She complained specifically about job security and Yale’s history of subcontracting out union jobs.

“We’re very concerned about that, and they won’t even discuss it with us—they just say no,” she said.

Yale spokesperson Tom Conroy said the strike had not changed Yale’s position, and defended the university’s stance.

“We have a very reasonable offer on the table,” he said. “We are an excellent employer.”

Smith said she disagrees with Conroy’s assertion that the strike wouldn’t change Yale’s offer.

She said Yale administrators had considered a strike unlikely and now would be forced to take the unions more seriously.

“It is our goal that Yale will view this now as a much more real and credible threat,” she said.

While union leaders have spent much of the strike criticizing Yale’s history with labor, Conroy said that the university alone shouldn’t shoulder the blame for past strikes.

“If in the past it has been difficult to reach agreement on contracts, the blame is on both sides, not just one,” he said. “It’s the unions today who are more interested in repeating that history than the university is.”

He said no progress in negotiations would be made until Locals 34 and 35 unlinked their complaints from those of GESO and hospital workers.

“The obstacle is union leaders’ decision to link these negotiations,” Conroy said. “A contract will be settled when they cut links between the unions and decide they want to focus on issues for their workers.”

But Deborah Chernoff of the unions’ umbrella organization, the Federation of Hospital and University Employees, said the hospital workers’ need a settlement just as much as the other unions do.

“The most telling thing, given that it’s a hospital...is that workers there can’t afford health insurance for themselves and their families,” she said.

GESO representatives have said their primary goal in striking is to gain recognition for their union.

While the standard procedure is to get an election through the National Labor Relations Board, GESO leaders say they are seeking Yale’s recognition first, citing instances at Brown University, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, where the administrations have been able to tie up the organizing process indefinitely.