OPINION Tuesday, March 9, 1982 The Michigan Daily .:_ __ ____ ..._ .." .___ .... yi Behind the Consistency. That's what administrators er at the Michigan Union are striving for as ey restore and remodel' the three- nerations-old building while retaining its stinct architectural flavor. It may look bad right now, what with all the w walls going in and the beautiful old wood- 1 r . Howard Witt seem to be nearly as consistent as' wh pening in front of them. For behind the the Michigan Union, Director Frank . and his Board of Directors are fore policies with about as much consiste. Ronald Reagan press conference. TAKETHE U-Cellar situation, for e After 10 years in the basement of the U University Cellar non-profit bookstore1 forced to find a new location furtherf heart of campus because it can't afford The vitriol flowed in ever greater to lease negotiations slid downhill in rec ths: U-Cellar bargainers suspected th ciola wanted to force the bookstore out it was independent of his control; U ministrators scoffed At what they s inept bookstore management. But what it came down to in the en simple matter ofeconomics. Cianciola year ago from Kent State University,1 make the Union financially solvent for time in decades. To do that, he expected the U-Cellar pulling its ovn weight by paying a com market price for its store space and con new walls at at's hap- to renovation costs. (Because of lax Union ad- lettuce to the walls of ministrations before Cianciola, the U-Cellar had NOW I DC Cianciola been enjoying artificially low rents for years.) If any earthsh mulating the bookstore couldn't hack it, it would have to strain the bu ncy as a move. force the can FAIR ENOUGH. Although in greenback My compl example. terms this meant a jump in rent from $5.48 to Cianciola ex 'nion, the $9.07 per square foot, Cianciola's philosophy is to keep the has been sound. He wants to let the market determine the that-I gues from the cost of space in the Union; he wants to cut out Union. ito stay. subsidies and artificial support; he wants to But why is rrents as balance the Union's budget. In other words, he the new "fr ent ,Mon- wartsto let the free market prevail. the food serv hat Cian- Or so you would think. Nor is thi because Last week; the Union's Board of Directors policies. W 'nion ad- reaffirmed a policy regarding use of the refuse to al said was building's food service that is about as far from emblazoned free-marketfreedom of choice as you can get. parapherna nd was So much for consistency. privilege for , hired a Any group using the Union's meeting rooms ask a book wants to (which are free) must use the Union's food ser market rent the first vice (which is not free) if it desires any type of in a high-vol refreshments, the policy states. And why to begin Translation: No running out to Kroger's for student soci mpetitive some cheap eats. You wanna chow down in a the Vulcan itributing Union meeting room, you gotta fork over some rooms in th the Union e Union food service. ON'T mean to suggest that this is haking problem. At worst, it will Ldgets of a few student groups and ncellatioo of a few banquets. aint is with the lack of consistency. xplains that the policy is necessary food service afloat. Okay, I'll buy ss I'll have to if I want to eat in the s the U-Cellar asked to go it alone in ree-market" Michigan Union when vice is not? s the only example of inconsistent Vhy, for instance, did Cianciola low the U-Cellar to sell Michigan- I mugs, sweatshirts, and other zlia, instead retaining this r the Union itself? If you're going to kstore to pay freely competitive s, you ought to let it freely compete ume market.. are such do-nothing "secret" ieties as Michigamua, Adara, and s permitted to maintain rent-free, e tower of the Union? If rent sub- sidies are to be eliminated in the remodeled Michigan Union, such subsidies should be withdrawn consistently. I UNDERSTAND that Frank Cianciola is doing his best to rebuilfdthe Michigan Union in- to a vital campus center, and that he must.start by balancing its books. But it seems to me he has only two options. He can stick to the free-market philosophy-which means ceasing rent sufr sidies and allowing people to refuse services they might not want-anid accept the fact that some enterprises might not survive. Or he can maintain amenities,{ such as bookstores and catering services-which might not be able to stand on their own-and a students to pay subsidies by wvay of increas~ tuition assessments (we now pay about $10 every term toward support of the Union). -; As it stands, we are getting the worst of both worlds: We've lost a bookstore and we're for; ced to use a service we might not want. n What we need is some real consistency behind the walls. Witt's" Tuesday. Witt 'scolumn appears every y . rk coming off. But by the time the whole oject is finished sometime next fall, the. odwork will have been replaced, new staurants and stores and meeting rooms and ices will have been completed, and the Union 11 have been renewed. Constructively, ngenially, and most of all, consistently. That's why it's iso disappointing to find that fat's going on behind those new walls doesn't c '~1 i 3ittn 1tai1l Weasel By Robert Lence eI 0 Edited and managed by students'at The University of Michigan 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Vol. XCII, No. 123. Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board No justice for busing FOUR YEARS AT T141S PLACE-~ AND jT'LL- ALL BE OVPR IN A COUPL~., OF MONTHS. FOUR ' (EARS! YE? f E SEM PEOPLE COME ANDP ='fs~gA oi . . o O fb -THAT 11ff TONE of THE PLAo HS IAP OVER TH-LS C Vt ER .5018T~tt,*T\no (Tt TESVDls '(F- f TRAT& IT. IT s THE.. STUDENTS -r 4 - S C U L V SWOR TIMMTTH A keNAuN U (/I I 6 - AST WEEK Sen. Robert Packwood (R-Oregon), in a surprisingly andid statement, warned that the epublican Party may be writing off he needs of its black constituency. As to illustrate"the veracity of Pack- ood's assertion, Republicans pushed hrough a Senate Will last Tuesday that riW offdesegregation, throuigh .10"ican conservatives won their, iggest Senate victory to, 'date with assage of a bill that virtually, liminates school busing for racial in- egration. The legislation. offers a ouble dose of restrictions-it forbids ederal courts to order busing to a chool more than five miles or 15 -minutes from a child's home, and bans the Justice Department from using funds to litigate busing-inspired court cases. The Republicans who support the an- ti-busing bill hope to legislate away a controversial practice. Busing,' an ad- mittedly imperfect solution to segregation, uproots children from schools close to home and can incite { ugly opposition from parents and school officials. racially balancing the nation'sschools. Eliminating busing would, in effect, help make landmark court decisions on desegregation unenforceable. The government would be promoting the double standard of supporting in- tegration, while banning the means of acquiring it. The Senate bill probably will be defeated by a large measure in the House. The bill will have implications, however, even after any defeat: Ban- ning court-ordered busing is just one of several Senate efforts to strip the, federal courts of their jurisdiction. The bill sets a dangerous precedent for. overruling the integrity of the federal court. Republicans, smug with their blow against busing, are priming to in- troduce legislation reversing several progressive, court decisions. The ban on school prayer and the legal status of abortion are likely targets of future Republican legislative hatchets. Some Republicans may be ready to write off blacks-and integration effor- ts to boot-unsound and appalling as that decision may be. But congressional opposition must prevent Republicans from writing off the justice of federal court decisions as well. I - ti. 0 LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Calling GEO dictatorial is inaccurate it however flawed, busing still of- a practical, necessary method of To the Daily: A letter from Catherine Mark- wiese, a graduate student staff assistant, 'raised the question "whether we are being allowed to form a union or forced." (Daily, March 3). As graduate students, we are taught that a wrong question rarely generates a right answer. The Graduate Em- ployees Organization, the union to which she refers, is not in the process of being formed either voluntarily or by force. Like most of the institutional framework at this university, GEO existed before Markwiese arrived here. Unlike most of that framework, GEO was formed by graduate students for graduate students. What "forced" those graduate students to unionize was the deterioration of employment conditions which they were otherwise powerless to change. Specifically, the union won its fir- st contract in 1975 after the ad- ministration had attempted to take away tuition grants for graduate assistants. Markwiese can perhaps be excused for her ignorance of the fact that the tuition grant and many of the in- surance benefits and other con- tractural protections she now receives are a direct result of earlier GEO actions. If she had to live without these benefits, we wonder if she would be so ready to mouth "right to work" arguments that have long been a smoke-screen for exploitation and union-busting. Misapprehension on GEOg is no doubt largely a product of the administration's union-busting legal strategy. After GEO negotiated-apd its membership approved-a second contract in 1976, the administration commit-, ted an unfair practive that precipitated a five-year court case between the University and GEO. As a result of this lengthy litigatio, it was not until this . past N6vember that the 1976 con- tract was finally put into effect, in compliance with the order of the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. GEO's victory, resulting in the implementation of this con- tract, has been dictated upon Markwiese only in the sense that she is the, beneficiary of a struggle fought and won by other, graduate students before her. Without the contract, the con- ditions under which she works would be dictated to her by the administration. With the full legal sanction under which the union is now operating, she has the power to effectively resist being dictated to in that way, if she chooses to join with her fellow graduate students in the renewed struggle for a living wage and improved working conditions. Should she do so, she will find that GEO is far from being the "dictatorial oligarchy" that her imagination has conjured. In- deed, it is a highly denocrati6 and open organization, incom- parably more so than the Univer- sity's central administration. Markwiese further asks, "Do the graduate students working in the University system need o,r want a union?" The real wages of GSAs (after deduction of the mandatory tuition kickback and adjustment for inflation) have declined by over 20 percent in the' last four years, more than half of that in the last year alone. That. fact in itself ought to answer the, question of whether we "need" a union. As to whether we "want" a unior there are two ways of ob- taining an answer to that question. One would be to hold a referendum, as Markwiese proposed. The other way, the one we have chosen, is to see whether GSAs are willing to organize themselves for effective collec- tive action toward negotiating a new and improved contract. The former method might be quicker, but the latter is more positive and constructive, and that is why we have chosen it. Rally against neo-Nazis 0 If ,Markwiese truly does not want a union, if she would rather resign herself to the,continued decline of her real wages, if she would rather have the conditions of her employment dictated to her by: the arbitrary caprice of her employer, then she has .chosen precisely the right course by staying away from the union. -Paul Harris GEO Steering Committee March 3 Aw To the Daily: In response to Howard Witt's suggestion,that Ann Arbor ignore the rally planned by the Security .Services Action Group (neo- Nazis) in front of our City IFall on March 20, the Ann Arbor. All- Peoples Congress suggests that, our community support the anti- Nazi rally planned for that day. It is unrealistic of Witt to ignore the threat which a neo-Nazi movement represents. History shows this is so. Ask the Jews of' pre-World War II Germany, or the oppressed peoples of Chile and Argentina today (to name some victims of 20th century fascism). *But considering that, neither Witt, nor anyone from the Daily opserved the meeting of the Coalition to Fight the Right which was attended by more than seventy people in the Michigan Union on March 2, such ignoran- ce is comprehendable. At a time when poor and yorking people suffer from Reaganomics, cutbacks, racism and war, we need to unite against Reaganism and its front groups like the neo-Nazis. When students lose 50 percent of their federal funds (the proposal for fiscal 1983) our local economy suffers. When Reagan cuts funds for low7 income housing and unem- ployment during the. depression in Michigan, our people are hurt. When he tries to prevent busing necessary to stop segregation in our schools, we know what he really wants. When the Pentagon is glutted beyond control while America menaces- our foreign neighbors with military. adven- turism, our very survival and future are at stake. By promoting bigotry and hate the 'Nazis are servants of the Reagan program. All of up, black, Asian, native, white; youth, students and seniors; the disabled and jobless; women aid men; gay and straight must turn out at City Hall on March 20 Ln unity to build a movement to fight Reagan and the Nazis. -Gary Kwapil Ann Arbor All-Peoples Congress March 3 <. "-" , ., y .f r 2 , t i 't 1 . rY4' . : 6j11 ,' , s:. -we .. " -: ... .P ! .. ri J " ' A 3 l_ a ... .. .. t. . " .a' 0 a a " " .. : fi. . ° a '. w. ! ,t . ,. i rf+ i 'r I I . 7+ r, , f , Wasserman I TIIOb)&HT YOU KID WAS 60OING TO COLLEGE H~E DID E ~,Iu U W~tATt'INE. WE COULD voti W oKE? ONLY RD ORIENTAT0/1 ! ' R I II ,'j