Abraham Payne, Contributing Photographer

Labor leaders, elected officials and New Haveners awarded Local 33 UNITE HERE organizers with a standing ovation on Monday night, celebrating the graduate student workers’ union’s fresh contract with Yale after 33 years of organizing. 

During New Haven Rising’s annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, leaders of Yale’s politically powerful UNITE HERE unions and elected officials, including Mayor Justin Elicker, described Local 33’s win as a testament to the power of the labor movement in New Haven and beyond. Graduate workers voted to ratify their first-ever contract with the University in December, securing the highest pay in the Ivy League. 

“This was no easy task,” Adam Waters GRD ’26, a member of Local 33’s bargaining committee, told the crowd. “We had to overcome decades of opposition and misinformation by the leadership of Yale University. We had to overcome fear and uncertainty in ourselves and in our co-workers. And we had to overcome the cynicism and divisiveness of those that said that graduate teachers and researchers have no reason to organize alongside other unionized workers at Yale or the wider New Haven community.”

At the “Unity in Action” event held in the Trinity Temple Church, Local 33 organizers shared the stage with Connecticut State Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers and leaders from Local 24 UNITE HERE, which won a landmark contract with the MGM Grand Detroit casino in December after a 47-day strike. 

Calling upon King’s historic push for workers’ rights, speakers emphasized the importance of collective organizing in tackling national and local threats to economic justice. New Haven Rising’s Pastor Scott Marks, who emceed the event, specifically named the rise of gentrification and the lack of affordable housing in New Haven. 

“MLK’s mission of economic justice: understanding that without jobs, fair jobs, good-paying jobs, without people being able to support themselves and their family, there is no equality,” Erick Russell, Connecticut State Treasurer, said. “We have concrete evidence of this work coming to action. You look across the country right now, workers are standing together, giving new life to the labor movement. We’ve seen that in New Haven with Local 33 ratifying its first contract.” 

Marks cited union wins like that of screenwriters and actors in Hollywood, autoworkers in Michigan and Ohio and casino workers in Detroit as evidence of a national wave of labor activism. 

Members of UNITE HERE 217, the Connecticut hospitality workers’ union, and Local 34 UNITE HERE, the union for Yale’s clerical and technical workers, also represented local labor at the event. UNITE HERE 217, which according to Marks, has grown the number of union hotels in New Haven by 200 percent in the past year, is currently organizing a union drive for workers at Connecticut College. Avani Mehta, an organizer for Local 34, recounted how union organizers held department meetings to discuss staffing shortages and increasing job opportunities for New Haveners from historically redlined neighborhoods. 

In their speech, Waters and Arita Acharya GRD ’26, another member of Local 33’s bargaining committee, gave thanks to New Haven’s sprawling network of labor activists and supporters. Acharya said that the “struggle and sacrifice” of generations of graduate workers and the solidarity between the union and New Haven were foundational to Local 33’s success. 

“Let’s find the commitment to organize, organize, organize and hold vast coalitions together in spite of the repression and the fear,” Marks said. “Let’s fight our freedom, and when we fight…” 

“We win,” the crowd chanted back. 

New Haven Rising was founded in 2011.