Christopher Peak Photo
Crowd Thursday night demanding Yale meet 1,000 local-jobs pledge.
For three years after graduating from Wilbur Cross, Carlos Hernandez has been trying to get a service job at Yale until he can afford to go back to school to study radiology. Though he has cooked in kitchens and cleaned in hospitals, Yale has rejected his applications.
For eight years, Jamie Schmidt has been trying to get a full-time job at Yale, just like the one that got her mom out of homelessness and into her own Winthrop Avenue home. After finishing a business degree and being told she’s still not qualified, Schmidt said she has tired of holding down multiple jobs while she hopes for a gig at Sterling Library to become permanent.
And for six months, Karen Harrison, a West Rock grandmother, has been trying to get back into a job in Yale’s Commons dining hall after her hours were cut. Her voice wavered and her hands shook as she told city alders that she didn’t know how she was going to survive.
“Today I am one of those that’s struggling,” Harrison said. “I’m one of the ones that’s going to have my lights turned out. I’m one of the ones that isn’t going to have food. I’m one of the ones that might not have heat or a roof over my head. I just wanted to be one of those who get good-paying jobs that they promised us.”
Carlos Hernandez: Hopes one day he won’t have to worry about bills.
Karen Harrison.
Those three workers joined dozens more on Thursday night in speaking out about how hard it has been to get a job at Yale University, the city’s biggest employer and landlord, despite the college’s commitment to hire hundreds of locals from New Haven’s poorest neighborhoods.
That happened at a public hearing in the aldermanic chambers on Thursday night, as Yale University officials reported to the Black & Hispanic Caucus on how close they were to keeping its local job-hiring promise.
In 2015, as protesters took to the streets against a “jobs crisis,” Yale promised to hire 1,000 city residents for permanent, full-time jobs over the next three years.
The university vowed that half of those hires would come from seven impoverished areas around the city: Fair Haven, the Hill, West River, Dwight, Dixwell, Newhallville and West Rock.
Click here for a copy of the agreement between Yale and the unions.
The deadline for that three-year commitment is approaching in April.
With five weeks to go, Yale is currently short in how many jobs it has provided to the so-called “neighborhoods of need.” It said it’s close. Union leaders argued that Yale’s low numbers are inflated — that they include people like some of Thursday night’s speakers who don’t really have full-time permanent jobs.
2,590 Drops To 880
Yale counted up 2,591 local hires over the last three years.
Janet Lindler: Our work is not done yet.
On Thursday night, Janet Lindner, the university’s vice-president for human resources and administration, said Yale has brought on 2,591 local hires over the last three years. Just under a quarter of them — 627 hires — came from the neighborhoods of need, she said, as the crowd muttered that there was no way the numbers were right.
Alders immediately questioned how many of those jobs are actually “permanent,” as promised.
Lindner said she’d exclude 1,431 post-docs, including 208 from the neighborhoods of need, from her count, because those jobs might not be renewed. That brought the totals down to 1,160 jobs, including 419 from the neighborhoods of need.
With the April deadline in mind, Lindner said that 90 dining and custodial staff from neighborhoods of need are currently working towards full-time union jobs too, which could put the university just over the finish line.
Alders Dolores Colon, Tyisha Walker-Myers and Richard Furlow.
But Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers, who is also a steward with Yale’s blue-collar UNITE HERE Local 35 union, said that she took issue with how construction work was counted. She said she thought subcontracted construction work should be excluded from the tally, because it was just a short-term gig for someone who already had the qualifications.
By that argument, Yale could count only 106 apprentices it hired, not 284 journeymen. That would lower the totals even further, down to 876 local hires, including 273 from the neighborhoods of need.
The signed agreement itself says that, “Any portion of these jobs may come from construction projects in coordination with the Building Trades and Yale University, provided the jobs are full time and on a permanent building trades apprentice track.”
Yale’s team watches from the front row.
Lindner read that to include journeymen too, but she tried to pull back from a debate about what jobs should be counted to the university’s larger commitment.
“We do not consider our work done,” Lindner said. “We are looking beyond April to really think of systemic changes.”
To reach more applicants in neighborhoods of need, Lindner said, the university plans to hold networking events and fund recruiting incentives, offer more positions in its in-house temp pool and its skilled trades apprentice program, form a committee to look for job opportunities in how it caters events, and build pipelines into local schools and colleges.
Laurie Kennington, the president of UNITE HERE’s Local 34 office workers and researchers union, said that the university needs to undertake a more “fundamental” shift in its hiring practices.
“The only question now is whether Yale will make fundamental changes to its hiring practices. Yale hired 1,000 people into our union alone over the last three years. so we are not asking the University to create jobs,” Kennington said. “We are asking that a fair share of the work stays local.”
Ongoing Jobs Crisis
Some of the 45 speakers testified hursday night.
Hundreds of city residents turned out for the four-and-a-half-hour marathon hearing to make their voices heard.
Leaning against the walls and sitting on the floor, they held signs that read, “HIRE US.” Dozens of people waited on line to sign up for a turn to speak.
Eventually, the chambers grew so packed that there wasn’t even standing room left, and a sound system had to be flipped on for latecomers who listened in from the atrium.
Beaver Hills Alder Brian Wingate, who is also a Local 35 member, said he couldn’t remember ever seeing so many people in that room.
What brought out so many people on a winter night? The 45 speakers, who testified for three minutes each, said that good-paying union jobs are a game-changer for the city.
To them, stable work comes as close as one can get to a cure-all: for gun violence, housing instability, overpriced healthcare and failing schools.
Marcy Moore, an activist with the youth group New Elm City Dream, said that a job could make “street shootings a thing of the past.”
Students from Gateway Community College and Southern Connecticut State University said a job could open up a path to home ownership to stay in their hometown.
And Sarah Miller, a member of the watchdog group NHPS Advocates, said that a job could allow a parent to join the PTO or advocate at the Board of Education.
That’s why the campaign for good jobs has been marching on since the days of the Civil Rights Movement, said the Dixwell pastor Kelcy Steele, echoing his Martin Luther King Day remarks holding Yale to its promise.
“My question to you, for our city and for Yale, is where will we be after the Apr. 1 deadline? Will we be on a path that’s moving our city forward by providing all of our residents with access to jobs, freedom and human dignity? Or will we again be looking at another opportunity lost and another closed door?” Steele asked. “Where will we be?”
Improving Economic Picture
Yale promised 500 jobs would go to seven neighborhoods of need, highlighted in red.
Over the last three years, the city’s economy has improved dramatically.
In December 2018, the state’s Department of Labor pegged New Haven’s unemployment rate at 3.9 percent. That’s down from 7.7 percent in June 2015, when union leaders said the city was in the midst of a “jobs crisis.”
According to the department’s calculations, about 2,500 city residents are currently looking for work.
But in their testimony, many speakers said that the “jobs crisis” didn’t feel like it was over in certain neighborhoods. They called on the university to be a better neighbor to the rest of the city, using its vast resources to hire more local talent, if it only had the willingness to do so.
“Instead of combatting the inequality in our community, Yale has, historically, actively perpetuated it. Yale has bought up a bunch of Dixwell to construct the new colleges and Science Park, displacing or destroying black and brown communities in an attempt to create a buffer for itself, and it gives jobs and opportunities to residents of the suburbs and the whiter, more affluent neighborhoods,” said Lorna Chitty, an undergrad at Yale and Ward 22’s co-chair.
“Each year, Yale gives a voluntary payment, last year reaching a high of $11 million; Yale is very proud of this payment. But to illustrate the scale of this payment, it’s important to know that Yale makes about [$6.03 million] every day alone from the university’s endowment returns,” Chitty went on. “What Yale actually owes the city is the hundreds of millions in taxes they owe. As it’s structured now, New Haven is paying for Yale to be here, not the other way around.”
Obviously Yale cant away with this anymore. Yale owns over 50% of the land and pays only 1/33 of the budget income. The school announced it made 91 million in profit this past year (YDN) I am sure YNHH also made a profit. We are waiting to see if Yale changes its hiring practices. How many times are we going to have to beg and plead for even a pittance from them while they lie to our faces. It's time to storm the castle.