File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/97-04-23.140, message 8


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  |
-------------------------------------------------------



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