On Friday, the Yale Insider reported that a settlement had been reached. Nathan Newman now links to this NYTimes account of the new contract. Not surprisingly, both sides are claiming victory. I'd have to agree with Harry Katz, a professor of labor relations at Cornell, who "said both sides did well in the settlement, but...gave the edge to the unions."
What Yale gained was "an unusually long contract, eight years, that should ensure labor peace for the rest of this decade." In exchange for this 8-year contract, the NYTimes reports,
Yale granted its largest union, representing 2,900 clerical workers, raises of 44 percent over eight years and agreed to a richer pension formula that will increase pensions for most future retirees by 80 percent or more...John W. Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, the parent of the two striking union locals, said that to persuade his union to accept such a long contract, Yale had to agree to large raises in the contract's final four years and to a significantly higher pension than it had been offering.
'The key issue had always been the pensions,' Mr. Wilhelm said. Throughout the strike, he complained that for unionized Yale workers who retired last year with 20 or more years of service, the average annual pension was just $7,452. Yale agreed to increase the pension formula by 35 percent. When that gain is combined with the 44 percent wage increase, by the end of the eight-year accord many retirees will receive pensions nearly twice the size of those under the old contract.
The Times also notes that "Yale officials said the cost of the contracts would not affect tuition, partly because Yale has an $11 billion endowment."
Posted by Invisible Adjunct at September 21, 2003 11:51 AMConservative students here, in trying to convince peers that the unions are bad news for students, tend to claim that union wages increase tuition and decrease financial aid. While pitting Yale workers and working class students against each other is politically savvy, it doesn't hold up empirically. Tuition amounts to less than a fifth of Yale's income, and union wages to a similarly small fraction of Yale's expenses. Yale is currently spending, for example, hundreds of millions of dollars a year on refurbishing residential colleges that, speaking as someone who lives in one, would be fine without it. YaleInsider has a useful breakdown of Yale's incomes and costs (www.yaleinsider.org). It's interesting to see the way that, now that Yale has settled contracts, the administration makes the point that the unions and many students have been making all along - Yale has a huge amount of money.
Posted by: Josh at September 21, 2003 08:50 PMThe Times also notes that "Yale officials said the cost of the contracts would not affect tuition, partly because Yale has an $11 billion endowment."
How much do you want to bet that this years increase will be accompanied by an explanation citing increased costs?
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at September 22, 2003 10:17 AM"How much do you want to bet that this years increase will be accompanied by an explanation citing increased costs?"
Nothing at all, because the odds would be against my winning the bet :)
They probably will raise tuition. And if so, they will almost certainly cite increased costs but without citing the $11 billion endowment.
Are there really 2900 clerical workers at Yale? How could that be possible? What would they all do?
David,
It does sound incredible. And yet I can well believe that figure. University administration is a growth field.
I doubt workers unions have a negative effect on studnts, that is excluding graduate student unions which potentially can be bad for students. That being said, I cant see why Yale students will benefit if the support staff have better pensions. Whats in it for the students?
Passing_through
Where else on the planet do clerks have pensions? Lowly paid jobs requiring a low level of skills aren't designed give someone a lifetime of job security and a retirement income. Why go to the expesne and trouble of graducating from UConn or Yale if you can live on a clerk's salary?
Posted by: Rachel at September 30, 2003 06:37 PM