"We're Not Gonna Take It": The Official Strike Timeline

8/27 – Strike begins at 5AM. The retirees get their meeting with Swenson after more than 24 hours.

8/29 – UOC members wearing "Ask Me About the Strike" t-shirts help freshmen move in, and answer questions about the 1,000-person picket line circling Old Campus. 83 workers, students, and community members participate in civil disobedience on the four corners of Old Campus. Howard Dean arrives to support workers, and hosts a dinner with strikers and students.

8/30 – Yale administrators cancel the frosh convocation due to the disruption created by the strike.

9/1 – The Rev. Jesse Jackson leads 4,500 people on a labor day march on Yale. Jackson and New Haven clergy submit to arrest in an act of civil disobedience.

9/3 – Classes begin, with 176 professors moving class off-campus to respect picket lines. That number grows daily throughout the strike.

9/8 – Strikers march on Yale-New Haven Hospital to express their solidarity with 150 dietary workers on strike there, and the 1,800 hospital workers struggling to form a union.

9/9 – The Hispanic Congressional Caucus condemns Yale's use of racially divisive tactics to break the strike. This comes after Yale managers bus in subcontracted Latino replacement workers from West Haven and parade them past a largely African-American picket line.

9/11 – Alice Walker cancels a lecture at Yale out of respect for striking workers.

9/12 – 13 Latino replacement workers leave their job to join Yale workers on the picket line. The UOC holds a teach-in for 125 students in the Dwight Hall Chapel.

9/13 – 10,000 workers, from all over the Northeast, join Yale workers and AFL-CIO president John Sweeney for "American Labor Goes to Yale," a national march to support striking workers. Sweeney is arrested with hundreds of others during civil disobedience on York St.

9/15 – Over 100 faculty submit a letter urging the University to enter into binding arbitration with Locals 34 and 35 to end the strike.

9/16 – Yale Retirees erect a "Wall of Shame" in front of Woodbridge Hall on Beinecke Plaza, exhibiting the real pensions of Yale retirees. They also begin a daily vigil. David Rovics and Tangled Up in Blue perform at the "Folk on Strike" Benefit concert for the Strike Fund.

9/17 – Jeopardy! cancels its long-awaited appearance at Yale do to the strike.

9/18 – Yale and the unions settle a great contract. The deciding factor was the early morning performance of William Strom, Julie Gonzales, Thomas Frampton, and Alek Felstiner on the roaming student picket. "We want a co-o-ontract -- HEY! -- right now..."

9/19 – Members of Local 34 and Local 35 overwhelmingly ratify their new contracts.

9/22 – Yale employees return to work. UOC members return to class.

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