| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Yale workers may strike as school begins
Story Tools
BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- With students returning to school this week, thousands of Yale University employees are threatening to strike over demands for better pensions, higher wages and job security, a union spokesman said Tuesday. In what would be the ninth strike in the past 10 contract negotiations since 1968, secretaries, technicians, researchers and cafeteria employees may walk off the job at 12:01 a.m. EDT Wednesday. "Yale is way behind other peer institutions," said Bill Meyerson, a spokesman for the Federations of Hospital and University Employees, adding a clerical employee at Harvard earns 57 percent more than his counterpart at Yale. "The problem with the negotiations is that Yale doesn't negotiate," Meyerson said, putting the standstill down to the university's "arrogance" and adding that it lacked "a tradition of democracy." Yale defended its benefits, which include free health care, a no-contribution pension plan and education aid. Harvard requires its employees to pay a premium for health care. "We are always willing to negotiate," said Yale spokesman Tom Conroy. "We have offered a superb contract to our workers." Union negotiators and Yale have so far agreed on wage increases ranging from 3 percent to 5 percent in the first two years of the new contract, but are at a standstill on hikes as high as 7 percent in the longer term. The union is also asking Yale to double its retirement program, which pays $621 a month to workers with more than 20 years on the job. Meyerson said the union's demands could be easily met since the pension plan is currently running a $200 million surplus. Conroy said the surplus fluctuates since the money is kept in an investment fund and added that the university has offered to hike pension benefits by about one-third. Copyright 2003 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
