1 6116 \ MV COMMU)'I U) MA( YO b1REAXCF VOL) MA C65C6bJTY ' YU MAY G o0T yW FCX)L OtTA CaRLS -CO OUY A 3RL- IS A - A GIL- FROM- AROU U J FCC ApUKD - L O C 5W4 ATTRTJ COMMUMUTWFT WH W AS SWX: FooL OF ,CAL. AS LtOG AS LX) GIRLS AS c& FlQISH AO(P M COMMUVIT OQT FOO. FROM (.(TH TH6m SO A&V VY' 5TA\PA S AROUP LTH HCQ . VT G OU PO T Fool AROUIJD TH TUX CK5ITH NCR TO COmm A T- -e XTwrT AMP STOP 1T3"WREAWL IF 'OU C YOT IF VOU AS T500D FXL AROU APPROVE OF M4'tJT AS 5513 C, . --US CJ $ COI-IMUt&)UUECT - 1TR(Pf CAUS6 £TANPARPS TO P- YOUO- AtOJC 0 To 06WK VOU CAk AMQ, ACCOR'P42( AUES MO/C69W{ FREE TO HAVE Ik)TO A MORE A P T(HE.A Co4mo l Y. fi'IIE, Michigan Daily Edited and managed by Students at the University of Michigan Thursday May 30, 1974 News Phone: 764-0552 Partnership in contraception WITH TODAY'S CONSCIOUSNESS of over-population, scientists are striving for methods of controlling the problem. They concentrate their study and research on women, which is essentially logical, or it was when ef- fective means of birth control was first devised. Now, "the pill" is widely used by women and is for the most part a reliable drug for those women who can use it. It makes sense that a woman should be taking care and control of her body as she is running the great- er risk. It has always been that way. We hear story after sad story about some young woman who became pregnant and for one reason or another marriage was not the answer. We have also heard of how the man involved has run out when con- fronted with the restrictions of a wife and a child. Such action on either part is not characteristic of all untimely and unwanted pregnancies. There are many married couples with several children who were also confronted with unwanted pregnancies. The result was the legalization of abortion, an agonizing experience that is a step taken out of desperation. T['ODAY THERE IS MUCH experimentation with intra- uterine devices (IUD's) and there are as many pros as cons to the device. The question now stands as to why there is only one device on the market for controlling the man's part in contraception. Off and on there is talk of research into a pill for men, but where is it? Certainly there has been plenty of time for scientists to come up with something more effective than a condom for men. Scientific con- centration on the male part of intercourse seems to have been ignored as it has always been morally. Men, due to no fault of their own have always been on the simpler side of a relationship for they run no risk of pregnancy. That is not to say that all men are irresponsible irr a relationship or in the matter of birth control. Intercourse has always been an expected part of a man's growth however the woman involved was al- ways considered "loose". We like to think that now such a concept is on its way out. If this is the case, then it is high time that men took as active part in birth control as women. -ANDREA LILLY 'U' and workers: Intimidation tactics T IS OFTEN said of union negotiations that what occurs outside the bargaining room is at least as important as what goes on within. This must certainly be the case with respect to Mr. Fleming's irresponsible remarks quoted in the Michigan Daily, April 9 ("Fleming Hints at Personal Cutbacks"). In this article Fleming is quoted as saying euphamistically, that union- ization and consequent wage hikes will lead to an 'internal' response' on the part of the Univer- sity. This type of reckless threat, aimed presumably at the members of GEO as well as clericals, nurses and possibly faculty, all of whom are workers recently unionized, working toward un- ionization or considering same, must be seen in full perspective. What the University does is not consistent with what it says. The University would have us be- lieve that unionization activities on the part of its workers are putting the University under a new sort of pressure. We are told that this new sort of pressure - the demand for higher wages is forcing the University to contract the number of jobs in various categories. If the Uni- versity is required to meet new wage demands, we are to expect that it will have to cut its per- sonnel. BUT THE record of University policy and ac- tion reads quite differently. It is the very groups which have been engaged in union activity that have been under the most severe pressure the University has witnessed in the last few years. Job cutbacks are not to be thought of as just the possible outcome of a hypothetical n i g h t- mare brought on by a money-hungry unionism. Rather, actual job cutbacks and actual real-wage decreases are already with us, having already been inflicted upon university workers with man- otono's regularity for years - when there have been no unions whatsoever! And these cutbacks have resulted from deliberate Administration pol- icies - policies which the unionization efforts we have seen on this campus have reacted to, not caused. The tale of our continuing losses at the hands of the University is a vivid one. Last summer the Administration virtually halved teaching fellows' fall salaries by cancelling their instate tuition status and by raising their tuiton by 24 per cent. This dramatic action on the Administration's part was not unprecedented. A strikingly similar de- cision was made during the summer of 1971. DESPITE THE organizational efforts of GEO and the fact that we prevented the plan of the summer from being fully realized in the fall and spring, the graduate assistant still bears the bur- den of a lower salary on two fronts:, first, through a loss of wages and decrease in the number of jobs, and second, through a contin- uing decrease of real wages in the face of the rising cost of living. Last November Sandy Silberstein wrote an ar- ticle in the Daily criticizing the then-proposed block grant-flexible aid system as merely an excuse to cut graduate assistant funds. Through block grants the departments were to be given monies to use somewhat at their discretion for graduate assistantships. TF's were assured, in -a letter from Allen Smith, that those with 73-74 ap- pointments would receive, through flexible aid, the difference between out-of-state and instate tuition. Departmental chairpeople were assured that funds would not be cut. BUT LOOK AT the record: block grants in many departments have been slashed! Through this unilateral action -on the part of the Ad- ministration, these departments are left with the dilemma of having either to reduce the wages of graduate assistants or reduce the number of assistantships available. Moreover, it is not clear where RA's, SA's, and newly appointed TF's (who were not covered in the Smith letter) will stand financially should the University con- tinue present patterns. This loss of wages is only the first of two ef- fective pay decreases suffered by the graduate assistants. This past year, at a time when the cost-of-living increase soars above 14 per cent, no worker at the University received more than a 5.5 per cent cost-of-living increase and too many did not receive even that. AND GRADUATE assistants are clearly not alone in bearing the brunt of the University's assault. Michigan students are paying more tui- tion than students at any other state university. And clerical workers (who effectively run the University) are being paid less than clericals in any other Michigan university. All this for the privilege of being associated with the University of Michigan! The way in which major aggressive policy is made is no less clear. These decisions (like the ones last July and its sibling two years earlier) are announced suddenly and unilaterally - most often during the summer when the fewest number of employes and students are in Ann A r b o r. thn decisions affect most directly h5-uc little or no in't into these decisions. When it must pacify, the Universtly does so with verbal promises, only to break the promises later. The trend? Lower salaries and higher tuition. THUS IT BECOMES evident that university un- ions are in the unhappy position of calling not merely for a just wage and improved working conditions, but also for an end to backsliding in four major areas: 1.)' We are called on to fight increasing dis- crimination in many areas among which are rac- ism, sexism and ageism. A recent LSA policy decision to rescind need as a criteria for financial aid is just one example of increasing discrimin- ation. 2.) We are called on to maintain the quality of undergraduate education. We must not only fight for a maximum and average class size but to maintain the number of graduate assistants. The University cannot hire professors or lecturers for the salary it pays graduate assistants even should all of GEO's economic demands be met. And the University cannot have students if they can no longer afford the tuition. 3.) The quality of graduate education is in danger for the University cannot maintain grad- uate students if it refuses to.support them. 4.) Lastly, there has been economic backsliding with a net decrease in the real wage received by workers in all sectors of the University. CLEARLY, MONEY is not expanding. But is is not clear that the University is in fact in a state of near-hysterical economic crisis as Flem- ing would have us believe. In any case the need for unionizing is not vitiated. What unionism seeks, in any economic situation, is a positive input into all policy and priority decisions in or- der to counteract what has thus far been fully destructve policy on the part of the University acting unilaterally. ONCE AGAIN, during the present period of union organizing on the part of clerical w.kers, Fleming's threats of personnel cutbacks a r e clearly inappropriate, if not illegal. This pattern of intimidation of workers must come to an end. -Sandy Silberstein Mark Kaplan (for the Stewards-Council of GEO)