The students are also seeking to unionize. City police estimated the crowd peaked around 2,500, when the strikers and supporters formed a picket line two blocks long. The campus is in the heart of the city and, for part of the day, police closed off two lanes of a main downtown street to accommodate the protesters. The graduate students were joined by members of two Yale unions that represent maintenance personnel, custodians, clerical and food service workers and forced some dining halls on campus to close. Michael Goldstein, Graduate and Professional Student Assembly chairperson, said last night that the University may also see movement towards unionization. "It is not because people are in love with unions. They want to be treated respectfully and fairly," Goldstein said. "The lack of health care benefits will be the driving force behind unionization." Gordon Lafer, a fourth-year political science student who serves as a spokesman for GESO, said that one of the major thrusts behind the movement at Yale has also been health insurance. "I know that there are university unionization drives underway at other schools," Lafer said last night. "We encourage other places to do it." Picket lines went up this morning at about a dozen locations around the Yale campus, including the Hall of Graduate Studies, where about 200 demonstrators marched. Graduate students and members of the two unions chanted "Two-four-six-eight, Yale is a cheapskate" and "Beep, Beep, Yale's Cheap." The administration has repeatedly said that it will not recognize the union because it views graduate students as scholars-in-training rather than as employees. "I'm curious to know whether the faculty are scholars since they certainly consider them employees," Goldstein said. "I assume they're not scholars which would explain why the president of Yale is cutting so many programs." Lafer said about 70 classes had been canceled or moved off-campus. But Yale spokesperson Martha Matzke said yesterday that it was still "mainly business as usual." Lafer added that if Yale is successful they will be the first private institution to unionize the graduate students. GESO is unique since they are calling for unionization of all graduate students, even those who are not employed by Yale. "Even graduate students who are not employees have policies made collectively so we all need to bargain collectively," Lafer said. "We are doing something innovative." Deborah Chernoff, a spokesperson for Yale's Federation for University Employees, said yesterday that Local unions 34 and 35 joined the students to support their right to become another chapter of their union and to remind the university that their contracts expire in January. The Yale administration told union members they would have their pay docked if they joined the strike. But because the protest was peaceful, Matzke said the university did not intend on taking more severe action, such as firing workers engaged in what Yale said was an illegal work stoppage. Jesse Jackson spoke at a rally in support of the strikers at New Haven Coliseum, where about 2,000 people gathered in the afternoon. "Yale must be creative and not punitive to be a great university," Jackson told the crowd. The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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