Page 4-The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 27, 1990 hib e idihjan Bui&L EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 'N~ 5~C1 cj JuW& oUTh' 3 E*LEW t NOAH FINKEL Editor in Chief DAVID SCHWARTZ Opinion Editor Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. C- ' 4 Q r 5 p IiN I r- TAs vs. cops { i 1 i 1 N J 1 }i i 1 + 1 Temple shows no respect for grad student union A FACULTY STRIKE AT TEMPLE dergraduate, and forcibly dragged them University in Philadelphia has virtually out of the building. The next day, the shut the campus down - close to 80 Vice President of Student Affairs, mak- percent of all classes have been af- ing use of Temple's version of a code fected. Precipitated by an administra- of non-academic conduct, suspended tion proposal to decrease faculty wages all seven graduate students, banning and slash health benefits, the strike has them from the entire university cam- taken on increasing significance now pus. that both Temple's graduate students Temple President Peter J. Liacouras and employee unions are demonstrating has tried to split his opposition, hinting their support. The battle lines are grow- to students that the faculty are to blame ig sharper. On one side, teachers and for ruining their education. "Only the workers are struggling for basic rights students are right in this situation," Li- and control over the quality of univer- acouras has said. But the undergradu- sity education; on the other side, an ates have conclusively shown which administration deaf to faculty concerns, side they are on and who is really to is intent on union-busting and preserv- blame for the university's tense atmo- img its own bureaucratic power. sphere. An undergraduate group, Stu- Graduate students at Temple have dents in Solidarity with University Pro- long been trying to gain union recogni- fessionals, has staged several protests. tion. The administration has always On September 7, more than 500 shut refused, using "carrot and stick" tactics down the University's main thorough- against them. When the Graduate Stu- fare, demanding that the administration dent Employees' Organization (GSE) relent. More joint demonstrations and gained recognition from the Temple sit-ins are being organized by both Student Government last April and graduates and undergraduates for next Were granted $900 to organize, the week. Dean of Students Office vetoed both As our own University administra- their recognition and their funding. tion continues with its plans to impose The response was increased organ- a private university police force - and izing. By the end of the summer, more with preliminary drafts of a code of than 500 of the 750 graduate students non-academic conduct already circulat- crried union cards, and their own 2- ing - the events at Temple highlight diy strike was held in the first week of another underlying purpose of depu- the current semester. The administra- tized security officers: union-busting. tion responded by offering a $700 a As the Graduate Employees' Organiza- year raise and vague promises of tion (GEO) here prepares for next health-care benefits while still bluntly year's contract negotiations, it will face refusing to recognize the students' right a hostile administration that has repeat- to collectively bargain. GSE refused to edly tried to undermine the union since accept this administration bribe at the its inception, and will face the prospect cost of their legal right to organize. of having any form of collective action Although continuing to teach, union on its part met with university guns and members have been selectively mixing intimidation -- a reality already faced classes on labor relations and union not only at Temple, but among workers history with their traditional syllabi. organizing at Berkeley, Wisconsin, and Joined by sympathetic undergraduates, Yale as well. they have also taken part in protests The events at Temple demonstrate and sit-ins to pressure the administra- again that university administrators will tion to negotiate. display no hesitation in unleashing their 0 The administration has responded security forces against university wvith force. Last Tuesday, a group of workers. More importantly, they also graduates and undergraduates staged a show that only through collective mass sit-in at the office of the university action and creative student protest can president to demand that the university students and workers hope to stand up negotiate with its faculty and with the to university administrations which - GSE. After four hours of protest, offi- on issues ranging from worker repre- ders of the Temple Deputized Police sentation to security deputization - Iorce entered the building, arrested clearly do not have their best interests Seven graduate students and one un- in mind. ~w- I f A %5T A 1 UN R Zcctg- I LITTLE, MY r e e e 0 I c lopp CPS Aow-,,& Conservatives shouldn't despair By Manuel F. Olave Many new students at the University of Michigan, particularly those of a conserva- tive bent, often find themselves shocked by the all-pervasive influence of the cam- pus left. From the student government, campus publications, and sympathetic fac- ulty, it appears that the radical left is firmly entrenched in the power structure of the University. These radicals create an atmosphere where Conservative and even moderate students are afraid to speak their views, lest they be branded as "fascists," "racists," or "homophobes," as the events at last weeks Regents meeting showed. In this situation it seems that conserva- tives would simply throw their hands up in disgust and try to ignore the situation as best they can. Fortunately that has not been the case as a good number of conser- vatives have been involved in trying to upset the balance of power. They have ac- tively challenged the radical left, starting from small numbers to gaining the respect of a good number of students on campus. That they have staying power is apparent by the lefts' own rantings. In the past they generally ignored the few vocal conserva- tive students to not give them "legit- imacy," concentrating instead on attacking the University administration, U.S. imp- erialism, or whatever conspiracy they brewed up. Now the radicals reserve some of their harshest criticisms for the conservative members of the students government, the Michigan Review, and groups like Tagar - Students for Israel. It goes without say- ing that the number of active, conservative students has increased greatly. The galvanizing factor behind this con- servative revival on campus was the stu- dent elections of two years ago. Aaron Williams, a member of the Conservative Coalition, won the presidency of the stu- dent body in a heated election. That an openly conservative candidate could win in Olave is a senior in LSA majoring in political science and history. a University known for its left-liberal tra- dition was amazing. This was coupled with the emergence of the College Repub- licans as one of the larger, if not largest, political group on campus. The momen- tum generated continued the next term when CC won a landslide victory in the election for representatives. Unfortunately the left managed to get the results of those elections thrown out by using very questionable methods. The culmination of this confrontation was the presidential elections of last year. The rad- ical left managed to win that election, after a particularly vicious campaign. What is important to notice in that last election was the fact that the radical party, Action, had to portray themselves as mod- erates in order to gain the support of mainstream liberals on campus. After all they won by only 200 votes in a contest where more than 6000 students voted. is easily explained. Outside of the ivory towers of the University of Michigan, Conservative Republicans have won the presidency of the country the last three: times. Ridiculous ideologies, particularly Socialism, are collapsing worldwide, although from the talks of certain faculty °. and students you wouldn't believe it. Mos of the ideas the radicals preach such as uni- lateral disarmament, support for Commu- nistic "Liberation Movements," and a silly obsession with semantics simply don't; wash with a majority of students who know better. That these purveyors of non- sense manage to intimidate the student body is a sign of how obnoxious a few re- calcitrant idiots can be. If you are a conservative and want to change this nonsense there are man things you can do. There are vocal organi- zations such as the College Republicans, Young Americans for Freedom, and Stu- Most of the ideas the radicals preach such as unilateral disarmament, support for Communistic "Liberation Movements," and a silly obsession with semantics simply don't wash with a majority of students who know better. They were forced to keep most of their agenda hidden, lest they disturb many lib- erals and moderates who normally oppose the worst excesses of the left. The most blatant example of this ma- nipulation by the leftists was their support for politically motivated off-campus trips. During the election they completely avoided the issue, but no sooner had they won, that a thousand dollars was appropri- ated for a political junket to the occupied territories in Israel. Many people who voted for Action have come to regret their choice. Of equal importance to notice is that the absolute number of students voting for conservative candidates has increased, de- spite the loss last year. The reason for this dents for a Conservative Campus. Our student government is the Michigan Stu- dent Assembly which has elections twice a year, one coming up in November - get involved, or at least make sure you vote! If you like to write editorials get in- volved in this newspaper, yes, even in the Michigan Daily Opinion page there's room for conservatives! If you are a mod- erate or a liberal and you don't like the rad- icals, do something about it too. Remem- ber these radicals are a small minority of the student body, who have gotten away with too much for too long. When the "silent majority" finally wakes up these radicals will finally be put in their place, on the fringes where they belong. Auto contract UAW too conciliatory in AS THE PERSIAN GULF CRISIS moves closer to a possible shooting war and oil prices surge to nearly $40 a barrel, consequent fears of an economic tecession are becoming a crucial factor tn labor negotiations such as those ecently concluded between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and General Motors (GM). The result of these. zegotiations was predictable: victory' 4or management; defeat for labor. But long before talk of a recession egan, the UAW had demonstrated that. it was not going to pursue a sufficiently aggressive negotiating strategy in con- tract talks. Though surveys conducted 4mong workers throughout the past Dear demonstrated that the cost of liv- ipg allowance (COLA) - inflation ad- justment - was their most vital con- oern, the UAW hierarchy decided in May to ignore this issue during nego- tiations. In contrast, the Canadian Au- toworkers Union (CAW) - which left e UAW in the 1980s for being too 6onciliatory toward management - ijust used a militant one-week strike to vin a contract guaranteeing both an in- Sured COLA and hefty pay raises over the next three years. Increased job safety, another of the workers' key concerns, received only token attention in the contract talks. There was no serious headway made in forcing management to insure the negotiations with GM The UAW-GM talks did make some progress on the issue of job security as it applies to plant closings. The prob- lem in the past has been that manage- ment could shut down any plant with virtually no notification to the workers. But under the new contract, GM is now required to compensate workers for the maximum 36 weeks that their plant may be idled - with benefits amounting to 90 percent of their salaries. If the plant remains idle after 36 weeks, those affected workers are put into a job pool where they receive 100 percent of their benefits while do- ing some kind of work for the com- pany until their plant is reactivated. It is regrettable that the UAW, con- tinuing to accept all too readily man- agerial logic about "recession," "profitability," "competition," and similar buzzwords, did not negotiate more vigorously, especially on the COLA and job safety issues. The case was different in 1987, when the econ- omy was healthier and the UAW pur- sued a tougher strategy in its talks with Ford. The resulting contract was one of the more progressive in the history of the auto industry. But unlike their Canadian counter- parts, the UAW this time around not only seems unwilling to strike in de- fense of its interests, but even uncertain about lust what those interests actullyv Cartoon is incorrect To the Daily: Russell Baltimore's cartoon "George Bush and James Baker, 3rd, during a hard day of politicing [sic]" (9/26/90) fully dis- plays the paralyzing ignorance so typical of the Daily Opinion Page. Mr. Baltimore's message isn't a politi- cal opinion -- it is simply wrong. The cartoon implies that Bush and his staff are not working during the Iraq-Kuwait crisis. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Bush's and Baker's day begins before dawn, involves countless reports, meet- ings, and decisions, and ends very late at night. I feel quite sure that Bush and Baker work more in a day than Mr. Baltimore does in a week. Mr. Baltimore should have commented on the merits of the Bush administration's policies, where there is room for legiti- mate debate. Libelling Bush and his staff, though, does nothing but show the car- toonist's ignorance. Carey Brian Meadors Publisher, Michigan Review RI ll hrnlw th law 4 sequence. Instead of taking steps to break the vicious cycle which she had begun, she chose to seek an illegal abortion. Contrary to the well-publicized belief that state legislators' only intent is to force minors into a parental trap, legisla- tion like Indiana's is enacted to prevent si- tuations like this. Pointing a finger at the government as a scapegoat avoids an im- portant issue: Being biologically mature clearly does not render one a mature adult. Had she obeyed the law, Becky would not have suffered the fate that she did. She would have received proper medical atten- tion. Becky made a series of poor choices. Let her unfortunate story serve as an ex- ample not to state legislators, but rather to those who through no one's fault but their own, may one day find themselves in a similar situation. The lesson is simple: If you are not in a position to handle all the possible consequences of your behavior, then abstain. Emily Metzgar LSA Sophomore Section is too narrow To the Daily: My housemates and I, after reading Snnrtc, nnlau this weAr thinlythatW e. d t'i'p' 11 4 oI