Thomas Breen file photo
YPD strike on the horizon?
The Yale police union has voted 51 – 0 to authorize a strike — as contract negotiations have hit an impasse over pay, drug testing, disability benefits, and timeframes for civilian complaints.
The union, formally known as the Yale Police Benevolent Association (YPBA), entered contract negotiations with Yale University in February 2023.
Yale Police Union President Mike Hall and union attorney Andy Matthews confirmed for the Independent that the strike authorization vote took place on Thursday. Matthews said the union hosted two separate meetings, and that all 51 of the union’s 66 members who showed up to vote cast their support for authorizing a strike.
Matthews said that the union’s last contract expired in July 2023. Click here to read about past disputes between the union and the university during this years-long contract fight.
“This union is strong and we’re willing to fight,” Hall told the Independent Friday. “We’ll see what happens this summer.”
While the vote does not mean a strike has been called, it allows union leadership to call for one over contract negotiations with Yale, which have been deadlocked since November 2024, when the university presented its last offer.
“Negotiations between Yale and YPBA have been ongoing since February 2023, and in November the university presented its last, best, and final offer, which would have ensured that Yale police officers remain the highest paid in Connecticut, among other benefits,” Yale spokesperson Karen Peart wrote in an email statement.
“However, union leadership has refused to engage in meaningful conversation in recent months and have insisted on untenable terms, such as significantly limiting the timeframe for civilians to submit a complaint and the scope of drug testing standards, leading to a deadlock in the negotiations.”
Peart also noted that the strike authorization requires that YPBA provide the university with a 30-day written notice that it intends to cancel its contract extension before it can engage in a lawful work stoppage.
“While the vote to authorize a strike is a disappointing development, the university’s priority during this time continues to be maintaining a safe and secure environment through enhanced campus safety protocols and partnerships,” Peart said.
Matthews pushed back on the university’s framing of contract negotiations and the dispute that led to the strike authorization vote on Thrusday.
At the top of the list of concerns for the union, Matthews said, is pay. “We have four years of inflation, a 19 percent inflation rate” during that time, he said. “Yale won’t move.” He said that past union contracts have included 3 percent raises “across the board” over the course of a multi-year deal. While the pay increase Yale agreed to for the first year of a new contract wound up being acceptable to the union, Matthews said, the pay raises in the “second, third, and fourth [years] are below where they need to be.”
Matthews said negotiations have also hit a snag around the union’s push for “a tax-free long-term disability, which we’ve told the employer we would even restrict to catastrophic line of duty issues,” like officers who are seriously injured after being shot or stabbed on the job.
Negotiations around that issue, however, have hit an “impasse.”
As for Yale’s reference to the “timeframe for civilians to make a complaint,” Matthews said there is currently no statute of limitations for when a civilian can make a complaint against a Yale police officer. He said Hamden’s police department has a 60-day statute of limitations in their contract.
“In most police departments, when someone wants to make a complaint, you take a sworn statement from them and tell them that the law says you can’t make a false statement to” a police officer, Matthews continued. The Yale police union is pushing for that to be the case in their contract, too.
Matthews said that he is not aware of the latest points of contention around drug testing provisions of the contract, as he has not negotiated that part of the deal. However, he said, Yale is “trying to exceed even what POST [the Connecticut Police Officer Standards and Training Council] requires. “Yale has a reputation for trying to be national trendsetters,” he said.
Hall, the union president, said that “no union would agree to [the] terms” that Yale put forward in its “last, best offer.”
The New Haven Register first reported the strike authorization vote on Friday.