Woke up an hour late, but wound up getting to my library session for my senior essay on time anyway because it was half an hour later than i thought it was. Found some cool leads - essays in
Radical America,
Labor History, and
Social Policy, as well as articles and essays by folks from 34 and GESO that i didn't know existed.
The YDN has an
extended musing by Josh Eidelson today that's definitely worth reading. The article is a perfect counterpoint to the Herald's irresponsible article
last friday. Meanwhile, the mighty Alyssa Rosenberg makes some
salient points about the Ward 1 aldermanic race, refuting the oppositional candidate's pretensions to Independence and examining the flimsy nature of his arguments as well as the problematic nature of his relationship to the Yale administration. Meanwhile, the candidate curiously has posted a
letter on his website supporting the agenda of Respect Line, an organization of homeless people and Yale students fighting for change in the city's homelessness and housing policies. The candidate isn't likely to win Respect Line's support. Healey's been a strong ally to the group 0ver the past two years. Nor am i convinced that the opposition candidate (whose name i'm not mentioning because i don't particularly want him to find this site) believes what he's writing or would in anyway adhere to his promises if elected, given the disgusting statements he made at the debate about "poor kids" giving him a run for his money, "literally and figuratively." This is politics of a sordid and sultry variety - exploiting the plight of the homless, not to mention subverting the hard work and organizing that many have poured into Respect Line, in order to make oneself look more progressive.
EDIT:Last week, the City of New Haven sent yale a (somewhat symbolic) bill for
$102,000 in police overtime due to the strike. The New Haven Register today published an
editorial claiming that the bill should fall equally on the coffers of the
"International Union" to which 34 and 35 belong. Quoth the register:
"But City Hall could do better than reflexively send a bill just to Yale. The union international's pockets may not be as deep as the university's, but they are deep enough."
This statement is both profoundly anti-union -- indeed, it utilizes much of the same rhetoric of the union as vast outisde political and financial conspirator which one might find in the tirades of GESO-busting professors (see, for instance, Nancy Cott's 1996 defense of Levin's GESO-busting before the American Historical Association, or Corey Robin's account of Levin's "Nuremburg Rally" in
Steal This University -- but also fails to understand what a union actually is. Unions like 34 and 35 are collective associations of workers. To saddle the union with the massive costs of police overtime which was used orimarily to "protect" the university from the very people who allow it to function in a daily basis would essentially destroy the right to strike guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act. Guess that's why they call it the
Yale-New Haven Register
34 and 35 members are back to work today. In typically elitist fashion, the YDN and herald both brand the strikers as 'outsider' by sensationalizing the divisions between those who struck and those who didn't. The colonial gaze of the YDN reporter does not end when picket lines disappear - though the real story is the perpetuation of Yale's own coloniality. We won a major, major victory last week. People will now be able to quit their second jobs, and ultimately retire with dignity. But Yale's power and avarice remain evident in full force in the daily interactions we have with eachother, in the hallways and back rooms of YNHH, in the New Haven Savings Bank's profit-driven demutualization, and in the continued anti-union campaign against graduate teachers and researchers.
Our work makes Yale work, and our work ain't over yet.
