On December 12, hundreds of New Haven students, workers, organizers and community members marched from downtown to demand that the jobs crisis in the city be resolved. The Yale system – Yale University, Yale-New Haven Hospital and the Yale Corporation – is being confronted by a growing movement of workers who are calling it out on the racist and exclusive practices in its hiring.
Instead of training and hiring workers who reside in the most economically oppressed neighborhoods of the city, Yale has exhibited a tendency to hire individuals who live in faraway suburbs and are not in as great a need of jobs as the hardest-hit New Haven communities are. Yale, which does not pay taxes to the city on much of its property, yet is able to profit by setting up high-end apartments, shopping areas and other establishments in New Haven, is being put on blast by youth and workers who have had enough of the gentrification and job exclusion.
The march on Saturday was led by a coalition of organizations, including GESO (Graduate Employees and Students Organization – a group that has been fighting for union recognition by the university for decades), New Haven Rising, UNITE HERE and other unions. It was attended and supported by people from a vast number of struggles. Some of the strongest and most prominent organizers at the event were young people – high school and college students, the generation whose financial future hangs so perilously in the balance in a time of growing unemployment.
Isabel Bate spoke at the rally preceding the march: “As teenagers growing up in this city, our futures are bleak. So many of our parents can’t get jobs. It’s hard to have hope that things will be different for us. How can a hospital system that raked in over $200 million in profit last year refuse to do more to solve this crisis?”
The wave of marchers, wearing matching “YALE NEW HAVEN HOSPITAL: SOLVE THE JOBS CRISIS!” placards, took the streets and made their way through the Hill neighborhood to the hospital itself. Together they chanted: “What do we want? Good jobs! When do we want them? Now!” and “1-2-3-4, jobs are what we’re marching for! 5-6-7-8, hospital – step to the plate!”
The march ended at a street near the hospital, where 134 organizers staged a sit-in to block traffic. They bravely refused to move despite police warnings and ultimately were arrested and cited. When asked why he was willing to get arrested in the struggle against the hospital’s hiring policies, Party for Socialism and Liberation member Chris Garaffa said: “I am proud to be one of the people arrested and cited for ‘creating a public disturbance’ in the struggle for good jobs, for GESO recognition and against the entire Yale system for its crimes against New Haven. If we don’t disturb, shut down and fight back, we’ll never win.”
Organizing to demand better jobs continues in New Haven and we are excited to be part of it.
