Yale Trial Opens
4/13/97
To all those interested in the Yale strikes:
I'm writing to let you know that the National Labor Relations Board opened its hearing this morning in the case charging Yale University with illegally threatening graduate teachers engaged in last year's strike for union recognition. The government has charged Yale President Richard Levin, Provost Alison Richards, and Deans Richard Brodhead and Thomas Appelquist, along with 16 faculty members, with personally violating federal labor law as part of the university's campaign of reprisals against strike participants.
The trial will be held at the NLRB chambers in Hartford all this week, but we are hopeful that it will soon be moved to New Haven. It seems likely that the trial will go on for several months, with some breaks in the middle. For as long as it goes, all members of the public (including the media) are free to attend all parts of the trial. Anyone interested in attending who wants information on the exact schedule or location of hearings should feel free to contact the NLRB or to e-mail this account.
As you may remember, the heart of this case revolves around Yale's illegal intimidation of graduate teachers, including threats to ban strike participants from future teaching jobs, to subject participants to academic discipline or expulsion, and to either withhold letters of recommendation or write negative letters on the basis of strike activities.
One of the most disappointing facts of the period since the strike has been Yale's continued unwillingness to establish standards for academic freedom. Over the past year, with a somewhat calmer atmosphere on campus, we have tried to convince the Yale administration that it should prohibit the type of threats made during the grade strike as a matter of principle, without waiting to be forced to do so by a court of law. Unfortunately, these efforts have been uniformly unsuccessful. Similarly, while several of the faculty members named in the government complaint have insisted that they were simply following administrative orders or conveying administrative policy, none of them has been willing to say that there was anything wrong with this policy. In a series of meetings with Graduate Dean Thomas Appelquist, graduate students have pressed for Yale to adopt the American Association of University Professors' guidelines on academic freedom; but the administration has rejected even this minimal standard as unacceptable.
Instead of settling this case voluntarily, Yale has hired one of the biggest anti-union law firms in the country, which specializes in trying to bust academic unions. While Yale claims that it is opposed to a TA union because TAs should be treated as students rather than employees, it has turned to a firm which is dedicated to stopping any academic employees from representing themselves through a union. Indeed, Yale's lawyers -- the firm of Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelson -- are best known for fighting the American Association of University Professors in a case which denied faculty members the right to unionize at private universities. Again, the administration seems willing to spend more on fighting unionization than it would take to settle a fair union contract. The Proskauer firm, the 8th biggest firm in New York, reports that its partners bill at a rate of $300-$500 per hour. By our estimate, Yale will pay Proskauer well over $1 million over the course of the trial -- or more than the entire cost of raising all unionized TAs' wages to the cost of living, a proposal which Yale has repeatedly rejected as unaffordable.
It's a shame that this whole issue -- both the right to academic freedom and the right to unionize -- can't be settled without protracted court battles. But we think the facts are so clear, that -- while the trial result can't be predicted -- we're confident that the courts will make sure Yale does the right thing even if administrators won't take this course voluntarily. And for once, it's nice to have the government on our side.
We will be issuing periodic updates on the course of the trial, and if anyone has specific questions please feel free to contact this address.
Thanks again for all your support in the past -
Gordon Lafer, Research Director
Federation of University Employees at Yale
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This page was last updated on: November 5, 1999 |
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Graduate Employees and Students Organization |
http://www.geso.org |
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