5,000 workers on strike at Yale

>Archive - PWW Print Edition Archive - 2003 Editions - Mar 8, 2003


 

New Haven, Conn. – Five thousand enthusiastic workers at Yale University including cooks, janitors, graduate student teachers, secretaries and lab technicians are making history with their one-week strike. The workers, from four unions, have filled city streets with picket lines and daily rallies.

On March 3, over 1,000 community supporters, led by Rev. Jesse Jackson, marched in the bitter cold to join the strikers for a giant street rally. “Wages in New Haven, Not War in Iraq” was the opening chant which Jackson led the crowd in shouting. “You deserve fair wages, a decent pension and the right to organize,” he said, adding, “Yale is too rich for the workers to be so poor.” Among other leaders who visited the strike were AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern and Professor Cornel West.

Full story next week.