Yale officials, unions will meet today to negotiate contract details

Both hope to avert repeat of last year's strike After a three-month stand-still, Yale University and two of its unions will meet today to discuss a potential contract agreement. Neither side expects to reach an agreement immediately, but both are hopeful that a new contract will be signed soon. The contracts for Locals 34 and 35 of the Federation of the University Employees, which represent Yale's clerical and technical workers and service and maintenance workers, respectively, expired in February. After initial negotiations failed, both locals went on four-week strikes. As a result of the Local 35 strike -- supported by 97 percent of its members -- the university's 12 residential dining halls closed. Students received food vouchers from the university. The university also re-opened a dining facility called Commons during the strike, in order to serve the students on campus. Following the strikes, negotiations continued, but talks ended June 14 without an agreement. Yale spokesperson Gary Fryer said today's meeting will be a stepping-stone to future discussions, but added that the unions must be more willing to compromise. "I expect that we'll talk about where we are, and we'll see where we stand after that," he said. "We've made it very plain to the unions that we are not prepared to give them such an arrangement unless the university gets certain things from the unions in return." The university is looking to subcontract its dining services so that it can provide students with fast food services such as Taco Bell. However, the unions have been wary of allowing Yale this option. "What we are looking for is more flexibility," Fryer said. "We were unable to use subcontractors under our labor agreements because we could not bring in outside vendors. We were basically stymied." Local 35 spokesperson Deborah Chernoff said the unions are willing to allow the university to bring in subcontractors, but not without making provisions for the union employees' well-being. Chernoff brought up three points that are the obstacles to reaching an agreement. While the unions understand that there will be some attrition during the subcontracting process, they do not want union employees simply laid off and replaced by subcontractors. Second, Chernoff said the subcontractors must pay workers an adequate wage. "We want the university to require the subcontractors to pay a fair minimum wage -- a fair rate of compensation," she said. "Right now they're not willing to consider the minimum wage we've proposed, which is in the neighborhood of $8 an hour." Third, the unions want Yale to guarantee that the number of union jobs will not fall below 80 percent of the current number, Chernoff said. While the university seems to have agreed to this, there is confusion over how many union jobs are currently on campus. Chernoff said the unions do not have immediate plans to go on strike again, but added that they are not ruling a strike out as a last resort. "Our current strategy is to negotiate if we can and to organize the community members who have an interest in the future of jobs in New Haven," Chernoff said. Fryer noted that Yale's school year -- which began last Wednesday -- has gone "very smoothly" so far. He said he has not seen any noticeable effects of the labor dispute on campus. "We're off to a great start," he said. "And that's even before U.S. News and World Report rated us as the No. 1 university."

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