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GEO votes for 2-day walk-out

About 88 percent of the voting members of the Graduate Employees Organization raised their hands in support of a walk-out on classes April 8 and 9. GEO's current extended contract with the University is scheduled to expire April 1.

"Our goal is to shut this university down for two days," said GEO spokesperson Pete Church. "We will be sending up picket lines. We're encouraging students not to go to classes; we're encouraging professors not to teach."

Church said the walk-out could affect about 40 percent of University classes.

"We teach up to 40 percent of University classes, and a number of professors will join the picket lines and not teach classes," he said.

Assistant sociology Prof. Steven Herbert will be one of the faculty members not crossing the picket lines set up by GEO members.

Instead, his graduate student instructors will assume the responsibilites of lecture and discussion for Sociology 102 and 46, during the union's two-day walkout -- they will teach, he will not.

"I am going to honor their request not to teach on (April) 9," Herbert said. "The fact that I'm not lecturing that week means that GSIs will bear more burden of the instruction that week."

Herbert said he would stand by his GSIs because their satisfaction is a high priority for him.

"I'm in a situation where I rely heavily on my GSIs, so it's important to me that they are being treated fairly," he said. "I basically support my GSIs. That's what's motivating me."

GEO members voted to stop work two days before GEO and the University enter a state-supervised mediation process -- a process both sides agreed to.

"(April) 8 and 9, regardless of mediation, is the optimal time for us to do this," said GEO President Scott Dexter. "We are not interested in disrupting undergraduate education and any later in the year would disrupt preparation for finals.

"Therefore, it seems to us this is what we have to do."

Dexter said a walk-out means GEO members "won't do anything that requires us to deal with the University.

"It's just like a strike," he said. "We won't be teaching classes holding office hours, going to our classes or doing research on campus."

Not every GSI will join the picket lines. Law second-year student William Cosnowski said he will teach his Engineering 103 class during the work stoppage.

"I really believe the striking will not solve problems; the people who will be hurt is the students," Cosnowski said. "GEO's complete agenda is too extenuated and has little value to myself."

Biology lecturer Kathleen Quigley, who teaches Biology 326, said the walk-out would cancel the majority of her lab sections.

"I wish they would come to an agreement. It's going to affect a significant number of my students," Quigley said. "That's going to be eight of my labs; that's more than half of my labs."

University chief negotiator Dan Gamble said the timing of the walkout will be hard on students.

"Well, this time of the year, you're moving forward to the end," Gamble said. "I think it would be extremely unfair to the undergraduates.

"We can achieve a contract before mediation, but the walk-out is not a stimulus in this case."

The Michigan Student Assembly passed a resolution last week to support a one- or two-day walk-out by GEO, said MSA President Flint Wainess.

Wainess said he had some personal reservations on the effectiveness of GEO's walk-out, and he doubted widespread student support.

"Students will support a strike if it's the last straw -- if GEO is getting an awful deal, not just a lukewarm deal, but an awful deal," Wainess said.

Some students agreed the walk-out would be inconvenient, but said GEO has to do what they think will resolve the stagnant negotiation with the University.

LSA junior Jackie Emerson said the walk-out would affect her genetics discussion and a dancing class taught by a GSI, but she would not cross a picket line.

"I guess I'd be really screwed; but if that's what they feel they should do, they should do it," Emerson said. "If professors threatened (a walk-out), they'd get what they wanted. (GSIs) should be taken seriously."

Architecture senior Michael Feng agreed GSIs should be respected more by the administration, but said the timing of the walk-out was bad.

"I know they've done this before in the past, but not so close to finals," Feng said. "(Since) this happened in the past, it's more the administration's fault. The (GSIs) and GEO are trying to get what they deserve."

GEO Bargaining Secretary Mike Sell said GEO's membership had hoped to have a new contract by the original deadline of Feb. 1.

"We were under the impression that we would get a contract by April 1," Sell said. "Shoot, we thought we could get it by Feb. 1."

The graduate student union has struck before -- a month of picketting in February 1975 resulted in its first contract agreement with the University, signed on March 14, 1975.

But 1975 was not the first time disgruntled "teaching fellows" refused to teach their classes. In 1970, political science TFs called a work stoppage on classes for a week in February to protest departmental cuts to teaching fellowships.