I guess you could say I don't really give a damn about the strike. Which doesn't, as some of the more excitable people on campus contend, make one apathetic. I just do my best to mind my own business and try not to mind other people's when it's none of mine, which has nothing to do with apathy. But if not wanting to land on the next COPS: in New Haven over all this means you don't care, then one could definitely say I don't give a damn about the strike.
The only people in these shenanigans that ever mattered to me were Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln: as long as they would be arriving in my mailbox every Wednesday, the unions could form a dance troupe for all I cared. The irony of Local 35's strike is that it has provided the entire base of Local 35's only clientele-the Yale community-with the perfect opportunity to reach the same conclusion.
After all, the closing of the dining halls didn't hurl our worlds into chaos. The unbelievable lines and crowded restaurants we feared failed to materialize. Nothing became terribly inconvenient, no one starved, the sun still rose in the east and set in the west. For all the hype, the strike wasn't that big of a deal. The most significant change in most lives was probably a fatter wallet or a happier tummy. Despite the controversy and bad karma, we still ate. Because we were able to choose what we ate, we ate well. And, by God, we did it all for less than $105. Well, pretty close, anyway.
Local 35's fatal mistake may ultimately prove to be having allowed the Yale community to reclaim the cold hard cash they had been pre-paying for a week's worth of dining hall sustenance and giving them the opportunity to spend it better themselves. Suddenly, this wasn't just about the difference in some figure on a tuition bill that we'd already paid for the semester. It was about real money that we were having a good time spending. This is when people start thinking things like, "Gee, come to think of it, I never go to the dining hall 21 times a week. I bet I don't even make 14 some weeks. It's like I'm paying twice when I eat out. I wonder how much money that is?" It's obvious where this train of thought is heading. If these are really the questions that Local 35 wishes us to be asking, they could have simply plastered the campus with one simple query: "Hey! What would you do if you had FIVE DOLLARS for every time you don't go to the dining hall?"
Local 35, in its role of protector of the status quo, committed the cardinal sin: it let the masses experiment with change. This move was surely to the union's peril. While individual dining hall preferences may vary, it's generally accepted that under the current system Yale students aren't getting a very good deal. But then again, it isn't a bad deal. Which might have been good enough if only Local 35 hadn't afforded us all with the opportunity to imagine a better one.
John Helzer is a sophomore in Pierson.
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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