NEW HAVEN, March 5 — Yale University is being rocked by its eighth strike since 1968, and Ron Altieri, an electrician at the university for 27 years, spoke for many workers when he sought to explain Yale's unusually rancorous labor history.þþÿThey're such an elitist institution,ÿ he said. ÿThey just look down at the workers. They can't come to terms with looking at their unions as an equal.ÿþþDismayed by such bitter attitudes, the university's president, Richard C. Levin, set out two years ago to put labor relations on a smoother path. After consulting with Yale's two main unions, he hired a consultant to get Yale and its unions to cooperate more.þþÿThe long history is an unfortunate one,ÿ Mr. Levin said. ÿIt's something I'd love to escape from and turn around.ÿþþFourteen months ago, the consultant issued a report urging Yale to treat workers with more respect and urging the unions to stop protecting workers guilty of misbehavior and poor performance. The consultant helped the two sides agree on several issues, including job security. þþFor a while last year, Yale and its unions were pledging more cooperation and appeared on the verge of putting their hostile history behind them. But then they were left to negotiate wages and other economic issues, and now Yale and its unions are again at war, solidifying Yale's reputation as the university with the worst labor relations in the nation.þþThis week's strike at Yale is unusual because it involves four groups representing 2,900 clerical workers; 1,200 dining hall, janitorial and maintenance workers; more than 1,000 graduate teaching and research assistants; and 150 food workers at Yale-New Haven Hospital.þþToday, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, John J. Sweeney, spoke in the rain at a union rally, calling Yale ÿa symbol of greed and oppression.ÿþþYale's administrators and unions blame each other for the walkout. Officials from the university's two main unions — Local 34, the clerical workers' union, and Local 35, the technical and service workers' union — accuse Yale of refusing to budge from a contract offer that they say would provide insultingly small pensions. Saying it has offered many workers raises of more than 30 percent over six years, Yale asserts that the unions are holding out not over money, but to bolster efforts to unionize the graduate students and 1,800 workers at the hospital.þþMr. Levin said that thanks in part to the consultant's work, the two sides had been heading toward friendlier relations. But the union leaders' decision to link their contract fight to their organizing goals undercut that progress, he said.þþÿThe strike is a way of demonstrating that these four unions are all pursuing an agenda — an organizing agenda,ÿ Mr. Levin said. ÿI believe we could reconcile our differences with Locals 34 and 35 relatively easily if they decoupled the organizing issues from the issues of the contracts.ÿþþUnion officials deny any such link, insisting that the strike is over management's unsatisfactory economic offer.þþJohn R. Stepp, the consultant who worked with Yale and its unions, saw other reasons for the strike. Over the last 40 years, he said, ÿan enormous amount of distrustÿ has developed. þþÿAll the adversarialism and all the distrust have accumulated like barnacles on a ship's hold,ÿ he added.þþMr. Stepp, a senior associate with Restructuring Associates Inc. of Washington, said he was convinced that Mr. Levin and John W. Wilhelm, a 1967 Yale graduate who is president of the parent of three striking unions, ÿin their heart of hearts want to see the labor relations climate turn around and become positive.ÿ þþÿYet,ÿ he said, ÿthe amount of distrust that existed was such that any time anything happened that was either the least bit negative or the least bit unexplainable, both sides would attribute malicious motives or ill intent to the other side.ÿþþYale's administrators, professors and union officials offer various reasons for the eight strikes since 1968, including bitter town-gown relations, aggressive union leaders, and university administrators who are seen as uncomfortable with workers and antagonistic toward unions.þþMr. Levin said many of the past tensions stemmed from ÿa kind of indifference on the part of the universityÿ and from the sharp decline of New Haven's manufacturing sector. ÿUnionized workers who lost jobs had a lot of energy and animus about that unfortunate development and focused on the remaining target, and that was Yale,ÿ he said.þþMr. Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, had a different explanation. He attributed many of Yale's labor problems to a lack of labor expertise, contrasting the university with Harvard, where John T. Dunlop, a former labor secretary and longtime Harvard professor, helped the university negotiate its first union contract with its clerical workers without a strike. At Yale, the clerical workers went on strike for 10 weeks in 1984 before obtaining their first contract.þþÿThat kind of labor expertise doesn't exist at Yale,ÿ Mr. Wilhelm said. ÿThere's no one at Yale who knows anything about labor relations.ÿþþWhat has happened over the pension issue underlines the distrust. Yale officials say they have made a generous proposal, offering to raise pensions by 11 to 18 percent. The union responds that even with such increases, many workers retiring after 30 years would receive pensions of less than $1,000 a month. þþBut Yale responds that with Social Security included, most employees retiring after 30 years would receive retirement income exceeding 80 percent of their after-tax pay. Union officials respond that retirement income would exceed 80 percent of take-home pay only because take-home pay is so paltry. Yale said its clerical workers earned $33,717 last year on average and its technical and service workers $30,342.þþComplicating matters, each side accuses the other of not being serious about bargaining. Mr. Levin said the clerical union's demand for raises of 8.5 percent a year could not be taken seriously. Union officials respond that they have reduced their wage demands four times, but that Yale has not altered its wage proposal.þþFor now, each side appears dug in, intent on waiting for the other to make the next big step. þþThat could be a recipe for another strike this year. The current walkout is scheduled to last five days, but union officials say they may begin another strike after spring break if there is no significant progress soon. þþ
Source: NY Times
