Shame on Sledge
DISCLAIMER: the following statement is in no way endorsed by or linked to Ben Healey or his campaign for reelection, with which i am not affiliated. These are the rantings of an anarchist who is strongly averse to electoral politics and should be read as such.
A day after the
second ward 1 debate (in which incumbent and progressive democrat
Ben Healey pretty much demolished his opponent, the ONHSA-bred "independent"
Dan Kruger,) William Sledge, Master of Calhoun College and the director of Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital
publicly attacks Healey as a tool of the unions who endangered hospital safety to serve his "pro-labor ideology."
"So, what has been the outcome of the constables losing their arrest powers? There have been some dangerous, awkward episodes such as a New Haven police officer's lack of knowledge of how to handle bleeding patients (issues of handling bodily fluids of people who may be infected with life-threatening illnesses), and slowed response times to emergencies. I have seen hospital patients taunt and attempt to provoke the constables by indicating that they know that they cannot be arrested by the constables, resulting in a security force that is somewhat hamstrung. These provocations have nothing to do with the union's efforts to organize the hospital workers or free speech. Security is too important to allow it to be hijacked by issues related to whether or not politicians need to support the unionization of the hospital. Dan Kruger is the man for Ward 1. His independence will serve us well. He should be our next alderman."
I was there when four of those workers were arrested - Sarah Saiano and another member of local 34, and Fran Balamuth and Rosa Anna De Filippis, who are graduate researchers and GESO members. (actually, Rosa Anna graduated, and is now a post-doc in San Francisco.) I watched hospital police arrest them for leafletting other members of 34, 35 and GESO outside their workplace. I watched as they were carted off by hospital police and charged with "criminal trespassing" for something they've been doing without incident since 1982. I heard from hospital worker Willie Tart about how many times he'd been arrested or threatened by hospital management with arrest for his tireless efforts to organize Yale New Haven Hospital. Later, I read Katie Krauss's allegations that leafletters were "blocking entrances" and "impeding the path of ambulances," and wondered how setting up burrito carts doesn't impede ambulances but leafletting about a strike vote does. I wonder now why Sledge fails to discuss the options which mayor DeStefano presented to YNHH administrators regarding its constable powers, and why they refused to cooperate. I wonder if it isn't appropriate now to raise the issue that the sale of Sledge's Yale Psychiatric Institute to YNHH and the subsequent loss of tens of local 34 jobs to non-union hospital positions was a major factor leading to the strikes that rocked this city and campus over the past year. I wonder if it isn't also a good idea to point out that Sledge is a major contributor to the Kruger campaign.
Regardless, his argument that Healey willfully endangered public safety by demanding free speech rights for med center workers is groundless. No one has done more to damage the security. safety and quality of care for New Haveners who need health care than the administrators of Yale-New Haven Hospital (a classification in which we might include Mr. Sledge) who've both created this conflict over the constables by violating people's first amendment rights and running a vicious anti-union campaign, and making it next to impossible for working people in this city to get care at YNHH without being saddled with debt and aggressively pursued with wage garnishments, property liens, and other destructive and unjust collections practices.
EDIT:We might also ask what "ideological commitments" permeate Kruger's political actions "at the expense of good government," not to mention
Sledge's own ideological commitments. And we might point out that the very notion of "good government" as defined by Sledge, Kruger, or anyone else is itself deeply ideological.
Erin Scharff says
Vaclav Havel for class day speaker. I say "Scott Marks!"
From Abbey:
"No man's ass should look so good." - Vinnie O'Brien, on the Broncos' performance at the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride rally.
