The Michigan Daily-Friday, June 20, 1980-Page 3 State Senate bill won't hike 'U' staff strikes By BONNIE JURAN A state Senate bill to legalize public employee strikes would probably not increase the number of walk-outs by University staff membrs, according to congressional, labor, and University officials. The legislation will only "make legal what the (unions) have already been doing," University Labor Attorney William Lemmer said. GOV. WILLIAM MILLIKEN vowed yesterday to veto the bill, under debate in the Senate, unless a key penalty provision referring to public school employees is toughened. State Senator Robert VanderLaan (R1- Kentwood) said although public em- ployee strikes are currently illegal, they occur frequently because the inhibition to strike "eroded away" years ago. This lack of reluctance to strike, he said, is due to the refusal of the courts to enforce provisions to end walk-outs until the strike "drags on and incurs damage.'' American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) local 1583 President Dwight Newman said the proposed legislation may actually decrease the number of strikes in the future because the legalization of public employee walk-outs "forces the management to sit down and negotiate." In other states where similar measures have been passed, public employee strikes have decreased, he added. AFSCME REPRESENTS service personnel-including maintenance, and food service workers, custodians, and nurse's aides-at the Ann Arbor, Flint, and Dearborn campuses. "I suppose that if you polled the University administration their reac- tion (to the bill) would be mostly negative," University General Counsel Roderick Daane said. Daane said he opposed the bill because it may include a compulsory See SENATE, Page & Possible plates Secretary of State Richard Austin displays in his office yesterday some of the designs suggested by Michigan residents for 1984 license plates. Austin said entries would be accepted until July 1 and a decision on the final design would be made by the end of July. History prof traces views of neurotics By JOYCE FRIEDEN The American people of today are much more similar to 17th-century Puritans in their attitudes toward men- tal health than they would like to admit, according to a University assistant professor of history. In a book to be published in early 1981, John King discusses how people regarded today as "neurotic" were viewed in different periods of American history. "A PERSON plagued by an obsessive thought (an urge to commit a crime, for example) would go to his minister in Puritan times. . . The minister would tell him it was a sign that he was 'saved,' since he had the thought but didn't carry it out," King said in an in- terview Tuesday. "But by the end of the 19th century (the Victorian period), he would be going to a psychiatrist who would say, 'You are sick' and ask him to enter an insane asylum," he continued. "The Puritan culture would make you feel good about yourself, whereas the Vic- torians might make people spend their lives suffering needlessly." King said it is important to find out how different cultures dealt with men- tal illness because "people live and die over these issues." He cited the Salem witchcraft trials as an example of how controversial the definition of "neurotic" can become. "THE PURITANS saw these people as possessed by the devil ... Even the women saw themselves as victims. This explanation was good because it allowed the victim to make sense of what was happening," King said. He added that it is important for the mentally ill to make sense out of what they experience. "We attempt to do this today all the time," King explained. "A housewife who feels sick and out of love with her husband will be told she is having an 'identity crisis' and she can look at it in that light." It is difficult to view history as a "progression" of time because of these cultural differences, according to King. "There is no 'progression' in the way Americans have viewed mental illness. In the case of obsession, the standards of the Puritans were better than the Victorians, but in the case of witch- craft, they ended up. worse for the patient. "ONE HAS TO look at each time period separately and see how the people then viewed mental illness, rather than taking the psychiatric theories of today and putting them on the past,"he said. King seemed to feel that today's em- phasis on mental health and psychology is a throwback to America's Puritan roots. "The Puritans looked on America as the 'devil's landscape,' and so do we. To them, in order to prove sainthood, one had to first go through a 'spiritual wilderness,' and this nation was their wilderness. Today, what does President Carter do about the oil crun- ch? He doesn't offer an economic solution, but instead tells us, 'We are in a spiritual crisis.' It's a way we have of looking at all of America," he said. His new book will focus on five American intellectuals of the Victorian period including German sociologist Max Weber and Henry James Sr., father of novelist Henry James. It will discuss the Victorian construction of mental pathology, King said. Iopsiae~r. . ._ With thousands of "Topsiders" walking around Ann Arbor, it's easy to forget that the shoes were originally intended for use on sailboats. Wearing their Topsiders where they belong are two crewmen of an America's Cup boat in Newport, Rhode Island.