FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE IN BREAKING NEWS

Report 1 of 3.   READ ON!

NUMBER ONE
FROM:                      Joe Berry
TO:                            WORKPLACE
DATE RECEIVED:  November 27, 2001
DATE POSTED:      November 29, 2001
RE:                            Chicago COCAL and UNIV IL Organize

  1. Chicago Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (C-COCAL) will hold
  its first open interim steering committee meting Dec. 7, Friday, at 3 PM
  at Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan, Room 244, Old Faculty Lounge.
  Meeting will consider all matters of future organizational structure,
  program and action. Everyone is invited.

  2. The Grad Employees Organization at University of IL, Chicago
  (GEO-UIC) has this morning launched a sit-in (over 20 people inside) in
  the UIC administration offices on the 28th floor of University Hall
  (Harrison and Morgan Streets) on the UIC campus. They are acting in
  solidarity with their brothers and sisters in GEO at UI Urbana-Champaign
  who have begun a two day work stoppage. The demands of both actions
  include university recognition of their union for grad employees and the
  initiation of bargaining for a contract. After years of pursuing
  literally all other legal and bureaucratic avenues, including a clear
  expression of majority support among grad employees, they now feel that
  they must take this action. 

      All contingent faculty and their supporters are urged to express their
  solidarity for GEO by visiting the site of the sit-in today. A rally
  outside is ongoing all day. UIC-GEO was a stalwart supporter of Campus
  Equity Week and of the struggle of all contingent faculty. They have not
  looked down on adjuncts  but rather embraced us as allies. Now is the
  time for us to support them. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
  Joe Berry
  1453 W. Flournoy, #3F
  Chicago, IL 60607
  Phone/fax: 312-733-2172
Email <joeberry@igc.org>

MORE TO READ
NUMBER TWO

G.E.O. Work Stoppage To Target 5 Main Quad Buildings, 28 & 29 November:
10,000 Students To Be Affected Each Day

The Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO) at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign will hold a two-day targeted work stoppage to win
union recognition on the 28th and 29th of November.  The walkout will
target five large buildings on the University Quad - English Building,
Lincoln Hall, Gregory Hall, Davenport Hall and the Foreign Languages
Building - which between them contain over 500 graduate employees.  The
GEO estimates that, each day, 10,000 students will have one or more
classes cancelled.  The goal of the GEO is to give graduate employees a
formal voice in their working conditions by allowing them to choose union
representation.

'It's time for the Administration to give democracy a chance,' said GEO
Co-President Uma Pimplaskar.  'We're not just students; we're also
employees who have demonstrated time and again our desire for a union to
represent us.  The Administration needs to stop spending millions of
dollars to fight us in court and start negotiating in good faith with its
employees.  Our labor keeps this campus open and this week weUre showing
we can shut it down, too.'

GEO members will be joined on the picket lines by supporters from
throughout the University and Champaign-Urbana communities, including:
Union of Professional Employees, Association of Academic Professionals,
SEIU, AFSCME, Progressive Student Coalition, College Democrats, Champaign
County Health Care Consumers, Living Wage Association and the Interfaith
Committee for Worker Justice.  GEO pickets will assemble at the strike
headquarters on the middle of the University Quad, and will be picketing
from 8:00-5:00.  Rallies will be held both Wednesday and Thursday, at
5:00, at the University's Alma Mater statue on the southeast corner of
Green and Wright Streets.

“'All we're asking is to be able to sit down with the Administration and
negotiate in good faith over our working conditions,' said GEO
Co-President Kate Bullard.  'They have the power to negotiate an
out-of-court settlement at any time, but they are so afraid of democracy
that they would rather disrupt this campus than agree to talk to us.
Their lack of respect for educators damages the educational mission of
this University.  We regret the necessity of a work stoppage, but our
students will be learning life lessons about democracy and workers'
rights. They know what we're fighting for, and they support us.'

BACKGROUND: The GEO has worked since 1994 to win union representation for
graduate employees.  In 1996, 3,226 graduate employees signed union
authorization cards, and 64% chose GEO as their union representative in a
1997 election, but the University Administration has continually refused
to negotiate with elected representatives of graduate employees.  In
  > > March, 2000, 55 GEO members and allies staged a twenty-hour Sit-In in the
offices of the Board of Trustees, but still the Administration refused to
bargain with its employees.  The over 5,000 graduate employees at UIUC
teach one-third of all credit hours, carry out essential research, and
perform important administrative tasks.

MEDIA INFORMATION: GEO spokespeople will be available throughout the day
at the strike headquarters to speak with representatives of the press.

Please call the GEO Communications Officer, Dave Kamper, at 344-8283 or
351-8132, if you have any special requirements that need to be met.
During the work stoppage, the GEO Strike Headquarters can be reached at
390-8739, 390-8740 or 390-1674.

REPORT THREE OF THREE 

By Stephanie Banchero
ribune staff reporter. 
Tribune staff reporter Letitia Stein contributed to this report

November 29, 2001

Hundreds of graduate teaching assistants at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign walked out of classes Wednesday, darkening classrooms across campus and leaving thousands of undergraduate students without teachers.

The work stoppage, which was to last through Thursday, is the most militant action yet by the graduate students who teach many of the university's courses and are seeking recognition by the administration as a bargaining unit.

The teaching assistants, mainly from liberal arts colleges, spent the day marching through the campus Quad, picket signs in hand, chanting, "No union, no peace. No contract, no peace," coming just as final exams approach, the two-day strike miffed many students.

"We don't deny this is a disruptive action," said Dave Kamper, a teaching assistant in the history department and spokesman for the grad students' organization. "But this is short-term pain for a long-term gain. We've exhausted all of our other choices and we were forced into this action."

Their efforts toward increasing their recognition and compensation mirror a growing national movement.  As colleges and universities have depended more on non-faculty student teachers, the graduate assistants have demanded more recognition, more money and better health benefits. Strikes and work stoppages have become commonplace. Last year, 1,600 graduate assistants at the University of
Washington walked out on the last day of classes with final exams left to grade.

"Unfortunately, they leave us no choice but to act militant," said Uma Pimplaskar, a U. of I. teaching assistant in media studies, who canceled her class for the day.

"We've tried to meet with the administration to talk things over, but they ignore us. Maybe this will get their attention."

University spokesman Bill Murphy said Chancellor Nancy Cantor stood by the position that teaching assistants should not be able to form a union because they are students first and their employment is secondary. Cantor has indicated a willingness to talk with graduate students, "but that doesn't mean she is willing to reverse position on the university policy on a union for students. We have been against that," Murphy
said.

Organizers said 80 percent to 90 percent of the 500 teaching assistants who work in the Quad buildings canceled their classes and office hours Wednesday. They estimated that about 10,000 students were affected.

Strike's effect disputed

But university administrators disputed those numbers. Associate Provost David Swanson estimated that only about 200 classes were canceled and about 4,000 students affected. Overall, about 3,300 classes are taught each day, and the school has 28,000 undergraduate students. Swanson said most classes went ahead as scheduled.

Some faculty members moved their courses to other buildings so students would not have to cross picket lines.

"The impact was very, very small," Swanson said.

"Luckily, participation in the strike was not large, and those who did participate took great care to construct take home assignments beforehand so students would not be affected. That was very responsible on their part."

Despite these assertions, the U. of I. campus Quad and surrounding buildings were quiet Wednesday. Many classrooms were dark and the hallways, typically filled with students catching up on homework, were quiet. Parking lots were sparsely filled.

Some students critical

Many students who attended classes said they disapproved of the decision to strike two weeks before finals. Others said they objected to the teaching assistants' intimidation efforts to keep them from walking into the buildings, some of which had fliers that said, "Stop. If you enter this building, you are crossing a picket line."

"They do half the work here so their voices should be heard, and they should get more money," said Rhianna Wisniewski, a junior journalism major from Tinley Park.

"But those signs kind of bother me because I really don't have a choice. It's two weeks before finals, how can they expect me to miss my classes for them."

But graduate teachers did get support. As they marched in front of the student union, groups of students gathered, and many offered shouts of encouragement.

Molly McGlone, a junior sociology major, had all four of her classes canceled. Still, she went to the student union to show support. She plans to stay out of her classes Thursday, even though they are taught by faculty members, not teaching assistants.

"They do a lot of the work and don't make anywhere near as much as the faculty," said McGlone, who plans to attend graduate school and work as a teaching assistant one day. "What's the harm in letting them form a union?"

A trend develops

This fall, the growing chorus of teaching assistants seeking union recognition has gained momentum at public and private universities nationwide.  At the University of Washington last spring, school officials and graduate students met this week in  negotiations about the terms of a potential bargaining agreement that would allow for a graduate student union at the university.

The unionization drive at Brown University in Providence, R.I., recently was bolstered when a National Labor Relations Board decision set the guidelines for a union election Dec. 6 and 7. Though the election will be held, the university has not decided whether to appeal the decision, said Mark Nickel, director of the news service at Brown.

In Philadelphia, the graduate students association at Temple University, a public college, won recognition as a collective bargaining unit in late September.

The Urbana strike did not affect classes at the University of Illinois at Chicago. But in solidarity with the strike in Urbana, about 20 graduate students at UIC staged a sit-in and rally outside their chancellor's office in University Hall. About 40 other students and local union representatives rallied outside University Hall.

"We think it's going to have more influence on the university if they see that the two campuses are working together and have the same goals," said Kat McLellan, co-president of the Graduate Employee's Organization at UIC.

"We're sitting in for the same reasons they're walking out. We have the same set of issues and the same set of grievances."
 

Copyright (c) 2001, Chicago Tribune