Governor Dannel Malloy joined more than 1,000 union workers, local and state officials on the streets of New Haven at Yale University on Tuesday. The support of labor and the city of New Haven are seen as critical for Malloy in the upcoming election.
The Yale rally called on the university to allow its graduate teaching and research assistants to unionize.
Ph.D. candidate Aaron Greenberg, chair of the Graduate Employees and Students Organization, pointed to two nearby universities where graduate students have just formed unions.
"As we speak, our colleagues at NYU and the University of Connecticut are actually negotiating their first contract," Greenberg said. "It's an amazing moment for graduate employees to be calling on a university like Yale to negotiate with us."
Greenberg said graduate assistants deserve to be able to negotiate their wages, benefits, and grievance procedures.
Governor Malloy talked about his administration’s labor accomplishments including the minimum wage law, paid sick leave, and the earned income tax credit. He said that in the last few years, the state has recognized the legal rights for another 20,000 people to organize. "You do the hard work of this university," he said, "and for that, you should be respected, and for that, you should have the right to collectively bargain."
Yale argues that graduate assistants are fundamentally students.
In an e-mail, spokesman Tom Conroy said the university employs 15,400 faculty and staff, the largest overall employment in Yale’s history, including 5,000 unionized workers whose prosperity versus the broader labor market has never been higher.
