Yale grad group makes plans for strike

With a long history of union disputes in its shadow, the possibility of a strike looms large over Yale University's campus after a strike vote was passed by the school's Graduate Employees and Students Organization on Wednesday. The organizing committee, which is affiliated with locals 34 and 35 representing Yale's clerical, technical, dining hall and maintenance employees, has yet to set an official strike date, according to GESO organizer Carlos Aramayo. Nevertheless, Yale officials are confident that the strike, authorized by over three-quarters of the more than 600 graduate students voting at Wednesday's meeting, will begin the week of March 3, during a sympathy strike by Yale's other unions. "The graduate student union drive at Yale is directly tied to our normal unionization efforts," Yale spokesperson Helaine Klasky said. "We've been in the process of very lengthy contract renewal negotiations [which administrators have] not signed because union leadership has been insistent on tying it to graduate student unionization, which is a non-negotiable issue." While GESO has never formally petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for collective bargaining rights, the organization has a long, colorful history. Attempting to secure a promise from Yale President Richard Levin that the university would waive its right to appeal a regional NLRB director's decision, GESO organized a grade strike -- in which grades were withheld -- at the end of the winter semester between 1995 and 1996. Levin's outspokenly anti-graduate employee union stance has led some to believe that even if an election were held, the results would be impounded for years while Yale argued the case straight to the national office of the NLRB. "No one currently here would ever see the result of that vote," Aramayo said. GESO is asking only for the negotiations between the organization and Levin to resume, according to Aramayo. "We just want them to come back to the table so we can... come up with a process we both feel is fair," Aramayo said. "We think that if they want to form a union, they should request an NLRB sanctioned election and hold a vote," Klasky countered. "Just as [the union reserves] rights and privileges, we may or may not choose to exercise them, but we won't forgo those rights." Asked to estimate the effect a teaching-assistant walk-out would have on undergraduate education, Aramayo said that the ball was in Yale's court to negotiate in good faith and avoid the strike. "If [Yale] is really concerned about that, they'll have a dialogue," he said, adding that "as things become more concrete, the university will back down." "None of us really want to go on strike," Aramayo continued. "I love my teaching, and I love teaching undergrads." Yale officials are perplexed as to why graduate employees would want to strike at all. "What needs are not being met?" Klasky asked, noting that Yale has expanded family and dental healthcare coverage. Aramayo said his colleagues authorized the strike "not for an extra few bucks but because they want their voice heard." Yale's undergraduates, meanwhile, nervously watch as the clock ticks down to March. "One of my [teaching assistants] thought that he could just take the students off campus and teach," one Yale senior said, adding that GESO officials then reminded the graduate employee that no contact with students or research work would be allowed during the strike. As striking Yale graduate students would technically no longer be university employees, keeping students' midterms, which are Yale property, after the strike date would leave them open to criminal charges. "We'll have to come up with ways to still have a discussion, maybe some online forum kind of deal," the Yale undergraduate said, speculating on how one best replaces a striking TA. "It's all right for now, but if this lasts more than a week, it's going to be a problem."

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