with the executive board of the unions to ensure fair wages and labor conditions for Yale employees.
"The only sure things in life are death, taxes, and hostile labor relations at Yale University," Bob Proto, president of the the Federation of University Employees and Local 35, said. For three years now, Proto has been managing the staff and working
with the executive board of the unions to ensure fair wages and labor conditions for Yale employees.
Proto has spent his life in New Haven. Proto was born in Fairhaven, attended East Haven High School, graduating in '74, and then attended the University of New Haven for a brief time before pursuing a trade. In 1974 he began his employment at Yale whe re he worked as a steam sitter, overseeing the heating and cooling of the University.
With all of the problems between Yale and the unions these days, Proto does not have much free time. What time he does have is dominated by watching his nine-year-old son, an ardent athlete, play soccer and basketball. "My son keeps me busy," Proto sa id. "I am basically a slave to his schedule."
Regarding the current troubles with the University's labor negotiations, Proto said he feels that there are no economic justifications for what the University is doing. He claimed the University is employing a straight union-bashing tactic, saying, "W e have been here long enough to know that the University is not negotiating in good faith." In Proto's opinion, the unions have worked too hard and too long to not obtain medical benefits and job security. The University has put issues of subcontracting o ut on the table, which, according to Proto, would mean "only four years of a job life-expectancy [for union members]" because the contract is only good for four years. The workers have struggled to maintain all that they have built up, and Proto said the University's failure to meet the unions' needs not only "disrupts the campus but lays a negative blanket on the University."
If the issues that remain up in the air are not addressed within the next two weeks by the University, "I can almost assure you that there is going to be a strike of Local 35, the maintenance and dining halls, after spring break, especially if the Uni versity continues to not negotiate in good faith," Proto said.
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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