Graduate teachers
at Yale University made history this year when they voted yes to a
union.
For over a
quarter-century these workers, now members of Local 33 Unite Here,
have been organizing for the right to union representation and a
voice at work. It is one of the longest continuous organizing drives
in U.S. history.
The determination
to improve their circumstances and make a better University has been
handed down from one generation of graduate teachers at Yale to the
next. Countless marches, meetings, rallies, petitions, letter
campaigns, appeals from elected officials and other allies have
marked this unstoppable battle. The University insisted that these
teachers who the undergraduates depend upon for their studies, were
students and not workers.
Last summer, the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) affirmed that graduate teachers
are in fact workers with the right to form unions. The Yale graduate
teachers immediately filed for election. The ruling that the
elections would go forward came down just after Donald Trump took
office. At that unlikely moment, the graduate teachers in eight
departments voted yes for Local 33.
The battle has
been remarkable in a number of ways.
The graduate
teachers have had consistent support from the clerical and technical
workers in Local 34 Unite Here and the service and maintenance
workers in Local 35. They stood in solidarity with the graduate
teachers because they knew that the new Local 33 would add to the
strength of all workers on campus and in the region.
The graduate
teachers have also won wide support from the New Haven community.
Yale is one of the richest universities in the world in a city with
high unemployment and high poverty. For the majority African
American and Latino population, it is a constant struggle to get
hired by Yale, one of the best job opportunities possible.
The graduate
teachers came to realize that their plight was in common with that of
the surrounding community. They participated in New Haven Rising's
successful door to door campaign to get the University to commit to
hire 1,000 workers from the neighborhoods in greatest need.
On a national
scale, the graduate teachers were inspired by union organizing at
other private universities, as their victory will certainly inspire
their counterparts on other campuses around the nation.
Without this
solidarity, it is hard to imagine that one generation of graduate
student teachers after another would have had the ability to take on
the Yale Corporation with all its wealth and power and create a win
far beyond their members.
In an interview
with People's World Local 33 Chair Aaron Greenberg offers a birds eye
view into this remarkable and ongoing battle for workers' rights and
social justice.
Q: The graduate teachers at Yale
have been organizing for a union for over 25 years. Can you comment
on the significance of this victory?
A: Ours is one of the longest
running continuously organized recognition drives in U.S. history.
Especially in this political moment in our country our victory meant
so much to us and to so many people in New Haven and across the state
and country. Young workers standing up and winning a union is just
an extraordinary achievement. It is more important than ever for
people doing the work at universities and other employers to stand up
and fight for a voice in their workplace. For us it is inspiring to
think there are not just hundreds of us here but thousands all over
the country having the same conversation about the importance of a
collective voice as the academy and the economy changes for young
workers like us.
Q: How do you
view the effect of the national election results and the role of the
NLRB on your union and your members?
A: Our joint action with the unions at Yale and community
organizations across New Haven following the 2016 election in
November in City Hall was incredibly inspiring. We filled the
atrium with everyone together imagining the world we want. We heard
from all generations from the very young to those who have been in
the struggle for decades. This was an incredibly inspiring event in
a difficult moment for our city and our country. The most powerful
thing our union and other unions can do now is continue to grow. We
won our union but the next step is to start negotiating. We are
focused on doing that and making sure all the issues that brought us
to call for unionization will be addressed.
Q: Can you discuss the insurgence in
graduate teacher organizing at Yale in the last few years?
A: What has energized our
campaign is the movement of our colleagues at public and private
universities across the country who have been organizing. Our first
major public actions happened just six months after the graduate
teachers at New York University won their recognition election in
December, 2013. By May 2014 we were out in the streets with
petitions to the university. Since then over a dozen campaigns for
unionization have emerged at private universities all over the
country. At the largest peer institutions in the Northeast, some in
the Midwest, and some in the West, there is a wave of organizing of
young academic workers.
Q: What issues have compelled
graduate teachers to demand a voice at work?
A: Some of the issues that have
brought our members over the years to call for unionization range
from transparency and equity in teaching and pay, to security for the
most senior teachers who receive pay cuts up to 40%, to issues around
access to mental healthcare and specialized healthcare, to the
accessibility of affordable childcare for those who want to start
families or raise children while they are here, to issues around race
and gender equity in the workplace, the need for a grievance
procedure to settle disputes and insure that we can be an organized
voice that pushes for more race and gender equity in the university
overall. All of us see the union as a way to improve lives here and
improve the quality of teaching and improve the life of the
university.
Q: What is the significance of the
support you received from Unite Here Locals 34 and 35?
A: The example of Locals 34 and
35 has inspired us for years and years. Their example shows it is
possible to really change peoples lives through securing great
contracts. Their example over the last many years shows it is
possible to win great contracts that change people's lives in a
collaborative way. That's what we want to do. We are inspired by
their collective wisdom over generations. We all work here and we all
have the same employer. Those of us teaching should have a voice the
same way those who provide other essential services have rights in
their workplace. Locals 34 and 35 have shown that a great university
can have great unions. Unionization is compatible with a world class
research and teaching institution.
Q: How did you work with New Haven
Rising to get the support of the community?
A: It means so much to know the
community in New Haven, from elected allies to community allies and
faith leaders are behind us. They realize in this moment when
workers want to organize and have a voice they should be allowed to.
The university is one of the largest employers in the region. The
decisions they make really matter. This is something people have
come to realize. The solidarity we feel all over the city is very
sustaining.
Q: What has your own experience
been in organizing for Local 33?
A: I started organizing in the
fall of 2012 when I moved to New Haven to begin graduate studies in
the political science department at Yale. I have been organizing
ever since. I grew up in a family where my mom was a public school
teacher and my family benefited directly from the benefits and
security of the union contract she had. Our healthcare was taken
care of. So much about the ways we lived would have been different
without the union. I had a sense of what it means to be in a union.
When I arrived I thought it made sense that those who are teaching
should have a voice in their work, in the context of the academy
becoming more corporate and less driven by research and teaching
priorities which is the reason we come to graduate school to be
scholars. I thought from the very beginning that a collective voice
in our workplace would be vital to make the academy more democratic
and realize the values this university and all universities should
have.
Q: How does your service on the New
Haven Board of Alders relate to your union organizing?
A: So many things I learn from
organizing colleagues in the workplace are invaluable to me as I work
with neighbors and colleagues in the city to make sure we all get our
collective voice heard too. The things that inspired me to run for
office are the same that inspired me to run in the union. In New
Haven my employer is the largest employer in one of most unequal
cities in the most unequal state in the country. There are many ways
to respond to inequality in New Haven. One has to be giving people
more of a voice in the community or workplace. It is such an
inspiration to work with my colleagues to tackle major issues in our
city from unemployment and underemployment to violence and crime and
public safety to access of services for young people. .
Q: You spoke of the rally after
election day where people could voice their dreams. What are your
dreams?
A: I think my dream would be for
academic workers to be able to do the work they love. People come to
study, to get a PhD, teach, do research because they love it. Since
college the academy has felt like my home -- an institution that
values imagination and creativity and curiosity. I dream that those
of use doing this work can continue to do it, to have resources to do
it, to continue to train students, and students should have access to
that kind of environment -- where they can ask difficult questions
and understand a little more about the way the world works -- no
matter where they come from. That's a small part of my dream I think
we in Local 33 and as well academic workers organizing across the
country are trying to fulfill every day.
