Union Head Arrested During Strike at Yale

The leader of a national union was arrested Friday and hundreds of demonstrators blocked intersections in New Haven, Conn., as an acrimonious strike by more than 4,000 Yale University employees entered its third day.

John Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, and 82 other picketers were arrested for sitting down at busy intersections. Wilhelm said after his release that the burgeoning labor action by campus clerical and service workers had attracted “broad community support” and would expand.

The demonstrations also spread to the Yale campus, where protesters seeking better pay and pension benefits surrounded but did not physically block entrances to dormitories. Although no talks are scheduled, both sides have said they expect to return to the bargaining table in the next few days.

As Friday’s demonstrations began, scores of picketers mingled with the families of students returning to campus. Employees who normally help new students get settled were replaced by upperclassmen who had volunteered for the assignment, university officials said.

Classes are scheduled to begin Wednesday, and labor organizers predicted that if the strike is not settled by then, some professors would move classes off campus to respect picket lines.

“Our goal is not to impede students,” said Bill Meyerson, a spokesman for the striking unions. “But we want to let them know that unless the Yale administration sits down to bargain seriously, this is what life is going to be like on their campus.”

Democratic presidential candidate and Yale alumnus Howard Dean dropped off his daughter, Anne, a Yale undergraduate, on Friday.

At a rally with students, strikers and supporters, the former Vermont governor recalled how he and other students tried to shut down Yale’s power plant during a strike. “The struggle was the same then as it is now,” Dean said. “The truth is, what is needed in this country more than anything is economic justice.”

Two other Democratic candidates who are Yale alumni, Sens. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, have also voiced sympathy with the strikers.

Members of Locals 34 and 35 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union have been working without a contract since Jan. 1, 2002, and the university has made them a “tremendous, good faith offer, a package that is highly competitive with similar employees elsewhere,” said Tom Conroy, a university spokesman.

The offer calls for cumulative average raises of 23% to 44.1% by January 2007; the university is also offering fully paid health care and college tuition assistance to employees and their families, Conroy said. But Meyerson and others said the offers are not competitive compared to other regional workers and “an insult to hard-working employees, given Yale’s considerable financial endowment.”

Earlier this week, the union -- which is mounting its ninth strike in 38 years against Yale -- called in the Rev. Jesse Jackson to lend support. Jackson led several thousand employees on a solidarity march Thursday.