Paul Bass Photo
Yale cops picketing in front of Woosely Hall this spring.
After 27 months of bargaining with Yale University, the university’s police force is still without a contract. Both the university and the cops’ union president say progress has been made but a proposed change to retiree health care benefits could blow up the process by the end of the week.
“The university has three choices here,” Yale Police Benevolent Association President Rich Simons said in an interview at Yorkside Pizza & restaurant. “They could give us a pension enhancement, they can withdraw the proposal, or they can tell us they want to fight us.”
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Yale Police Benevolent Association President Richard Simons
If the university wants a fight, the union is ready, he vowed. “We’ll do what we’ve got to do.”.
Simons’ union represents the 71 non-supervisory patrol officers and detectives in Yale’s 93-person police department. Simons said the union is calling on the university to be fair in its negotiations particularly when it comes to health care.
A Yale proposal on the table would change the current rules that allow police officers who retire before 65 to receive premium-free health care and reimburse the monthly $135 Medicare Part B cost for retirees 65 and older and their spouses.
Under the new proposal, the retirees would have to foot those costs. Another proposal also would allow those who could retire in the next 10 years to keep the premium-free care, but those hired after 2019 would have to pay.
Simons said that the pension plan for Yale police officers does not provide the kind of cost-of-living increases that police officers in New Haven and other police departments around the state receive. He likened the change, without any kind of additional compensation, to stealing from a group of people who risk their lives daily to protect the Yale community, especially its most precious resource, its students.
At best, the union would like to see the health care benefits remain status quo. But Simons said baring that, the union wants the university to provide “pension enhancements” to offset the costs that retirees would incur if they have to start paying premiums and other fees.
And he said if the university wants to fight over this issue, the union is prepared to engage in job actions including a strike.
“We’re private; we can strike,” Simons said. “We met several times over the last few months. We met on Tuesday and couldn’t come to an agreement. We have a meeting on Friday. We’re still talking.”
Some of the press coverage that the ongoing bargaining has generated.
In the 27 months, the union has taken job actions including picketing. (Read about that here and here.) But it has yet to take more extreme steps such as a sick out, also known as the “Blue Flu,” or a full-on work stoppage.
Simons said the union doesn’t want it to come to that because the members of the department take pride in keeping the campus and its students safe. But fighting the elimination of a benefit that members will need the most when they retire because of the danger associated with their job would be worth it.
It’s also a sore point for union members that Yale, which now has an endowment of $29.1 billion, would even think of eliminating such benefits, let alone doing it without compensating union members for agreeing to give them up.
Simons noted that the endowment doesn’t pay for the university’s police department, but given the robust way that the university continues to develop, he’s certain it’s not hurting for the cash as much as union members would be in the long run.
“We’ve met for 27 months, in more than 65 sessions,” he said. “Yale has negotiated faithfully on noneconomic stuff. They’ve been pretty good with that even though it’s taken us a long time to do that.”
Yale spokesman Thomas Conroy said in an email that the university remains hopeful that things can continue to be worked out “amicably at the bargaining table.”
“The University and the union have resolved numerous issues, including all operational and many economic issues,” Conroy said. “The parties are currently working to resolve a handful of unresolved economic issues.”
Conroy noted that all authorized officer positions at Yale are filled, a testament to how attractive the positions are.
“We are justifiably proud of the outstanding group of officers on the Yale force,” he added. “They work effectively with our students and the other members of our campus community. We were able to attract and retain them due to the superior pay and benefits we provide, including comprehensive health care benefits that are highly subsidized by Yale, and the exceptional resources that support the department and its personnel.
“The officers are working under the good contract that they have agreed to extend during negotiations, and the next contract will also be highly competitive with any other police union contract in the state,” Conroy said further. “Because they work at Yale, the officers are also eligible for benefits including the Yale Homebuyer Program, which offers generous incentives to Yale employees who buy a home in the city, and the generous college scholarships that Yale gives to employees’ children.”
Simons said all the union is asking is that Yale treats its members fairly and compensates them for “what they want to take away from us.”
“The priority is to keep them safe,” he said. “Our officers go out every day and risk their lives for everybody.”