People's World
by Joelle Fishman
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The power of unity
and solidarity filled Church Street in front of City Hall on June 11
as every neighborhood and many unions rallied together behind the
banner of New Haven Rising for good jobs for city residents.
The rally and march, the latest action
in a four-year campaign, highlighted the fact that of 82,000 jobs in
New Haven only 2,000 living wage jobs at $20 an hour belong to
residents of the largely Black and Latino Dixwell, Newhall, Hill,
Fair Haven and Dwight neighborhoods.
In 2012 the newly elected Board of
Alders, including many union members, established New Haven Works to
train and locate jobs at major employers. In 15 months 500 people
were placed. But now there are another 500 ready and waiting. The
rally called on Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital to hire
them now so the thousands more in the jobs pipeline can move forward.
" Let’s be real about who
the jobs crisis effects. Unemployment is 15%. For our
white brothers and sisters – it’s 8%. For the black and
Latino communities, nearly 20%," said Pastor Scott Marks,
founder of New Haven Rising. "Employers need to increase their
hiring rate – and their focus on hiring from our communities of
need," he declared to cheers and applause.
The Carpenters Union gets it, he said,
asking the state-wide delegation of 45, mostly white males, to wave
their hands. "Give the carpenters a cheer," he said. "We
need more carpenters from New Haven to get in the union and then
those carpenters can join these carpenters so everyone is working!"
After speeches, a community drill team
led the multi racial crowd with many families and children to
Prospect and Sachem Streets, the site of two new dormitories under
construction at Yale. Against this backdrop, the rally called on the
University to hire locally for construction jobs and for permanent
union jobs once the dorms are completed.
New Elm City Dream and YCL youth groups
were asked to stand in front with the banner from their march for
jobs in February, carrying on their campaign for jobs for youth and
jobs for all which began in 2010 after 31 young people lost their
lives to street violence.
Mayor Toni Harp responded to the crowd
in front of City Hall with three messages: One, I am with you, she
said. Two, we are working on meeting transportation needs, ending
discrimination against those with prison records and removing other
barriers for the unemployed and under employed. Three, I will push
the three major employers - Yale, Yale-New Haven Hospital, and the
City of New Haven, to make these hires, she concluded to applause.
This response was the result of
hundreds of house meetings, thousands of individual meetings, and
overflow turnouts for the Black and Hispanic Caucus jobs crisis forum
and state of the city address earlier this year, as well as an
intensive grass roots leadership development program by New Haven
Rising.
Two days prior to the rally, Yale
University issued a statement that it will hire 500 New Haveners over
the next two years. "That's fine," Tyisha Walker,
president of the Board of Alders and secretary of Local 35, told the
crowd. "But what neighborhoods will those workers come from?"
The unions at Yale including Locals 34
and 35 and GESO the graduate students, are all facing major battles
as the university seeks to downsize its unionized staff and expand
subcontracting practices. The union contracts expire in a year and a
half.
