4 Page 2 -- The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, March 31, 1987 TAs begin to vote on By ANDY MILLS Teaching assistants across campus began voting this week on a proposal to call a strike against the University on April 8. The Graduate Employees Organization - the union bargaining for the near 1,700 university employed teaching and staff assistants - is soliciting ballots from its 1,100 members until April 7. Votes began trickling in yesterday, but GEO President Alice Haddy predicts peak return times will be today and tomorrow. Most, if not all, of the union members should have received their ballots, Haddy said. Ballots are being mailed to the union members in accordance with the GEO constitution to ensure that everyone knows about the election and receives a ballot. The votes will be opened and counted April 7, after the GEO and University meet with state-ap- pointed mediator Edmund Phillips that day. The April 7 meeting will be the first between the two sides since March 12. If the strike is approved, TAs will strike only if the University and the GEO fail to come to an agreement at the meeting. The ballot only needs to pass by a majority of the votes cast, as opposed to previous votes which re- quired the endorsement of a major- ity of the union members in order to call a strike. The primary demands of the GEO, which will hold a rally on the Diag at noon tomorrow, are a full tuition waiver for TAs, a two- year scaled salary increase, paid training for new TAs, and depart- mentally set class limits. The University, led by chief strike negotiator Colleen Dolan-Greene, has continually refused to comment on the issues on the bargaining table as a matter of policy. Accord- ing to the GEO, the University is offering no salary increase and a gradual increase in the tuition waiver culminating in a full waiver after three years. Currently, TAs receive a 56 percent tuition waiver. Support for a strike from union members, according to Haddy, has been suprisingly positive. She also said undergraduates have given support to the GEO's contract demands. Thatcher demands action from Soviets MOSCOW (AP) - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher yesterday challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to produce deeds that match his words about seeking better relations abroad and providing greater freedom at home. Thatcher took Gorbachev to task specifically on human rights and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. "We will reach our judgments not on intentions or on promises but in deeds and on results," she said of Western leaders. Gorbachev repeated the Kremlin position that it wants a political solution in Afghanistan, where Moslem insurgents have fought government troops since a com- munist coup in 1978. An estimated 115,000 Soviet soldiers are now in the country. He said the Soviets are ready to discuss human rights "openly and loudly" if the debate includes unemployment, homelessness, and discrimination in the West. "If we're going to talk about human rights, let's talk about all rights," Gorbachev said. They spoke at a state banquet in the Grand Kremlin Palace in the third day of Thatcher's official visit. Thatcher pressed the West's case for arms control, starting with elimination of medium-range nu- clear weapons from Europe and restraints on shorter-range rockets. Her attitudes are an important consideration for Gorbachev because Britain has its own nuclear arsenal and she has given strong support to U. S. defense policies. Gorbachev accused the West of including "a package of conditions and demands on the Soviet Union" in proposals for an arms agreement. IN BRIEF Compiled from Associated Press reports Dollar makes historic drop NEW YORK - A historic plunge in the dollar's value put a scare into bull markets around the world yesterday as investors worried about an unrestrained decline in the U. S. currency and the outside chance of a trade war. The prices of stocks and bonds plunged in Tokyo, London, and New York in reaction to the dollar's fall. The U. S. currency hit its lowest point against the Japanese yen since modern exchange rates were established in the late 1940s. Traders said they were worried in part by President Reagan's plan to impose inhibitive tariffs on up to $300 million worth of Japanese electronic goods to force the Japanese into compliance with a trade agreement on computer chips. Marine Corps replace 28 security guards in Moscow WASHINGTON - The Marine Corps, coopefating with the State Department, said yesterday it has agreed to replace all 28 security guards at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow with other Marines as a special precaution. The move follows the disclosure that two former guards are suspected of repeatedly allowing Soviet agents in the embassy late at night in what has been called a critical breach of security. Meanwhile, Pentagon sources said Cpl. Arnold Bracy, one of the former guards suspected of espionage, was reduced in rank from sergeant for fraternization with a woman while in Moscow. UAW to get $1.3 million DETROIT - United Auto Workers union members will receive $1.3 million in compensation from General Motors Corp. as part of a settlement that sends 9,000 striking workers back to their jobs today. The settlement ratified on Sunday by members of UAW Local 594: in Pontiac calls for GM to compensate union local members 'whose contracts were violated because GM improperly subcontracted work to4 outside suppliers, the union said. "We've got compensation for everything that went out," said Local 594 President Donny Douglas. Members approved the agreement by a vote of 1,314-25, ending a four-day strike that halted truck and bus production at three Pontiac plants. "I don't think there was really much doubt about it," Bob Schroeder, the local's eduction director, said of the vote tally. Michigan State Police want mandatory retirement age LANSING - Michigan's Department of State Police wants to be able to force officers to step down at age 56 to keep the corps in its best possible physical fitness. The department has asked a federal judge to restore mandatory retirement. Congress last year passed a law allowing mandatory retirement ages to be set for firefighters, college professors and police officers. That opened the door for state police to ask U. S. District Judge Wendell' Miles to modify a ruling he made in 1983 that removed mandatory retirement for healthy employees. The 1983 consent judgment barred the state from retiring officers before age 70 unless the department could prove occupational problems such as physical incapability. 11 4 I Gorbachev ... willing to talk Thatcher ... demands action A Citizens air concerns over collider FOOD (Continued from Page 1) lifestyle." Seibarth said a 40-year- old forest and an Indian burial ground would be torn down if the collider was built on the proposed site. University experts testified in favor of the project. "I would be a very loud, very noisy, and enthusiastic supporter" of the collider being built at the proposed site, University Vice President for Research Linda Wilson told the panel. She added that the collider would bring about a "strong boost in the nation's and the world's understanding of high-particle physics." John Mogk, president of the Detroit-based Michigan Energy and Resource Research Association, told the panel that Michigan had a one in ten chance of hosting the accelerator. Only five states, he said, have a better chance than Michigan. The hearing was chaired by state Senator Doug Carl (R-Utica), head of the state Senate Energy Com- mittee. The panel also included Senators Lana Pollack (D-Ann Arbor) and Norman Shinkle (R- Lambertville). The State Senate passed a bill last Wednesday which appoints a super collider commission consist- ing of the state Director of Commerce, the Director of the Department of Natural Resources, the heads of the physics depart- ments at the University of Mich- igan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and others involved with education, govern- ment, and local industry. The commission's mandate is to "per- form all efforts necessary to attract the superconducting super collider to this state," the bill said. THE COLLIDER will smash beams of protons into each other with a collision energy of 40 trillion electron volts, and will have a $270 million annual budget. It will create no pollution while operating. The DoE will formally request proposals from states this April, to be submitted in August. Then, a panel of scientists named by the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engin- eering will study the submitted sites and recommend the top five sites to the DoE. The collider will be awarded to a state in January 1989. The DoE has said it would prefer a site with a sufficient amount of land, an appropriate environment, enough power and water, and community support and resources. The Fermi National Acceleration Laboratory, currently the largest particle acceleration plant in the country, is in Illinois. The new collider would smash particles with 20 times the collision energy possible at Fermi. 4 EXTRAS 14 I., -I Profs. find aberration in physics theory r' E 1. WHITE MA ET 95% fat free BOILED HAM 1.99 lb. DELI SWISS CHEESE sliced to order $2.99 b. 609 E. William Hours: M-F 8-7 663-4253 Sat. 8-6 (Continued from Page 1) substance which self-destructs after about a millionth of a second. QED, Gidley said, should predict the self-destructiontime very accur- ately. Gidley and Rich found a much shorter decay time than QED would have predicted. "Something's wrong some- where," Gidley said, "and it can't be just a systematic fluke. The pos- sibility of it just being a statistical fluctuation is zero." Rich said the experiments have been careful and accurate, but he did not rule out the possibility of experimental error. Rich and Gidley have been performing experiments in this area for over 10 years. "I hope this will cause a flurry of theoretical work," said Gidley. "Hard-core QED itself is not wrong, but theorists really have to resolve... the way we're applying WEEKEND MAGAZINE Fridays in The Daily 763-0379 it." "QED has been very successful in predicting phenomena to aston- ishing levels of accuracy," West- brooksaid. "I don't think I or anyone else thinks it's breaking down." He said, however, that he hoped the discrepancy could lead to bigger discoveries. The theory of QED has been used since about 1947 to describe and predict the electromagnetic interactions of atomic particles. The theory has also spawned other important scientific and tech- nological theories. Gidley said it would take over a year before the scientists can make another precise measurement. Rich said the new experiment "will be done in a completely different way - it will be a systematic check. We think it will be more accurate, but that's not the issue." "Much of physics will probably go on as before," Rich said, "but a lot of people will begin worrying about the foundations of quantum electrodynamics. It's the kind of discovery that might be explained away in a couple of months or it could open new doors or lead to new ways of thinking about things." Snowy-white owl caught red-handed in pigeon kill There's a killer owl flying around. According to Bill Thompson, a physics technician at Randall Laboratory, the snowy-white migrated from C.C. Little - where people had flocked to watch it last Friday - to the laboratory later that afternoon. While perching on the edge of the roof, the owl suddenly jumped off the ledge, toward the roof, in an explosion of white feathers that looked "like someone had busted open a pillow." Thompson sensed fowl play. In the invesigation that ensued, he discovered the remains of an unfortunate pigeon's stomach, or crop. "He did an excellent job on that pigeon," Thomson said. He added that owls are regularly four or five times larger than pigeons, and that the snowy-white is probably migrating north. --By Melissa Birks Cockroaches invade Lansing EAST LANSING (AP) - There are some unwanted passengers hitching rides on Michigan cars heading home from Florida - Blatella asiana, or flying Asian cockroaches. But Michigan State University entomologist Gary Dunn says the nasty critters face an uncertain future in Michigan. It seems that they like to live outside and may be used to Florida's climate. Vol. XCVII -No. 123 The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967 X) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms. Subscription rates: September through April-$18 in Ann Arbor; $35 outside the city. One term-$10 in town; $20 outside the city. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and sub - scribes to Pacific News Service and the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. 4 Editor in Chief...............................ROB EARLE Managing Editor..........................AMY MINDELL News Editor............................PHILIP 1. 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