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'U' wrong in GEO dispute

To all undergraduates: You should be outraged. The University allowed its contract with the Graduate Employee Organization to expire.

You should be furious that this University cares so little about its undergraduate education that it is forcing its graduate student instructors into calling a work stoppage. GSIs at this university account for approximately 40 percent of the teaching hours at the University; it is too bad the University does not consider that valuable enough to actually bargain with us in good faith.

GEO's bargaining team has been meeting with the University team since November. I am consistently amazed at the degree to which the University team seems intent on simply stonewalling, refusing to discuss matters it is legally bound to address.

To give but one example: GEO's bargaining team, using the Office of Financial Aid's official estimates of cost-of-living in Ann Arbor, put together a wage proposal that would, in three years, remedy the fact that, according to the University's own numbers, the average GSI gets paid 30 percent less per month than what it actually costs to live in this city.

The University's counterproposal asks us to write into our contract that every year we sit back and wait until the month of August, when the University decides its annual raises for faculty. The University will decide that percentage increase and give us the same one.

There are two problems with this proposal. First, it neglects to address the fact that at our current rates are far below a living wage.

Second, and more importantly, the proposal asks us to give up our right as a union to bargain for wages. That is a right we earned and are not willing to give up.

Some people will tell you that a wage increase for GSIs will mean a tuition hike for you. Wages for GSIs account for an infinitesimal amount of the University budget. If you're concerned about wage increases, look to this top-heavy bureaucratic institution and the salary it pays administrators.

Do research on the amount of percentage-wage increases James Duderstadt has received for his years in office. What we are asking for is a drop in the bucket.

Make no mistake about this -- we do not want to walk out. We are angry that we are being forced to, and you should be too.

JAVIER MORILLO-ALICEA

GSI IN HISTORY