The steps of City Hall were hidden by a mass of green union T-shirts yesterday afternoon as New Haven Public Schools management, custodial and food-service workers held a rally to urge city leaders not to renew Aramark’s contract as the school system’s food-service provider. Speakers and rally organizers encouraged Mayor John DeStefano Jr. and the school board to...
Spirited choruses of “Si se puede” — the Spanish translation of Senator Barack Obama’s “Yes we can” campaign slogan — kicked off a union-led protest of Aramark’s presence in New Haven public schools on Friday. But by the end, it was the repetition of “Chicken nuggets, get out” that was drawing the loudest applause. About 300 people gathered at the...
Aramark, the food-services company formerly employed by Yale University Dining Services, is now facing allegations of mismanagement and poor food quality from cafeteria workers and custodians in New Haven Public Schools. Complaints about Aramark began in late November when a few parents expressed concern over the food quality at a school board meeting and have escalated...
Yale University library staff did not racially profile a library employee last month, according to a report released Tuesday following a three-day investigation by Yale’s Office for Equal Opportunity Programs, library and Local 34 union officials said. University Librarian Alice Prochaska said the report’s conclusions reaffirmed her previous refusal to apologize for...
After 26 years of working with Yale’s libraries, Oct. 23 would have been just another day on the job for Bernard Rogers. But standing outside the Sealy G. Mudd library with his friend James Jones that fall afternoon, Rogers took $20 from Jones as repayment for a debt and lent him his car key for a few hours. There was only one problem. A Mudd library manager spotted...
At the urging of a local immigration-reform group, a number of Yale dining hall workers, custodians and service personnel signed a petition on Thursday urging Local 35 leaders to abandon the union’s policy of transferring member dues to a pro-immigration rights national affiliate. Arguing that illegal immigration depresses wages and causes unemployment, members of the...
Marking a watershed in the unionization dispute between Yale-New Haven Hospital and the union seeking to organize workers there, an independent arbitrator has ordered the hospital to pay employees and the union $4.5 million in damages. In a 47-page report released...
And the winner is? No one. The hospital has to pay. The workers get a check — and not much more. The union can still argue for an card-check election, but its legal route is more unclear than ever. If anyone — or anything — wins out, in fact, it is the doctrine of federal labor law and a ubiquitous New Deal relic: the National Labor Relations Board. “We don’t...
The Connecticut Center for a New Economy Political Director Gwen Mills fielded questions on topics ranging from the Yale-New Haven Hospital’s recent violations of labor laws to her favorite pizza place in a Monday-night discussion with 25 students sponsored by the Yale College Democrats and the Undergraduate Organizing Committee. An independent arbitrator has yet to...
According to a complaint filed Friday by the National Labor Relations Board, Yale-New Haven Hospital CEO Marna Borgstrom violated federal labor election law, despite her earlier claims that only lower-level managers engaged in questionable conduct. The complaint also lists nine other managers who the agency claims participated in illegal anti-union conduct, ranging from...
Yale-New Haven Hospital CEO Marna Borgstrom personally violated federal labor election law despite her claim that only lower-level managers were engaged in questionable conduct, according to a complaint filed Friday by the National Labor Relations Board. Until now, Borgstrom has distanced herself...
In a letter released on Friday, the union seeking to organize at Yale-New Haven Hospital soundly rejected a hospital proposal for a new Election Principles Agreement, demanding instead that an independent arbitrator force the hospital to recognize the union. After months of asking SEIU/1199 to discuss how to hold a new election, the hospital outlined explicitly what it...
