Yale Grad Union Ratifies 1st Contract

(Updated) Yale’s graduate teachers and researchers voted to ratify their first ever union contract with the university by a tally of 1,705 to 10 — making official a new five-year agreement that will see PhD students get at least 15 percent pay bumps and dental insurance, among other provisions.

UNITE HERE spokesperson Ian Dunn and Yale spokesperson Karen Peart confirmed that local labor news in a joint statement on Saturday evening. 

“Today, after nine months of good-faith negotiations between the university and UNITE HERE — Local 33, Yale graduate workers voted to ratify a five-year contract effective through July 31, 2028,” that statement reads. ​“In the coming days, Local 33 and the university will each reach out to those affected by the contract with further details.”

Voting took place on Friday and Saturday, with likely an estimated 3,200-plus teaching fellows and research assistants from an array of Yale graduate programs eligible to vote. 

Dunn told the Independent the final vote was 1,705 in support to 10 against. Local 33 posted on X, formally known as Twitter, to celebrate the results of the contract ratification vote at 5:13 p.m.

Saturday’s contract ratification marks the culmination of more than three decades of efforts by Yale graduate students and workers to try to form a union and collectively bargain with the university.

See below for a previous version of this article, published on Friday afternoon.

Voting Begins For 1st Yale Grad Contract

Yale’s graduate teachers and researchers started voting on Friday whether or not to ratify their union’s first ever contract with the university.

Fifth-year earth and planetary sciences PhD student Alex Ruebenstahl was happy to support the labor accord — in no small part because of its provision of dental insurance for Yale graduate workers. ​“I’m excited for someone to look at my teeth,” he said with a smile. It’s been a minute.

Ruebenstahl cast his vote in support of UNITE HERE Local 33’s proposed contract with the university at around noon Friday at the union’s headquarters-turned-polling place at 425 College St.

Polls are open for Yale graduate workers to vote in support of or against the graduate worker union deal on Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The vote comes a week after Local 33 and Yale University announced that they had come to a tentative agreement on a five-year contract that would last through July 31, 2028. If approved, PhD students will receive at least 15 percent pay bumps and dental care and international students will receive increased financial support related to immigration and visa issues, among other benefits.

Click here to read a previous article about the agreement, and here to read a 20-page summary of the contract now up for a ratification vote. Friday’s start to voting marked the latest milestone in a three-decade long effort by Yale graduate students to form a union and collectively bargain with the university, and comes after Local 33 won recognition as Yale’s graduate worker union in January.

Ruebenstahl showed up to the polls on Friday with fellow earth and planetary sciences PhD student Elly Goetz. Both cited dental insurance and more pay as being at the top of the list of contract terms they’re most excited about. 

“The raise is huge,” Goetz said, translating to around an $8,000 bump. As the cost of living in New Haven has only gone up and up in recent years, this pay increase should make living in the city easier.

First-year Yale architecture school grad student Yanbo Li (pictured) agreed. He recalled attending Yale as an undergrad back in 2016, and being on campus for the start of this latest push by graduate workers — then recently renamed Local 33 — to form a union, including by going on a hunger strike on Wall Street. 

He said that January’s overwhelming vote for union recognition and Friday’s kickoff to contract ratification voting was a testament to how pro-labor sentiment is on the rise, across the country and on Yale’s campus, as more and more people see the material benefits around pay, healthcare, and other workplace protections that come with being a part of a union.

A half-dozen other Yale grad workers the Independent spoke with outside of the polls on Friday also expressed their unequivocal support for the deal. Chemistry PhD students Tom Regan and Gary Yan cited ​“more pay, more time off,” and visa support for international students as big pluses. A biological anthropology PhD student named Samantha described the raises included in the contract as ​“amazing;” same goes for the establishment of a retirement savings plan for union members.

“Dental insurance and more pay,” one PhD student in the sciences who asked to remain anonymous said about why he voted yes on Friday. He paused to reconsider his answer. Well, flip those reasons: More pay and dental insurance, in that order and not the other way around, were why he voted yes.

UNITE HERE spokesperson Ian Dunn told the Independent that Local 33’s contract will be approved if a majority of those who vote on Friday and Saturday vote in support.

And how many people are eligible to vote? And who are they?

The answer to those questions is a little more complicated. In response to the second question, Dunn said, ​“Anyone who is enrolled or on leave from Yale who was eligible to vote in our NLRB recognition election last year, who is currently working in a bargaining unit position, who worked in a bargaining unit position in the last year, who will be working in a bargaining unit position next semester, or who will be required to work in a bargaining unit position at some point in their program can vote.” 

Roughly 3,214 people were eligible to vote in that NLRB recognition election, which was open to teaching fellows and research assistants at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Management, the School of Music, the School of Medicine, and in other professional degree programs. It was not open to teaching fellows at Yale’s Drama School, the School of the Environment, and a host of other campus graduate workers. (Click here to read a detailed breakdown of the complicated rules around who could vote, who couldn’t, and who could cast a contested ballot in that union election. And click here to read the rules for that election as agreed upon by Yale and the union.)

In a joint statement released on Dec. 8 about Local 33 and Yale reaching a tentative contract agreement, Dunn and Yale spokesperson Karen Peart described the accord as ​“an important milestone” in the relationship between the university and the new union.