Yale and Local 33 Agree on Union Election Date and Voter Eligibility

 

by Megan Vaz, Yale Daily News, Nov. 16, 2022 

After weeks of negotiation between Yale and Local 33, the National Labor Relations Board has set official dates, terms and eligibility rules for the graduate and professional worker union election. 

The election — the product of decades of Local 33 organizing on campus, including the collection of thousands of union authorization signatures over the past year — will occur on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. Eligible voters, as deter-mined by the NLRB, will decide through a simple majority vote whether or not to form a collective bargaining unit with University recognition. 

“I’m glad that the Yale administration is listening to the will of graduate workers and allowing us to proceed with our election with no delays,” Javier Porras Madero GRD ’26 wrote in a Local 33 press release. “I can’t wait to cast my vote to win a union for myself and my coworkers!”

University spokesperson Karen Peart affirmed to the News that the University is satisfied with the settled election terms. Peart also wrote that University Provost Scott Strobel “has encouraged graduate and professional school students to take an active role in weighing the issues involved in unionization,” including in a previous statement shared with the community. 

Just three weeks ago, the union filed an official petition with the signed authorization of three-quarters of eligible voters. Four days later, the University announced it would hold a recognized election for the first time, as federal labor law requires employers to respond to petitions within two weeks.

After a few short weeks of election term negotiations, which included hearings over voter eligibility and an agreement to accept both manual and mail-in ballots, the University and Local 33 will now prepare for their first-ever union election. 

Although Local 33 has spent the past three decades organizing for a union, the finalization of election terms this week marks the closest the group has ever come to official unionization.