by | Feb 7, 2025 7:24 pm | Comments (5)
Zachary Groz Photo
Mayor and union prez Cotto haven't always seen eye-to-eye.
In a matter of minutes, with two strokes of a pen, a contract that had taken the city over two years to finalize with the police union was finally made official Friday afternoon.
Continue reading ‘Mayor, Union Prez Ink 6-Year Police Contract’
by | Feb 5, 2025 1:01 pm | Comments (25)
UNITE HERE Prez Gwen Mills: The struggle begins in New Haven.
Standing room only in Dixwell's Trinity Temple.
Zachary Groz Photos
Marks addresses the thousand gathered, pushing for Yale and elected officials to back the working class.
“It feels like a boom is happening in this city,” thundered Rev. Scott Marks to a roaring crowd of 1,000 New Haveners overflowing the pews, hugging the walls, and huddling criss-cross on the floors of Trinity Temple Church of God in Christ (COGIC) on Dixwell Avenue Tuesday night.
“But my question is: It’s a boom for whom?”
by | Jan 23, 2025 10:33 am | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photo
Detective Leonardo Soto, NHPD's longest-serving "special victims" investigator.
The phone awakened Det. Chris Boyle around midnight. His supervisor, Sgt. Cherelle Carr, was calling with a sad story: an 11-month-old baby had overdosed and stopped breathing in an Exchange Street basement apartment.
by | Jan 17, 2025 11:23 am | Comments (5)
Leslie Blatteau at WNHH FM: “If our students have stable housing, our job is going to be less hard in the classroom.”
Leslie Blatteau noticed that 70 percent of New Haven’s teachers live in the suburbs — and saw an opportunity to boost state-level support for New Haven’s schools.
by | Jan 10, 2025 12:41 pm | Comments (5)
Rosado, in 2012.
Miguel Rosado can still remember being a first-grader at Hill Central and marveling at city firefighters as they visited his school for “Fire Prevention Month” to show off a fire engine, climb a ladder, and talk about their work keeping the city safe.
Now the native New Havener is in a position to influence a future generation of potential homegrown firefighters — as well as advocate for his 250-plus colleagues already in the department — as the new president of the city’s firefighters union.
by | Jan 9, 2025 7:10 pm | Comments (7)
Maya McFadden Photos
At 54 Meadow: "We are the union... the mighty, mighty union!"
Vereen: "I really didn't think it was going to take this long."
After a full day of preparing students’ meals, John C. Daniels School lead cafeteria cook Latasha Vereen added a coat and scarf to her uniform and headed to the school district’s headquarters — to rally for a new contract and a living wage for public school food service workers.
by | Jan 8, 2025 2:59 pm | Comments (3)
Nathaniel Rosenberg photo
Jesenia Rodriguez and Frank Douglass: Too many rides, not enough pay.
The riders: five stars. The gig: not so much.
(Hartford) Dwight Alder Frank Douglass and a dozen fellow rideshare drivers from across Connecticut got behind the wheel Wednesday morning — to drive up to the state Capitol and push for higher pay and greater protections from what they say are exploitative practices by Uber and Lyft.
by | Jan 3, 2025 9:38 am | Comments (4)
Maya McFadden Photo
Porto working as building manager during the school day ...
Contributed photo
... and as Wilbur Cross softball coach after class.
Andrew Porto takes pride in his daily work keeping preschool classrooms and hallways clean on Goffe Street — before heading across town to coach Wilbur Cross’s softball team.
“This job has been great to me,” he said during a recent interview about his three decades as a New Haven custodian and his two decades as a mentor for public school athletes. And there’s so much more he still wants to do.
by | Dec 4, 2024 3:40 pm | Comments (11)
Maya McFadden Photo
NHFT President Leslie Blatteau and Vice President Jenny Graves re-elected for another term.
Leslie Blatteau has officially won a second three-year term as the president of the teachers union — after running in an uncontested election conducted entirely by email, except for a single paper ballot.
by | Nov 22, 2024 10:53 am | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen file photo
School snow to be removed by contractors, only.
New Haven Public School (NHPS) has hired three outside contractors for snow removal this winter — thereby icing out the custodial union from the cold season lineup, due to the district’s current lack of working in-house snow plow vehicles.
Continue reading ‘Schools Assign All Snow Removal Work To Outside Contractors’
by | Nov 20, 2024 1:55 pm | Comments (5)
Paul Bass Photo
Chief Jacobson at WNHH FM: "I think we're having an upward swing."
Karl Jacobson is cheering, not ruing, the latest police recruitment and retention numbers.
That could mean more cops on the streets in New Haven doing more work with the community.
Continue reading ‘Policing "Pendulum Swing" Buoys The Chief’
by | Nov 20, 2024 8:21 am | Comments (3)
Jabez Choi photos
Ari D.: “I really want to do something that makes a difference."
Ari D. took a step towards making a hoped-for career change from working with cars to working with doctors and patients — as she joined 20 fellow New Haveners for a Dixwell info session about all-remote, customer-service “caller” jobs at the Yale Medicine CARE Center.
by | Nov 19, 2024 12:07 pm | Comments (10)
Laura Glesby file photo
Ismail Abdussabur: Looking forward to "more time at home."
The Board of Alders unanimously approved a long-awaited, six-year police union contract — to applause from an audience of police officers who have worked for two years without a contract.
by | Nov 15, 2024 2:47 pm | Comments (6)
Maya McFadden photo
Bohannon, on the job 27 years and counting: "I make myself available to make the ship run smooth."
Kindergarteners greeted Benjamin Jepson Building Manager Mark Bohannon with hugs and fist bumps as the school’s top custodian prepared to escort them from the gym to their classrooms — as part of a daily morning ritual that goes well beyond taking out the trash.
But it includes plenty of that, too.
by | Nov 4, 2024 2:06 pm | Comments (15)
Nora Grace-Flood File Photo
Teachers union Prez Blatteau: Running uncontested for 3 more years.
The polls are now open for the New Haven teachers union elections — and first-term incumbent President Leslie Blatteau is running unopposed at the top of the ticket.
by | Oct 1, 2024 3:34 pm | Comments (29)
File photos
Police union Prez Cotto and Mayor Elicker: Deal reached, ratification vote to come.
The Elicker administration and the police union have reached a tentative agreement on a new six-year contract that would increase salaries by 25 percent over the term of the deal.
Continue reading ‘City, Police Union Reach Tentative 6-Year Contract’
by | Sep 29, 2024 10:32 am | Comments (0)
Jabez Choi file photo
Local 217's Josh Stanley: This new contract "respects [workers'] hard work and dedication."
Two weeks after going on a four-day strike, unionized Omni hotel workers have ratified a new four-year contract.
by | Sep 23, 2024 4:18 pm | Comments (7)
Laura Glesby Photo
Harold Jones, in the "flow" scooping early fall leaves in Upper Westville.
“You can’t work with a cluttered mind,” said Harold Jones as he de-cluttered the Ijeh family’s front yard — on a job outing where stories of incarceration and reentry, witnessed and experienced from different angles, had a chance to intersect.
by | Sep 18, 2024 6:42 pm | Comments (0)
Jabez Choi file photo
Omni workers during the recent 4-day strike.
Omni managers met with union leaders and workers in a second-floor conference room at the downtown hotel Wednesday to continue negotiating a new contract — and to try to avoid another workplace walkout.
Continue reading ‘Contract Negotiations Resume After Strike’
by | Sep 18, 2024 5:28 pm | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen photo
Judge Wax-Krell: "The plaintiffs were unfortunately let down by everyone who they trusted to get them the raises they were promised."
A state judge threw out a lawsuit filed by two retired city workers on the grounds that the Board of Alders dropped the ball when trying to provide those unionized employees with a pay bump — outside of the collective bargaining process.
by | Sep 18, 2024 9:28 am | Comments (9)
Maya McFadden Photo
Tom DeLucia (right) with fellow Local 287 employees: "The situation was never good, but the last two years have been truly deplorable."
Local custodian union President Tom DeLucia is calling on the Board of Education to rid New Haven of private companies for building and facilities maintenance in order to improve repairs at decaying schools across the district.
Continue reading ‘Custodial Union Prez: Stop With The Private Contractors’
by | Sep 16, 2024 9:33 am | Comments (13)
Jabez Choi photos
Scabby the Rat joins the picket line.
Jabez Choi file photo
Local 217 Sec-Treasurer Josh Stanley: "We couldn't be prouder of each other."
More than 120 Omni hotel workers have put down their picket signs and gone back to work — without a new contract, but with a message sent to management that they’re “willing to do whatever it takes to win.”
by | Sep 13, 2024 1:10 pm | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen / Maya McFadden file photos
NHPS Supt. Negrón (right) to fired I.T. boss (left): "You took no steps whatsoever to ensure BOE was protected from cyberattacks."
(Updated) The Board of Education’s I.T. network was “among the worst” a cybersecurity contractor had ever seen — and New Haven Public Schools’ (NHPS) top tech safety official misrepresented the work she had done to protect the district from future cyberattacks following a $6 million hack.
Those sharp rebukes are included in a three-page termination letter sent by NHPS Supt. Madeline Negrón to Gildemar Herrera. The letter offers the first publicly available insight into why the district fired its I.T. director, who also serves as a municipal union president.
Continue reading ‘Termination Letter Cites Cybersecurity Failures’
by and | Sep 12, 2024 7:59 am | Comments (32)
Jabez Choi photo
Strike! At the Omni on Temple St.
Over 120 housekeepers, front desk agents, cooks, and other employees at the Omni Hotel went on strike early Thursday morning, amid an ongoing contract fight over better pay, healthcare, and pensions.
by | Sep 11, 2024 12:00 pm | Comments (2)
After a summer of completing paid internships and starting entry-level jobs across New Haven, 160 New Haven Promise scholars are kicking off the school year with a total of nearly $1 million in hand.
Continue reading ‘Promise Scholars Go Back To School With Summer Earnings’