Thomas Breen photos
Brandon Felder and Tyisha Walker-Myers.
Tyisha Walker-Myers and Brian Wingate are facing a reelection challenge — not for their positions on the Board of Alders, but for their leadership posts in Yale’s blue-collar union.
Walker-Myers, a West River alder and president of the Board of Alders, and Beaver Hills Alder Brian Wingate are running for reelection to those political posts with no opposition this year.
But they face the union challenges on Oct. 23, when UNITE HERE Local 35 holds leadership elections.
Wingate serves as vice-president of Local 35. Karen Young is challenging him for that position.
Walker-Myers serves as chief steward for the politically powerful union. She is being challenged by Brandon Felder, a cook’s helper and third-generation Yale union member. (Walker-Myers has also worked as a cook’s helper.)
The union supports a majority of current Board of Alders members, including Walker-Myers and Wingate.
Local 35 President Bob Proto is running unchallenged in his bid to remain the topmost figure in the Yale blue-collar union.
“A Person Of Integrity”
Markeshia Ricks file photo
Walker-Myers helming a Board of Alders meeting.
A West River alder who has served as the president of the local legislature since 2015, Walker-Myers is running for a third two-year term as Local 35’s chief steward.
That’s the union-wide position most responsible for encouraging union member participation, educating members about contract rights and benefits, and handling workplace grievances and other problems.
In a phone interview with the Independent on Monday, Walker-Myers cited her two decades of experience in the union and the multitude of labor leadership positions she has held during that time, including shop steward, chief steward, secretary treasurer, and executive board member, as key to helping the union succeed in upcoming contract negotiations with the university. Local 35’s current contract expires in 2022.
“I’m a person of integrity,” Walker-Myers said. “I fight for a contract with integrity. I’m steady. I know how to bring people together. And I’m very direct. You never have to guess when it comes to me. I’m going to give you the tools necessary to succeed.”
She said her top priorities if reelected would be continuing to fight for the benefits that make union jobs at Yale so desirable for so many New Haven residents: good pay, high-quality, low-cost healthcare, defined pension plans, retiree medical benefits, and “a voice at the table” in contract negotiations and day-to-day workplace matters.
“Those are the things that are really important to a union,” she said, “and those are the things that I think people should have when they have worked for a long period of time for an employer.”
As her proudest accomplishments from her first two terms as chief steward, she cited fighting for the rehiring of people who have been terminated from their jobs to helping craft a new agreement with the university to establish an apprenticeship program that will train New Haven residents to be cook’s helpers and cooks.
Walker-Myers herself works full-time as a cook’s helper at Yale, where she has been an employee since 1998.
Other priorities for a prospective third term, she said, include “bringing the younger generation more into the fold” and “figuring out how to engage the younger generation to make sure that they feel like they’re a part of this process.”
We’re all a part of the union family, she said about Local 35 members. Everyone should feel empowered to advocate for themselves and their fellow workers when in Local 35.
Walker-Myers added that the negotiating and organizing and analytical skills she’s honed over her two decades with the union and in her role as chief steward have made her that much more of an effective legislator and board president at City Hall.
“People Need To Feel That The Union’s Got Their Back”
Felder, a 30-year-old cook’s helper and shop steward at Grace Hopper College, has worked at the university for seven years.
He has Local 35 in his blood, and in his family tree.
In an interview with the Independent on Monday, Felder said he’s running for the local labor leadership position because he has seen firsthand how union benefits have improved Felders’ lives for generations.
His grandfather moved to New Haven from the South decades ago to work as a Local 35 pot washer in Yale’s dining halls, he said. He eventually worked his way up to first cook, including for the secret society Scroll and Keys.
His father, his aunt, and three of his uncles all currently work at the university and are Local 35 members, he said.
Collectively, the Felders have over 250 years’ worth of Local 35 experience. A graduate of Career High and a resident of Fairfield Street in upper Westville, he credited the union with providing a stable, high quality of life for his family through contract-guaranteed fair pay, healthcare coverage, and retirement benefits.
“I used to say I owe Yale University a lot,” Felder said. Now, he lays that credit as much, if not more, with Local 35, which he described as fighting tooth and nail over the years for every benefit he and his colleagues currently enjoy.
Felder also said he is running for chief steward because he feels that the current leadership is not doing an adequate job in communicating workers’ rights to the union’s members.
“Listening to people, engaging with people,” educating people about the contract and about their rights as Local 35 members are his top priorities, he said.
Over the course of his campaign, he said, he’s printed out copies of the contract and distributed them in person to members who had previously never read the document and knew little about it. He’s also brought his campaign online to Facebook, where he posts regularly about the election and various aspects of the contract and union rights.
He said he has also heard concerns from fellow members about current leadership’s responsibilities to both the union and the Board of Alders.
“It’s conflicting,” Felder said about Walker-Myers’ and Wingate’s roles as both alders and Local 35 leaders.
He said union leadership should be first and foremost focused on Local 35 matters, and not on city responsibilities that might prove to be a distraction.
He described Walker-Myers as a mentor and as someone who has always been a resource within the union for him and his family.
But, he said, he has heard from too many other members eager to have a change in leadership at the top. He said he feels compelled to run, and is optimistic about his chances.
“People need to feel that the union’s got their back,” he said.
Tyisha Walker-Myers is an excellent stewart and she should not be challenged. This is that local machine creeping in and trying to make her pay for supporting our mayor. This young man will probably some day move up in the ranks of a union because his family has risen from union. It is sad that he has been mislead to try and do this. Dirty games these people play. Teaching ths young man who has no experience to challenge a successful incumbent is terrible. This is not guiding him and this is divisive. May Walker-Myers triumph and then take this young man out to lunch to let him know how things are supposed to work!