The picket lines have had mixed results.

While some classes have been relocated to off-campus locations, most have not. The strike also resulted in the rescheduling of the annual assembly for first-year students.

Dorie Baker, from Yale’s Office of Public Affairs, said the first day of pickets blocked incoming first-year students’ entrance through Phelps Gate, a major entryway to the university’s Old Campus.

Conroy said he did not expect the pickets to disrupt campus activity significantly.

“We’ve done a lot of contingency planning for the strike,” he said. “We’re going to meet students’ needs inside and outside the classroom.”

Conroy also said he did not think many students would be deterred from crossing picket lines to enter buildings, and that the pickets were not much of a deviation from Yale’s normal atmosphere.

“It’s always kind of chaotic,” he said.

New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. has stepped into the role of mediator in the ongoing negotiations.

According to the university, Local 34 members average an annual salary of $33,000 and are seeking a 4-percent raise in the first year of renegotiated contracts, increasing to 7 percent in the sixth year. Local 35 workers reportedly make more than $30,000 per year and are seeking a 3-percent raise in the first year with an increase to 5 percent in the sixth year.

Yale has also claimed that its pension benefits would compensate workers with between 83 and 92 percent of their final salaries, although union officials have questioned the university’s calculation of those figures.

Retired workers who are no longer members of locals 34 and 35 have been pushing for retroactive increases in their pension benefits.

Negotiations between the unions and Yale officials are ongoing.

Local 34 workers stayed out on strike for 10-and-a-half weeks in 1984, and Local 35 remained on strike for 13 weeks in 1977.

Those two strikes were the longest in the unions’ histories.

—Staff writer Alexander J. Blenkinsopp can be reached at blenkins@fas.harvard.edu.