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From the New York Times

Union Organizers to Air Complaints Against Yale
The New York Times - By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

September 3, 2003

The group seeking to unionize graduate students at Yale announced yesterday that a former labor secretary and a former general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board would serve on a committee investigating whether Yale administrators or professors broke the law while fighting the unionization drive.

The fact-finding committee being formed by the union-organizing group will be headed by Fred Feinstein, who was the labor board's chief counsel from 1994 to 1999, and its members will include Robert B. Reich, who was secretary of labor in President Clinton's first term.

Leaders of the Graduate Employees and Students Organization, which is seeking to unionize 2,100 graduate students at Yale, claim that illegal intimidation by some Yale faculty members contributed heavily to the pro-union forces' narrowly losing a unionization vote last April.

Several graduate students said that a few science professors had threatened to retaliate against them if they went on strike or engaged in pro-union talk in science buildings.

"There's been a very systematic anti-union campaign, with legal and illegal practices," said Anita Seth, chairwoman of the graduate employees' organization.

But several graduate students said that the graduate employees' group, known as GESO, lost the unionization vote because many students thought the group's campaign was too aggressive and heavy-handed.

Yale officials denied there had been any improper or illegal intimidation, and they criticized the creation of the fact-finding committee. They said any allegations of impropriety should be examined by the National Labor Relations Board and not by an unofficial committee.

"This is inappropriate and unnecessary," said Helaine Klasky, a Yale spokeswoman. "Yale does not countenance improper intimidation by Yale faculty."

On Sept. 20, the new fact-finding board will hold a hearing at which, union supporters say, several Yale graduate students will testify about improper threats made by Yale faculty members. The board will also look into allegations of pressure or threats during unionization efforts at Cornell, Brown and Columbia.

"They asked us to listen to their story and their version of what's going on," said Mr. Feinstein, who is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs. "Some of us will then endorse some report with recommendations." He said it was his understanding that Yale administrators would be invited to the Sept. 20 hearing.

GESO officials pointed to an affidavit by David Sanders, a graduate student, who said a biochemistry professor had told him, `If you or anybody else in this lab goes on strike, I'll kick you out of this lab."

Another graduate student, Maris Zivarts, said a biology professor had warned that Yale's science departments could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants if the graduate students unionized.

From New York Times - September 3, 2003
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