Starting over the weekend, the eight fellows switched their diet to solely fruits and veggies to prepare their stomachs. The day before, they had only liquids. On Tuesday around 5 p.m., the group ceremonially downed final cups of “victory juice,” a tasty green blend, and swore off food indefinitely. Until Yale is willing to negotiate the first collective bargaining agreement, the student-teachers won’t ingest anything but water, they declared.
No solid food, no juice nor vitamin packets and “no coffee, disturbingly enough,” said another faster, Charles Decker, who’s in the political science department.
A few participants said they had fasted in the past for a 24-hour period for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. But otherwise, they didn’t have experience with hunger strikes. Wheelchairs are ready for when physical movement becomes difficult.
But none of the four student-teachers the Independent interviewed said they were willing to risk hospitalization. If not eating endangers a student’s health, that individual will sub out and another union member will assume their place in renouncing meals — a moveable fast, if you will.
Local 33’s organizers decided to escalate their protests this week after Yale twice ignored deadlines that the union had set to initiate contract negotiations following a unionizing election victory in some academic departments. Yale maintains that the union’s so-called “micro-unit” strategy of winning elections in six hand-picked academic departments prevented most doctoral students from expressing their opinion. The university is now pleading its case before the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., which has already ruled in favor of the union but could soon have a Trump-appointed union-buster in its two empty seats.
Until NLRB renders a decision, Yale said, any collective bargaining would be premature. In a written statement, the university called the fast “unwarranted by the circumstances.”
Hungry as they might have been, the fasting teaching fellows camped out on Beinecke Plaza Wednesday shot back at the university’s perceived foot-dragging
“Every time I speak out, Yale acts as if they can’t hear me or that they would prefer that I am invisible. So I am taking this action — this very physical action — to make sure my voice is heard,” Decker said. “If I have to wait a little while longer, I will, but I’m doing it without eating.”
