Friday, April 28, 2017

"Yale Grad Students Go on ‘Symbolic’ Hunger Strike Where They’re Allowed to Eat"

Via InstapunditA group of Yale University graduate students announced Tuesday evening that they would be undertaking a hunger strike to pressure the administration into granting them better union benefits. The strike is taking place in front of University President Peter Salovey’s home.

"Yale wants to make us wait and wait and wait … until we give up and go away," the eight members of the graduate student union Local 33 announced. "We have committed ourselves to waiting without eating."

Yale doctoral students currently earn a stipend $30,000 a year, receive free health care, and have their $40,000 tuition paid in full, according

As it turns out, the hunger strike might not put anyone's health in peril. According to a pamphlet posted on Twitter by a former Yale student, the hunger strike is "symbolic" and protesters can leave and get food when they can no longer go on.

(Link to more)

5 comments:

edutcher said...

The Student Union is a union?

That's weird.

Jim in St Louis said...

Is this collective bargaining or social justice blackmail? If the Union wants more equitable treatment from management, they should negotiate with management for whatever it is they want. AND if management refuses then they can strike and ask students and teachers and admin people not to cross their picket line. All perfectly fine with me.

But if this fake hunger strike is to guilt the admin into giving them benefits because otherwise the grad students will self harm (starve-not really) then it seems silly. Admin should wish them the best and f.u. very much.

I personally will be not-hunger striking in sympathy tonight at Gian-Tony's on the Hill, where I will be not-hunger-striking into a wonderful Pollo Alla Romana

ndspinelli said...

There is a history of union thuggish behavior @ Yale. The late Bart Giamatti was tough on them when he was President of Yale. This did not go unnoticed by the MLB owners when they hired him as commish.

ndspinelli said...

Pete Rose also learned Giamatti was no one to fuck with.

Leland said...

$70,000+ in compensation seems fairly generous. Yo, #OWS; you want to protest inequality and privilege, I know a place...

The sad thing is they are probably one in the same.