Labor

Lawsuit Seeks To Enforce Residency Requirements

by | Dec 12, 2023 9:06 am | Comments (36)

Clockwise: Dennis Serfilippi, Michael Gormany, Alex Pullen, and Justin Elicker.

A local financial consultant and recent Westville alder candidate is suing the city for keeping non-residents in New Haven’s top financial offices — and is pushing to push out the current controller and tax assessor in the name of improved municipal fiscal management and compliance with the city charter.

Mayor Justin Elicker has responded by pressing the importance of keeping the most qualified people in those jobs amid a shortage of applicants, and has denied that the city is violating the charter as his administration seeks to keep those finance roles filled.

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Grad Union Reaches Tentative Contract Agreement With Yale

by | Dec 8, 2023 4:51 pm | Comments (17)

Thomas Breen file photo

At a Local 33 rally on Hillhouse Ave.

Yale’s graduate teacher and researcher union has reached a tentative agreement with the university, which, if approved by a majority of its members, will grant the union its first ever contract — and will see PhD students receive at least 15 percent pay bumps and dental care, among other provisions.

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86,000 Job Matches Await

by | Nov 27, 2023 11:40 am | Comments (2)

Paul Bass Photo

Marcia LaFemina, Yolanda Caldera-Durant, Ann Harrison at WNHH FM.

Some 86,000 jobs are going begging in Connecticut, many of them paying a living wage and not requiring a college degree. Thousands of people without college degrees need those jobs. So put those people in the jobs — simple, right?

Not so simple.

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Childcare, Early Ed Get $3.5M City Boost

by | Oct 25, 2023 12:50 pm | Comments (4)

Thomas Breen file photo

At Georgia Goldburn's Hope Child Development Center in October 2022.

More early childcare providers, higher wages for those teaching the city’s toddlers, and better help for parents struggling to find the right daycare or pre‑K for their kids.

Those are some changes that could happen here in New Haven, now that the city has committed $3.5 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to help its struggling childcare system — so long as providers come through with proposals about how to spend the money. 

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Department Head Pay Raises Approved

by | Oct 18, 2023 2:00 pm | Comments (1)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

Majority Leader Furlow (center) at Monday's Board of Alders meeting.

The city’s top employees are set to make more money and hopefully see more job competition — now that the Board of Alders has approved salary range bumps and automatic cost of living adjustments for department heads, coordinators, and managers not covered by public-sector unions.

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Opinion: Where Did All The Cops Go?

by and | Oct 3, 2023 12:44 pm | Comments (72)

Christopher Peak file photo

Former Police Chief Anthony Campbell (right) with recruits at the academy in 2018.

Over the past year, the New Haven Police Department has worked in earnest to re-establish community policing, dismantle bias in its policies and practices, and hold itself accountable for mistakes. At the same time, one of the most frequent complaints we receive as Alders is: we called the police and it took forever for them to come.

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Department Head Pay Raises Advance

by | Sep 29, 2023 12:15 pm | Comments (5)

Yash Roy photo

Gormany and Matteson at Thursday's Finance meeting.

The Elicker administration won a key initial vote of support for its plan to increase pay for department heads, coordinators, and other non-unionized managers, as an aldermanic committee endorsed salary range bumps and cost of living adjustments in an effort to ward off even more City Hall vacancies.

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AFT Prez Gets Hands-On Education At Cross

by | Sep 27, 2023 6:27 pm | Comments (10)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

Randi Weingarten (right) helps a student laminate and cut a school sign in the Wilbur Cross print shop.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten returned to New Haven — a decade after helping turn the city into a national model for school reform — and lauded Wilbur Cross High School as a potential leader in hands-on schooling amid a new era of learning loss.

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Tenants, Labor Unite Against Eviction Notices

by | Aug 31, 2023 8:30 am | Comments (55)

Thomas Breen photos

At Wednesday's anti-eviction rally ...

... and march from City Hall up Whitney Ave.

Powered by the vocal support of elected officials and labor organizers — and by their own cheers of up with the tenants” and down with the slumlords” — renter activists and allies took to the streets to protest a raft of recent eviction notices that they critiqued as union-busting retaliation.

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First-Years Welcomed To Fear City Yale

by | Aug 22, 2023 3:44 pm | Comments (62)

Thomas Breen photos

Mayor Elicker, with the Yale police union handout in his left hand and the 1975 "Fear City" flyer in his right: This is "unbelievably offensive."

Yale first-years Hunter Robbins, Amber Nobriga, Lisa Chou, and Shukraat Adesina give mixed-to-negative reviews of the Yale police union's "Welcome to Yale" survival guide flyer.

Yale’s police union helped introduce first-year students and their families to New Haven this weekend with death-decorated flyers warning them not to go out after dark, to stay on campus, and to avoid using public transportation — inspiring the mayor and a host of top city and Yale officials to denounce the apparent contract negotiation ploy as shameful” and unbelievably offensive.” 

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Elicker, Walker-Myers Embrace Unexpected Alliance

by | Aug 18, 2023 11:46 am | Comments (15)

Thomas Breen photo

Prez Walker-Myers, with Mayor Elicker: "You probably never thought I'd be here doing this ... But today is your day."

Mayor Justin Elicker and Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers traded words of praise — and even a hug — as the two city leaders stood side by side, to their own surprise, and encouraged local labor advocates to help keep the same team” in office for the next two years.

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Butt-Dial-Gate: Consider It Closed

by | Aug 11, 2023 12:37 pm | Comments (0)

File photos

Clockwise from top left: Fire Chief John Alston, Assistant Chief Orlando Marcano, Assistant Chief Mark Vendetto, and Fire Union President Frank Ricci.

A state judge has ruled against a former assistant fire chief in his years-old lawsuit accusing the department’s head and several ex-coworkers of hostile treatment — after Fire Chief John Alston’s argument that a leaked butt-dial caused the employee no real harm other than hurt feelings and a bruised ego” won judicial support.

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Local 34 Endorses Elicker, Alder Incumbents

by | Jul 25, 2023 10:16 am | Comments (9)

Laura Glesby file photo

Mayor Justin Elicker.

One of Yale’s politically powerful labor unions has thrown its support behind Mayor Justin Elicker in his bid for another term in office, praising his administration for its support for tenants unions, investment in affordable housing, and successful securing of more money for the city from Yale and the state.

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Cop Commission Q: How Much To Replace Broken Glasses?

by | Jul 18, 2023 9:26 am | Comments (1)

Mia Cortés Castro Photo

Board of Police Commissioners weighs the specs question.

Officer Evan Kelly and Det. Paul Vakos won’t have to dip into their own pockets to cover the full costs of replacing two pairs of eyeglasses each has broken over the past year while on the job for the New Haven Police Department.

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Whalley Social-Service Job Hunters Seek A "Fresh Start"

by | Jul 10, 2023 9:35 am | Comments (1)

Asher Joseph photo

At Friday's Community Action Agency job fair.

Milani Glass and her family once turned to the Community Action Agency of New Haven (CAANH) for help making ends meet. She’s now the Whalley Avenue social service hub’s health literacy and outreach coordinator. 

On Friday, Glass sought to help recruit future colleagues-to-be at a job fair focused on available work at her former lifeline-turned-current employer.

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