Wednesday, February 19, 2003

GESO votes to strike…but will I be there?

Tonight the Yale Graduate Student Union (GESO) voted to go on strike, after two proposals, some interesting rebuttals and one recount. To be fair, most of the people in that room were planning to vote yes regardless of what proposal was accepted, but it was really nice to see a true voice of opposition to the usual moral crusaders mentality of the coordinating committee. The second proposal still offered a pledge to strike, but it contained certain clauses about holding membership meetings throughout the strike, instead of handing over a “blank check” to the union leadership.



For those interested, the votes for the second recount were:

283 in favor of the coordinating committee proposal
246 for the alternate proposal
10 abstaining



So, it looks like there will be a strike starting in early March. Even the AP Wire has the scoop. My fear is that GESO, with its already not-so-hot PR and slightly over majority membership will not be able to pull it off, despite its pro-union beat reporter over at the YDN. My other fear is that they will pull it off, only to see the dogmatic social justice hungry union leaders squelching a real opportunity to practice democracy in academia. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching an issue of Z Magazine, minus all of the snappy commentary.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home