[Peace] GEO Wins Strike After Two Days of Picketing

[E. Wayne Johnson]

I know Bob Easter personally and have worked with him on projects off 
and on over a period of 33 years.
It was Bob Easter who wrote to me in China and suggested I should come 
back to Illinois and take up a job at the University here.
I should never forgive him for that :-) :-P but he was well meaning 
toward me and my family and toward the University in that suggestion.

A deeper examination of the situation and the character of Dr. Easter 
would be useful to the graduate students.

Easter is not a person without compassion for the needs of the poor and 
the needs of graduate students.  It wasnt all that long ago (a mere 33 
years) that Bob was a graduate student himself.   I think that he really 
can relate to the needs of the graduate student body.  He grew up on a 
farm in extremely rural Texas and knows something of poverty and discomfort.

In the position that he is in, he will no doubt be subject to a lot of 
flak from all sides.  I dont think that it is quite fair to Bob Easter 
that the graduate students say that "Provost Easter makes us sick!"  
There are a lot of real scumbags in the university at all levels.  No 
one is going to be able to purge all of the scum from the 
administration, and certainly no one can do it quickly.  Easter has only 
been in this new post for a few weeks.  It's not fair to blame the 
pre-existing problems on him.

Indeed, I would really guess that Bob Easter is quite sympathetic to the 
plight of the graduate student, and could be a valuable ally for the 
students, if they could manage to see him that way.



On 11/18/2009 8:49 AM, Brian Dolinar wrote:
> This story at ucimc.org <http://ucimc.org>
>
> GEO Wins Strike After Two Days of Picketing
>
> After two days of picketing in stormy weather, the Graduate Employees 
> Organization (GEO) emerged victorious. The GEO called a strike on 
> Monday, November 16, after contract negotiations broke down over the 
> issue of tuition waivers for out-of-state graduate students. Their 
> strike is an example of how sheer people power can push back against 
> the growing corporatization of public education.
>
>
> In recent years, the University of Illinois has been racked with 
> several scandals, most notably the “clout-gate” scandal in which 
> well-connected students gained admission while more qualified students 
> were turned away. As a result, the president, chancellor, and almost 
> all of the Boart of Trustees were forced to step down. The so-called 
> “global campus” was shut down, but only after incurring millions of 
> dollars in debt. A proposed Academy of Capitalism and Limited 
> Government Fund was opposed by faculty for its lack of oversight. A 
> decade after it was founded, the research park on south campus has 
> become home to multinational corporations like Caterpillar and the 
> stealth military contractor SAIC with little benefit to the university.
>
> After a vote by GEO members, 92% of them authorized a strike. The 
> organization provides one quarter of the instruction on campus. On the 
> first day, approximately 1,000 members joined picket lines and 
> hundreds of classes were cancelled.
>
> University flak-catchers responded in the press by claiming that most 
> classes were still held and the strike had not disrupted campus 
> activities. Interim Chancellor and Provost Robert Easter said in a 
> mass email sent out that he wanted to be “as clear as possible” that 
> graduate students “will not have their tuition waivers reduced.”
>
> On the second day, despite the driving rain, picketing continued at 
> buildings surrounding the quad. Those on the picket line outside 
> Gregory Hall chanted, “Reading, writing, arithmetic! Provost Easter 
> makes us sick!”
>
>
> In an interview on the quad, GEO communications officer Peter Campbell 
> stated, “The bargaining team would be happy if the administration 
> would say the same thing in the bargaining room that they are saying 
> in the press.”
>
> In a bargaining session that took place on Tuesday, the GEO bargaining 
> team produced a document citing the language from Easter’s own mass 
> email that tuition waivers would not be reduced. The administration’s 
> representatives deliberated for one hour and came out agreeing to 
> protect tuition waivers for all graduate students, whether in or out 
> of state.
>
> The GEO held a general membership meeting that night where 450 members 
> agreed to accept the agreement and suspend the strike.
>
>
> BD
> -- 
> Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
> 303 W. Locust St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
> briandolinar at gmail.com <mailto:briandolinar at gmail.com>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace mailing list
> Peace at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace
>    

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace/attachments/20091118/db3c5bab/attachment.html