Solidarity: Lessons for Today from Unite Here Local 34 Founding Strike

Solidarity was the message at the New Haven Peoples Center during a film showing and conversation with UNITE HERE Yale union members about the 1984 strike that won Local 34's first contract. Interest was high to learn from the unions' past struggles and victories as sharp battles unfold in current contract negotiations with Local 34 clerical and technical and Local 33 post-doctoral workers.

The film had been produced on the 30^th anniversary of the strike with photos by Joe Taylor and script by Art Perlo who narrated along with Pamela Mouzon.

The crowd was welcomed to the event by retiree Mary Thigpen and welcomed to the Peoples Center by Local 34 member Ben McManus. Pamela Mouzon announced the upcoming Local 34 membership meeting and march to be held on October 14, organized as a show of unity to send a message to Yale University trustees that “We Can't Keep Up.”

The film detailed the daily experience on the picket line as the University refused to recognize the clerical and technical workers union in 1984. Included were the remarkable organizing, the big civil disobelience actions, the return to work for the holidays, and the solid support from already established Local 35 service and maintenance workers leading to the historic victory. Prolonged applause followed the film.

“Solidarity led to victory,” said Ken Suzuki who has 44 years seniority at the University. “The brave women of Local 34, the support of Local 35 who struck with us and raised dues two times to fund us, Local 217 assigning seven organizers for a four year drive, and today, Local 33 graduate teachers” he said recalling that “when Local 34 struck for pensions in 2003 the graduate teachers, then called GESO, went on strike with us.”

Suzuki recalled how Art Perlo, although classified as an M&P “organized like a member and went on strike with us as a member. People made important decisions what to do to change their lives and the lives of others. We couldn't do it by ourselves.”

Today, the University is playing hard ball at the negotiating table, threatening takeaways, using the anti-union practices of Amazon as an example, and crying poor despite their $42 billion endowrment.

Local 34 president Lisa Stevens said the difficult contract struggle requires more member involvement with new challenges of AI and members working as home since COVID.

“We have to build organization as was done in 1984,” said Local 34 staff director Barbara Vereen. “Rebuilding relationships will get people out. Join the committee and bring people with you. This fight will be won in the streets.“

Renee Deminne, speaking as a new member of Local 34 said, “New workers have to think about what they want their career at Yale to look like, with the benefits that have been hard won, or losing those.”

Cheryl Bergman, secretary-treasurer of Yale Union Retirees Association and an original organizer of Local 34 emphasized that without the pensions won over two strikes, the lives of her family and other retirees would not be what they are today.

Amelia Protano, credited with leading the pension fight, agreed saying she would not be able to stay in her home without the pension.

Also on the discussion panel were Local 33 leaders Paul Seltzer and Greg Zillberg. Seltzer said that in 2023 he got a 20% wage increase in Local 33's first contract for graduate workers. Now a new father he said, “That enabled us to start a family.” Zillberg said post doctural workers now negotiating their first contract are drawing on those experiences. Their organizing victory this year brought the number of unionized workers at Yale University to 10,000.

The Yale Strike film was introduced by Lisa Armstrong, teacher of gender studies at Smith College, who emphasized the far reaching impact of the strike, inspiring clerical workers at Columbia and Harvard to organize.

“We are here to celebrate this momentous achievement because it is still an ongoing fight to retain the dignity, respect, wages, pensions, workplace safety and voice of Local 34 union members.,” she said.

“The effects of this union struggle were instantaneous among workers who were considered difficult to unionize: in part because of the assessment that the largely women workforce does not want a union. How wrong this is,” she said.

“The unity between the established maintenance workers union, Local 35 and what became Local 34 is legendary. The solidarity led by a largely African American and Latino workforce of Local 35 for Local 34 every step of the way proved how workers can win union representation.”

The Peoples Center was decorated with poster-sized strike photos by Joe Taylor shown in the film. One featured civil rights icons Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Bayard Rustin who participated in a civil disobedience with the strikers, calling on Yale to recognize the union.

Public Education at Stake in November Elections

Teachers, parents and grassroots leaders gathered last week in New Haven with U.S. Representatives Rosa DeLauro and Adelita Grijalva (Arizona CD 7) in the fight to save public education against MAGA cuts and privatization.

“In March, the president directed the administration to dismantle the department of education, and they are working furiously at this,” said DeLauro. They’ve reduced the workforce in half and transferred core functions to other agencies. President Trump’s proposed 2027 budget would slash more than $8 billion from public education,” she warned.

“I served on a school board for 20 years,” said Congresswoman Grijalva. “We’re seeing a systematic starvation of our public education system. We have people making decisions about investing in public schools who do not send their kids to public school,” she said.

“Our job is to make sure we fully fund our public education system.” Connecting that to harrassment from ICE and border patrol in her community, she said “people are then often afraid to go to work, and take their kids to school.”

“As a member of the Education and Workforce Committee, I will continue working with Congresswoman DeLauro to hold these federal officials accountable,” she said. “We need to protect public education. We have to make sure every student and family has the same opportunity to reach their dream.”

The Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, a federal voucher scheme the Trump administration is implementing in many states, is based on Arizona’s voucher program.

“Arizona is the capital of vouchers,” Grijalva said. “We lost one billion dollars from our public education system in the very first year of vouchers, and it’s going to be more,” she said warning that some members of Congress want to expand that across the country. “And what starves is our public education system.” she said.

“Let’s learn from Arizona about what we should be on guard against here in Connecticut,” said New Haven Federation of Teachers President Leslie Blatteau. “Vouchers haven’t worked in Arizona, so why go there in Connecticut, or anywhere else? It’s the Trojan horse to dismantle our public schools long term.”

House votes to end Trump’s war on Iran, again

WASHINGTON—By a 220-204 margin, the GOP-run House for the third time defied Trump and approved a resolution to invoke the War Powers Act and bring the troops, munitions, and planes home from the conflict.

With the support of 213 Democrats and seven Republicans—many of them from “swing” districts—the resolution passed Tuesday evening. The other 204 Republicans stuck with Trump and voted against the measure. One Democrat and eight Republicans did not vote.

All five Connecticut House members voted in favor. Rep John Larson (CT-1) issued a statement pointing out that the vote was taken “on the 200^th day since President Trump launched his illegal war in Iran.”

Larson previously introduced legislation to cut off funding for this unauthorized war and filed articles of impeachment against President Trump and  U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for waging war in Iran, in direct contravention of the United States Constitution and international law. 

“The United States Congress has been clear—President Trump needs to end his illegal war in Iran,” said Larson. “Twenty American servicemembers have now lost their lives in the Middle East, and diesel prices have reached record-highs here at home. It is clear that this president views our Constitution as a mere suggestion and not the law of the land. We must enforce the law—and that starts with passing my bill to cut off all funding for this illegal and costly conflict, and block Donald Trump or any future president from waging war without explicit approval from Congress.”

For many of the Democrats, led by sponsor Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and aided by Reps. Kendrick Meeks, D-N.Y., and Jason Crow, D-Colo., ordering Trump to stop the war and bring the troops home from the conflict is a matter of Congress’s reasserting its constitutional authority to declare war—or not.

Anticipating either a Senate defeat or a Trump veto, Moulton declared “we will keep the pressure on” until Trump ends the war.

“This Congress has not authorized a war with Iran, and yet this administration has kept our troops in harm’s way, without a declaration of war, without an authorization from Congress, and without any plan for how to win or end the war,” added Meeks. In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, did not declare war on that country until after he took, in accordance with the Constitution, the matter to Congress.

Meeks brought up the economic impact of the war, too.

“We are seven months into a war of choice President Trump said would only last four to six weeks,” said Meeks. Due to the war, “Families have paid over $100 billion more for gasoline and diesel, roughly $800 more per household, while gas averages more than $4 a gallon and diesel is near $6.”

Actually, Meeks understated the hit to U.S. wallets and purses. Prices increased 3.4% from August 2025 to last month, the government reported, while wages lagged behind. Gasoline prices rose by 27.4% over those same 12 months and fuel oil rose by double that (52%).

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported, just hours before the House’s 7:48 p.m. vote, that the war—which has now cost $38 billion since Trump and Israel began it on Feb. 28—will add at least a further 0.5% to next year’s inflation.

Crow, a former Army Ranger, hit the themes of accountability—and class.

“What is the accountability mechanism?” Crow asked. “The accountability mechanism is Americans are in the driver’s seat because Americans are the ones that have to do the fighting, do the dying, and pay for this. It is not the elites and the pedigreed folks in this administration that are fighting and dying. They are banging the war drums and sending working-class kids like us to go do it.”

The anti-war resolution is expected to hit the Senate later in the week. It’s the third time the House invoked the War Powers Act against Trump, and the number of Republicans increased each time. The GOP-run Senate has held fast with Trump and war, but by small margins.

Trump in turn has made support for his war a litmus test for his party. If so, two-thirds of all U.S. voters fail the test. That’s how unpopular the war is—and it may become even more so.

The war is also affecting workers, and the AFL-CIO recognized that at its convention in Minneapolis in May. Some unions are even tougher on the war than the federation is. One of the bluntest denunciations came from National Nurses United, just four days after Trump began the war.

“We will stand with workers and communities harmed by war, repression, coercion, threats of genocide, and to democratic self-determination,” the AFL-CIO convention resolution said. “We will advocate for an end to wars that threaten workers’ livelihoods, security, and rights. Working people must never be treated as pawns in geopolitical power struggles.”

“The Trump administration has ignored the Constitution and committed yet another imperialist act of war…without approval from Congress,” NNU declared on March 2. “The U.S. attack on Iran is paid for by our patients: Working-class people across the United States who are already struggling here at home to afford basic necessities such as health care, food, and housing.”

While denouncing the brutality of the Iranian government against its own people, NNU called the war “an extension of Trump’s fascist allegiance to the billionaire class and a continuation of decades of U.S. intervention in Iran, beginning with the overthrow of the democratically-elected Iranian government in 1953.

“While prioritizing spending on war abroad, Trump and the Republicans have also openly waged war over the past year on working-class people here at home, gutting Medicaid and Medicare, refusing to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that keep our patients’ premiums from skyrocketing, and proving that they run the United States to benefit only billionaires and corporations.”

Supreme Court Win Defeats Unlawful Mail Voting Rule

As Connecticut and national organizations prepare for No Kings IV – Vote Early actions on October 17, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the preliminary injunction by Connecticut and a coalition of 24 other states blocking the United States Postal Service from implementing burdensome requirements on vote-by mail systems ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.

“This is a huge win for free and fair elections,” said Tong. “Donald Trump has tried over and over again to seize control of this election, to pick and choose who gets to vote and how we cast our ballots. Tonight, the United States Supreme Court sided with states and gave Donald Trump a big no. I have no illusions that this President is done trying to inject chaos and confusion into this election, but we’re going to be there at every step to fight to protect voters and our democracy,” Tong concluded.

Explaining the decision Tong said, “In denying the Trump Administration’s attempt to stay the injunction, the Supreme Court majority found that the Trump Administration was “unlikely to succeed on the merits” and that “the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief” favored the states.

Tony said, “The injunction will now continue to block USPS from requiring states to obtain the federal government’s approval of ballot and return-envelope designs, register for a new USPS portal for tracking voter information, input information for each of their state’s voters into the portal, and comply with other provisions.

Absentee ballots become available in Connecticut on September 19 to all voters who need them.

However, emphasis in Connecticut is on early voting which begins on October 19 at every town hall acros the state. A coalition of organizations is preparing to participate in the national No Kings IV events two days earlier on October 17, and encourage voters to vote as early as they can. The events aim to engage social, cultural and neighborhood groups to vote as an act of resistance to Trump administration attempts to prevent voters from participating and steal the election.

Labor Breakfast Launches Door Knocking for Elections

The IBEW hall in Hartford was standing room only at the annual Connecticut AFL-CIO labor breakfast the Friday of Labor Day weekend. Building trades, service workers, educators, health care workers, state workers in the mdist of contract struggles came together with allies serving in and running to be elected to Congress, Governor and the state legislture.

Over scrambled eggs and french toast, union members who are running for office told their stories. Keynote speaker, Congresswoman Jahanna Hayes rallied the crowd with her pledge that “once Democrats are back in the majority we will not slow walk on issues of people's needs, and I will lead in that fight.”

“Last time when we had a trifecta we should not have short stepped, “she said. “Affordability equals child care, and healthcare. We have to deliver on promises made.” Once named national Teacher of the Year, Hayes said that “the largest equity gap is in education. That has to change.”

Hayes said it is unacceptable that there are “two Connecticuts”, and “we have to change that. Unapologetic, firm, demanding leaders will deliver. “ To aplause she concluded,”This time we will center labor as it should be.”

Rep Katlyn Shake, candidate for State Senate in Stratford, called for more working class people to get elected to office at every level, emphasizing the victory last session of passing HB 5003, the most includinve workers' bill every enacted.

Political Director Ryan Hughes highlighted that early voting starts October 19. Union members were asked to sign up for Saturday door knocking. The top goal is to “make the Connecticut General Assembly more pro-union and pro-worker as we deserve.”

Governor Ned Lamont thanked workers in all sectors for keeping the state moving, saying “every day we're standing up for you.”

The program was opened with remarks from healthcare workers fighting for fair contracts at Wndham Hospital owned by Hartford Health and L&M Hospital owned by Yale Health.

President Ed Hawthorne and Secretary-Treasurer Shellye Davis gave greetings. With more people in favor of unions now than ever, now si the time to organize, he said..