| |
83 Arrested as Students Return to Yale Campus
|
|
|
83 Arrested as Students Return to Yale Campus
|
|
by Mary E. O’Leary
|
| |
|
NEW HAVEN — Yale parents took it all in stride Friday as they deposited their children for the new school year, while thousands of university workers picketed and 83 were arrested in several planned acts of civil disobedience.
Welcome to New Haven.
The Rev. Scott Marks, director of Connecticut for a New Economy, raises his fist as he leads striking Yale workers through the streets around campus.
|
Police Chief Francisco Ortiz Jr. estimated at least 3,000 people marched around Yale’s Old Campus in the center of downtown as a strike of clerical, technical and maintenance workers entered its third day.
Truck and bus drivers blew their horns in support of the strikers as they formed a loop and sang on the sidewalks, leaving open the entrances to the campus.
"Beep beep, Yale’s cheap!" they chanted.
Meanwhile, cars and vans stacked high with bedding, shelving, desktop printers, hair products and vacuums pulled up to the freshmen dorms on Elm, College and Chapel streets all morning and through the afternoon.
"We want to be visible, but it is not directed at the parents," said Deborah Chernoff, communication director for the Federation of University and Hospital Employees.
Irene Gersten of Princeton, N.J., who had just finished a tough six-hour drive from home, added a stuffed animal to a pile of her daughter Bianca’s worldly goods before the two were whisked away by a crew of seniors helping the freshmen move in.
"It’s kind of a party atmosphere," Irene Gersten said. "I’m really impressed by all the people here to help us."
Gersten, who said she had been to New Haven several times before, was not put off by the chaos. "I love New Haven. It’s a great place, very warm and open."
"It’s no big deal," echoed parent Chip Williams, of the confluence of strikers and parents. "It’s something we’ll all talk about for years."
The workers are on the streets in the ninth walkout in almost 40 years of labor discord with Yale. They’re striking over wages, job security and retroactivity, but mainly over pensions.
The sides are moving closer together, but the unions want roughly double what Yale is offering in retirement checks.
Despite all the action on Friday, Yale officials said it was one of the smoothest freshmen move-in days in memory, with 95 percent of the students on campus by 2 p.m.
Martha Highsmith, deputy secretary of Yale, said it was "unfortunate that the unions chose to attempt to disrupt the arrival of freshmen," but, while inconvenient, the move-in day went well.
Yale senior Richard Wright, who was helping students move in, said, "I’d say the effect of the strike is almost imperceptible once you get beyond the (Phelps) gate."
However, John Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employee union, which represents the striking workers, took issue with the university’s contention that all was well on the campus.
Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead announced that Yale President Richard C. Levin’s traditional address today to freshmen was being postponed in light of protests planned by the unions.
"We hate interfering with life on this campus," Wilhelm said.
He blamed Yale officials for causing the strike by not negotiating a fair contract.
While traffic was heavy all day, it only came to a halt when the marchers staged sit-ins at three intersections around the Old Campus, within about one-half hour of each other, starting at 10:30 a.m.
In the first one at College and Elm Streets, 34 people, including the union leadership — Laura Smith, president of Local 34, Bob Proto, president of Local 35, and Wilhelm — were circled by two rows of police, with the SWAT team in riot gear between them and the crowd.
One by one the strikers were handcuffed with plastic cuffs and lead to a bus where they were photographed and brought to the police station to be booked.
They were all charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.Last fall, more than 800 union people were arrested after standing together in the street downtown to protest stalled talks. Worked out in advance by police, they were booked after waiting patiently in lines on the Green. The charge was an infraction and resulted in $75 fines.
Ortiz said this time they will have to appear in court.
"We told these folks don’t confuse this arrest with the arrest last spring. Your butt will be in court in about 10 days. I don’t want to hear that someone is going on vacation to Martha’s Vineyard and it’s inconvenient," Ortiz said.
According to statute, disorderly conduct carries a maximum of a year in jail and $1,000 fines, both of which are highly unlikely penalties for the strikers.
Mayor John DeStefano Jr. is working to get Local 34 and Local 35back for talks with Yale and Wilhelm said two sessions have been set up in the next few days.
Back on the picket line, John Morgan, 57, was marching with colleagues for the third day. For him the issue is pensions.
A graduate of Yale College, Morgan also holds a master’s from Yale in music history.
"Yale’s pensions are really lousy," he said. Because he is in a top clerical position and has worked 30 years, "I might get $1,000 a month. But many other people get these pathetic checks of a couple hundred dollars."
Like many Yale workers, Morgan said he holds several jobs to make ends meet and just took a retail position since the strike kicked in.
"I took a job at Yale as a kind of stop gap. Thirty years later I’m still stopping the same gap with the same job," he laughed.
William Kaempffer contributed to this report.
###
|
 Printer Friendly Version
E-Mail This Article
|
|
|
