To the Editor:

I was saddened to read in today’s Yale Daily News that yet again the poisonous relationship between Yale and its unions has resulted in a strike that harms students. This also happened during my senior year at Yale (1995-1996). Like junior Connie Choi, who was quoted in yesterday’s AP article, I too was at first unsure who to support — Yale’s propaganda sounded so logical and calm, and the unions’ sounded so shrill. But I took some time to look deeper into the matter, as I urge today’s students to do, and I found that Yale was busting its unions. Its contract demands reflected a lack of concern for their employees’ well-being (ironic, given Yale’s stated commitment to the economic development of New Haven) and a deep antipathy to unionization. Today’s situation, in which Yale has refused to budge on the issue of livable pensions despite major concessions from the unions, shows that nothing has changed in the past eight years. I am sorry that your year will be marred by this strike, and that you too will have to learn the hard way that our school cares so little for its workers.

Michelle Solomon ’96

August 28, 2003