The complaints of a recent dinner companion regarding the State of the Unions leads me to consider possible solutions to our current labor problems. My companion's position, as far as I could ascertain, was as follows:
1. We, the Yale undergraduate community, are entitled to certain services, including the cleaning of bathrooms and the washing of dishes.
2. We, the same Yale undergraduate community, are similarly entitled to lives without inconvenience, given that our lives are difficult enough as it is, what with papers and reading assignments and problem sets and so on.
3. The Unions (which I grant a capital letter on the grounds that they seem to have lives and identities of their own) are not entitled to excessive luxury, for the simple reason that the Union members have had less extensive educations than Yale undergraduates. This particular point was summarized by my companion's question, "Why should we pay for their trips to Paris?" (a city from which he had recently returned).
That, as far as I can remember, was the sum of his argument.
I confess that I did not give my rebuttal much effort. I did not say:
1. We, Yale undergraduates, will eventually have to wash our own dishes like everyone else in the world, and I see no harm in starting now.
2. I believe that the difficulty of feeding oneself, mitigated only by rather large dining hall rebates, pales in comparison to the difficulty of maintaining a comfortable standard of living and raising children on a salary that is significantly lower than any that most Yale seniors are considering accepting next year.
3. If we are entitled to trips to Paris, so is everyone else.
In the face of the economic truths we are confronted with, however, I grant that free trips to Paris all round do not seem to be in the offing. Therefore, I present my alternative plan for restructuring the Yale employment system.
The main point of contention for the Unions seems to be temporary labor and subcontracting. The University, on the other hand, objects that it is nearly impossible to fire anyone, and protests the expense of the current system. The students' main complaint remains the quality of dining hall food.
Various solutions have been suggested, including the employment of homeless people. This is naturally an impossible suggestion, because if they were given jobs they might be able to afford housing, which would mean they would no longer be homeless, and the University would have to find new workers. Fortunately the odds of this happening are low, as they would only be offered employment on a temporary basis.
The situation, in short, seems to consist of a large population of dissatisfied and hungry people, all of whom are stuck in New Haven since free tickets to Paris have still not materialized.
It is surprising that no one has thought of the answer sooner: all we have to do is simply eat the most vociferous of the Union members.
The benefits of this proposal should be obvious. First and foremost, the food situation would be at least temporarily solved, and all the hungry undergraduates would be made much happier. Almost equally importantly, with the rabble-rousers tossed into the stewpot, the main impetus for the strike would be removed, and the remaining union members would be too frightened to continue in their present course. Furthermore, there would be no need to give retirement benefits to the Unionists thus consumed, and this would satisfy the University.
The long-term implications of such a strategy are equally appealing. Any employee, union member or otherwise, whose performance was unsatisfactory, could simply be "relocated" into the nearest meat grinder. This would not constitute termination of employment, and thus would remain contractually unobjectionable and simultaneously save the University the cost of severance pay.
The results would be a quieter, more docile work force, a contented University Administration, and a far higher grade meat in the dining halls. On occasions when no union employee acted in an objectionable manner, we could simply eat a homeless person instead.
I believe that, given the proper set of explanations and adjustments, this plan will suit all parties involved quite nicely. Certainly the students will be happy, and God knows that's the most important part of this issue. After all, we have to spend four years in New Haven, whereas the local citizens could simply find other jobs down the road in Bridgeport.
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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