Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 15:11:55 -0500 (CDT) From: Dennis Grammenos <dgrammen-AT-prairienet.org> Subject: M-G: Lessons from the U. of Illinois I thought that I should add this follow-up note to my posting about the victory of our grad union in the elections at the U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO) has been around for quite a while organizing graduate employees at the university. Leading up to the elections of April 15-16 nobody stepped forward to criticize us or to engage us in a dialogue. The administration has done all it can to ignore us arguing that we are involved in litigation with them and that, therefore, it is inappropriate to have contacts (or some BS like that). About 3 weeks before the elections, however, some anti-GEO flyers started making their appearance here and there. The flyers contained slander and lies about the GEO. Email messages started to appear on a newsgroup on campus (uiuc.org.geo) arguing against the GEO. It turned out that a handful of anti-GEO grads had launched a virulent anti-GEO campaign at the last minute. They adopted the "Big Lie" approach and they relentlessly pelted the GEO with endless rhetoric and lies. Much of what they were arguing were little more than warmed-over propaganda from the administration. Of course, the administration has "plausible deniability"! Things around here got rather ugly. The GEO would try to respond to the various charges levelled against us but the very same anti-GEO points would make their appearance again and again without any acknowledgement that the GEO has fully responded to them. As far as I am concerned, the worst abuse involved the intimidation of international students by anti-GEO sycophants. I spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday (election days) running from poll station to poll station trying to round-up voters for the GEO. At one point I ran across a Chinese woman and I aked her if she had already voted. She was very, very defensive and obviously didn't want to deal with me. She mumbled something and started walking away. I walked next to her and I was determined to find out exactly why she didn't want to vote. But first I had to get her to talk to me. So, I started a friendly conversation with her and within 15 minutes we were chatting away like old friends. That's when I asked about her unwillingness to vote. She looked at me and said: "Please don't be upset, but I don't want to vote for the GEO because the GEO will have all Chinese students kicked out of the university"! She went on to explain how over the previous 3-4 days Chinese grads (we have lots and lots of Chinese grads on campus) had been receiving email messages on some listserve they are all on here on campus. The email messages were basically saying that if the GEO wins the elections, the GEO will demand unreasonably high salaries for teaching assistants. The poor administration will be forced to raise those salaries but it would also be forced to cut TA positions to accomplish the task. And here is the clincher: the first positions that the poor administration is going to have to cut will be those of Chinese graduate employees because for the most part Chinese grads have difficulty communicating effectively in English!!!!! And all of this because of the big, bad GEO!!! That very morning, her best friend encouraged her to vote AGAINST the GEO because of all these terrible things that the GEO would force the poor, little administration to do! Mind you, the administration has "plausible deniability" because the messages were sent by anti-GEO grads (who often sound like the local chapter of the John Birch Society!) Over the next couple of days more and more such stories started surfacing. Even a neutral poll-watcher reported an encounter with a Chinese grad who actually walked up to the polling place and was nearly in tears about WHICH way to vote. For months she had come to believe that the GEO was good and that it was committed to helping international grads. Now her faith in the GEO had been shaken by the scandalous revelations that maybe the GEO had a sinister, anti-foreigner agenda. She actually asked the neutral pollwatcher about her opinion on these rumors. The pollwatcher explained that she was a neutral observer and that she was not allowed to answer such a question. Finally, the distraught grad voted and left the polling place visibly upset. When the elections were over, 49% of eligible grads had voted and the margin of victory for the GEO was 2-to-1 (65%-35%). Given the virulent anti-GEO slander campaign launched close to the elections, the results are totally wonderful and we are very, VERY happy!!!:-)))) We are now demanding that the administration acknowledge the election results and recognize the GEO as our collective bargaining agent. Meanwhile we are awaiting the decision from the administrative law judge who has been adjudicating our legal case. I am arguing that our next step should be the political education of graduate employees so as to avoid a repeat and success of the very dangerous anti-GEO campaign that we had to fend off the last minute. Demagoguery and fear-mongering are potent weapons and so difficult to respond to unless we have a mass base that is politically educated. I just thought I'd share these thoughts with you. Who knows maybe some grad employees from other campuses might benefit >from our experiences. Comradely Regards, Dennis Grammenos _______________________________________________________ | Dennis Grammenos dgrammen-AT-prairienet.org | | Departments of Geography | | & Russian and East European Studies | | University of Illinois Phone:(217) 333-1880 | | Urbana, Il 61801 Fax: (217) 244-1785 | ------------------------------------------------------- --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005