By LAURA GLESBY | New Haven Independent
Days after Yale graduate student-workers officially won union recognition in a landslide election, a local labor coalition celebrated that victory while rallying in in honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s vision of working class justice.
One hundred New Haven Rising and UNITE HERE labor organizers and allies filled the pews of Varick A.M.E. Zion Church on Dixwell Avenue Monday evening for that annual MLK Day event. While attendance was capped for the purposes of social distancing, an additional 200 attendees watched on Zoom..
The group gathered for New Haven Rising’s annual “Keeping King’s Dream Alive” rally, during which local labor leaders and rank and file union members and union-supporting elected officials remembered the words and work of Dr. King while reflecting on another year of union activism in New Haven.
Dr. King “didn’t do a good thing one time,” said Stephanie Greenlea, the executive assistant to UNITE HERE’s secretary treasurer. “He didn’t do a hard thing one time.”
In Greenlea’s eyes, the election to give Local 33 negotiating power on behalf of Yale graduate students culminated 30 years of doing hard things — of not simply organizing standalone protests, but also of building activism into the daily rhythm of life.
Greenlea participated in the latter 17 of those 30 years of graduate student organizing. She pursued a PhD in African American studies and sociology at Yale before getting a job working full-time in the labor movement.
During that time, Local 33 fought for better employment conditions for students, Greenlea said on Monday night — for “work with dignity, fair wages, respect” — while agitating in solidarity with workers across the university and for city residents affiliated with Yale — for “a neighborhood that is safe, a community that is thriving, a planet that is healing.”
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