4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 14, 1995 420 Maynard MICHAELROSENBERG Ann Arbor, Ml 48109 Editor in Chief Edited and managed by JULIE BECKER students at the JAMES M. NASH University of Michigan Editorial Page Editors 'Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters, and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. Strikeout Legislation fthreatens -TAbarganig fights JUDiTH KAFKA THE FINE PRINT Under cover ofdarkness, dangers and dedsibn lurk With one stroke of the pen, the Michi- gan Legislature could essentially de- stroy unions representing all of the state's public employees - including the Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO), which rep- resents teaching assistants at the University. House Bill 4993, currently under discussion in the Human Resources and Labor Commit- tee, would deny all employees ofpublic higher learning institutions the right to employ col- leeive bargaining on nearly every issue of concern. The bill would prohibit staff from using the strategy to protect their interests in such vital matters as health care, decisions about tenure policy and workload require- ments. Unions would be effectively gagged and therefore rendered useless. By tilting the balance heavily in favor of management, Bill 4993 would make a mock- ery of the process of arbitration. The gag on collective bargaining would make it nearly inpossible for unions to even reach a point of inipasse with management. And even if this point were reached, the employees would then be forced to accept management's last best offer - all other mediation would be eliminated. Furthermore, once a contract ex- pires, employers would be able to bypass the union and hire nonunion workers -to whom they would not be obligated to offer the conditions guaranteed by the contract. In addition, under the bill the most acute weapon employed by workers -the strike - would no longer be feasible. Not only would each individual striker lose an addi- tional day's pay for every day of lost work, the union would be heavily fined. Admit- tedly, strikes are disruptive and altogether undesirable for all involved. At the Univer- sity, a GEO strike would paralyze the school, hurting students and faculty alike. However, strikes still represent the single best threat of any union. It is important to realize that strikes at universities are highly rare-rather, unions use the threat of a strike to protect their employees. Bringing negotiations to the brink of striking point pressures employers to take union demands seriously. Bill 4993 would make this threat laughable, as no union could withstand the financial strain. Through the GEO, teaching assistants at the University have fought for and won rea- sonable demands concerning health care and pay raises. Weakened by Bill 4993, TAs would be at the mercy of the University's petty contract offers. Without collective bar- gaining, TAs could stand to lose what pre- cious little they have. By destroying the bargaining rights of the TAs, Bill 4993 would affect the quality ofthe University as a whole. Unsatisfied TAs are less likely to work as hard. The graduate program would attract fewer students, since many depend upon a teaching position to fund their education. Ultimately, the University's large undergraduate body would suffer from a loss of qualified teaching per- sonnel. This bill must be defeated. The Michigan Student Assembly is working, through its lobbying firm, against the bill. This work should continue. Legislators in Lansing must hear the message that Bill 4993 needs to be stopped. A woman trying to get home at night finds herself in quite a predicament these days. If she chooses to walk home alone she may be accused of stupidity, or of trying to make a statement. If she chooses to have someone walk her home she becomes dependent. Of course she could disregard the judg- ments and stereotyping her actions may in- duce and merely act on gut instinct. Take the woman who chooses to walk somewhere alone at night, only to regret her decision halfway there when she finds her- self the target of catcalls and threats, or the woman who endures a little grabbing and patting at a party to avoid walking home alone, or the woman who, rather than tackle the question at that crucial hour, stays in at night to study, watch a movie, read a book. Walking alone at night, we are told, is often unsafe for both men and women; how- ever, we are additionally cautioned, no one has the right to infringe on another person's right to walk alone. As for the concept of just taking a walk - a non-directional, thought-provoking, mind-clearing jaunt-past sundown: forget about it. Not even up for discussion. Men are stuck in a bit of a quandary as well, although granted not to the same de- gree. He who lets her walk home alone is uncaring, irresponsible, a wimp. He who does not is controlling, chauvinistic, a creep. Not to mention a guy who's tired, extremely busy, or a little queasy himselfabout making the return trip alone. Yes, the University does sponsor effec- tive, albeit limited, options - Safewalk, Ride Home and the Nite Owl - and should be commended for helping to provide these valuable and underused services. Yet the fact remains that most students find themselves at one end of the late night question on a regular basis, and for a variety of reasons do not choose one of the University's options. What can we do, we wonder. Put more DPS officers in the Diag, more lights in the Law Quad, a blue-light phone in the arb. If only the night question were limited to Ann Arbor, our quaint little college town, then all could be contained, controlled, dif- fused. Instead, this is a problem that affects women -and thinking men - everywhere, all the time. Whether or not to take the subway, cross the parking ramp, wait at the bus stop, go to the laundromat, run to the corner store, see a movie, fill up at a gas station, and on and on and on. Hey, you, high school punks who thought it was funny to shove me against a pole, grab my belongings, and run away laughing - find something better to do on your Saturday nights. Hey, you, guy in the baseball cap who proved to himself and his friend how easily a woman on campus can be scared by grabbing me as I, ironically enough, left a Take Back the Night meeting - get your power-kicks by playing video games or watching Rocky. Hey, you. The fact of the matter is, other than the slow but sure restructuring of society, creat- ing one in which women are valued as active and equal beings, I have no solution. Often, I cross campus alone at night; sometimes I do not. Often, I take my clunky old bicycle, which gives me added speed and inaccessibility; sometimes I do not. Yet every time I make that decision, one way or the other, I am overwhelmed by the responsibility inherent in my choice. I con- sider the consequences-will I be attacked? scared'? Will I feel like a second-class hu- man being? an obligation? - and I consider how to explain - defend - my decision. I am only one woman, acting for myself, but I feel as though my choice is about more than just me. Perhaps it's because I know that while I am making my decision, others are strug- gling with the same type of question across the globe. Perhaps I want my decision to be the right one for them as well. Or perhaps I merely feel that as a woman who identifies herself as a feminist, who tries to play a role in the restructuring of our society, that I have more of an obligation to make the right decision each time it grows dark. It's an unrealistic expectation, I know. Sometimes I'd rather not think about it at all. But then, inevitably, it grows dark. -Judith Kafka is an RC senior. She can be reached over e-mail at jkafka@umich. edt(. MATT WIMSATT Mooai~s ILEA~ 1 _ -- ,.._ ct>? 57%/luISIPLY WANT o BAKERY 4 s NOTABLE QUOTABLE 'Either this Is a university that pays for its basic mission or it's a place that just takes money from people and just uses it as it pleases. -Jonathan Friendly, director of the master's program in, journalism and plaintiff in a lawsuit against the University AmeniCorps Senate shouldn't bankrupt worthy program i President Clinton's national service pro- gram, AmeriCorps, suffered a major set- back Monday when a Senate appropriations subcommittee voted to "zero out" program funding for the next fiscal year. While reduc- ing the budget deficit is an important na- tional priority, Congress should spare this fledgling program from budget cuts. AmeriCorps was launched in 1993 with some bipartisan support. Since then it has allowed 20,000 young people to work for nonprofit agencies and organizations in an effort to promote a renewed American spirit of volunteerism. In exchange, the program provides them with a minimum wage and a college grant of $4,725 for each year of service. In a day and age when many young people grow into adulthood with a diminish- ing sense of obligation to their community, AmeriCorps emphasizes the mutual benefits of community service. It encourages young Americans to bring about personal and soci- etal change through helping others. In the words of Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.): "National service is not just another social program, but really should be part of a social movement aimed at ... rekindling the habits that made our country great by neighbor helping neighbor." Furthermore, AmeriCorps has provided essential financial assistance to thousands of would-be college students. It has helped to offset annual tuition hikes, rising textbook costs and an increasing burden on individu- als who are paying back student loans well into their post-collegiate lives. For strug- gling students, AmeriCorps provides another option to defray the costs of attending col- How TO CONTACT THEM lege. It is hard to imagine that financing a college education would be any easier should Congress also decide to hand over its student loan programs to the private banking indus- try, another budget-cutting idea being kicked around Capitol Hill. Indeed, the budget ax is descending on AmeriCorps at a time when many high-school graduates simply find tu- ition too expensive to shoulder. Finally, AmeriCorps has hardly had a chance to prove its merits to the Ameican people. It has been in existence for two years - a relatively brief period of time for a program of this nature. To a Republican- controlled Congress that is preaching the need for a slimmer budget, it hardly seems sensible to cut a $454 million program that - once off the ground - is supposed to save federal dollars through contributions from the private sector. Is the new majority party in Congress opposing AmeriCorps because it is a creation of the Clinton administration? Congress' defunding of AmerCorps in its infancy smells of party politics, not sound fiscal policy. A slim chance remains that Congress will restore AmeriCorps funding in either Appro- priations Committee meetings this week or by amendment on the Senate floor in the near future. Americans might be better served if Congress refocused its budget cuts toward the deep and plentiful pork barrel and tar- geted items such as corporate subsidies, which dwarf the AmeriCorps budget. While reduc- ing the budget deficit should be at the fore- front of congressional priorities, eliminating an untested, well-conceived policy like AmeriCorps would be a mistake. A tree is not a human being To the Daily: I was reading the front page of the Daily last Friday (9/8/95) when I came across an article titled "Construction takes tree's life." I had to laugh when i read the ensuing article. There was one quote from a student who was insulted because the tree was cut down in front of students. Should a tree be shielded from public view when cut down (a huge curtain perhaps)? There were also close-ups of the tree stump. This article seemed to treat the "death" of a tree in the same way it would treat the death of a human being. I do not believe that this event deserved a front page story. Remember, it was a plant that was cut down, not a person. Mark West Engineering senior Republican bill imperils environment To the Daily: Last week the Republican as- sault on environmental protec- tion in the United States reached a new milestone of cynicism as Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska) and Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) un- veiled H.B. 2275, a proposal to gut the Endangered Species Act. Young, with intimate ties to min- ing and timber interests (includ- ing stock holdings in companies who will profit from ESA evis- publicans), mineral development rights threatening the integrity of Yellowstone are being sold to foreign corporations for as little as $2.50 an acre. Equally costly to the taxpayer is the prospect of oil drilling in the pristine Arctic National Wild- life Refuge - a pork-barrel pet of Young and other oil-industry PAC recipients. So transparent a corporate giveaway is ANWR drilling that even Newt Gingrich once referred to this outrageous scheme as a "30-day quick fix for America's energy needs," at the price of our last great Arctic wil- derness. The introduction of H.B. 2275 is a capstone to the scorched- earth policy maintained by the Republican Congress with respect to environmental legislation. For 25 years, laws like the ESA have been effective in safeguarding human health and local econo- mies as well as fostering the re- turn of the bald eagle, the per- egrine falcon and other species. Federal protection for salmon, for instance, has helped preserve the resource as well as sustain fish- ing communities in the North- west. The endangered Pacific yew has yielded the drug Taxol, effec- tive in restoring health to thou- sands of cancer victims. Unfortunately, those of us in southeastern Michigan cannot rely upon our legislators to battle against further compromise ofour environmental quality. Rep. Dick Crysler and Sen. Spencer Abraham possess despicable vot- ing records on the environment, maintaining an embarrassing fe- alty to corporate lobbyists and party ideologues unrelenting in their quest to turn back the clock 25 years or more of environmen- Eliminate foreign language requirement, not pass/fail To the Daily: This semester marks the first time that students will be denied the opportunity to take their fourth semester language requirement on a pass/fail basis. The reason for this is what Associate Dean Michael Martin called "the poi- soning of the language learning environment" by the pass/fail option. I would argue that the real poison is the existence of the lan- guage requirement itself. Remov- ing the pass/fail option acknowl- edges that the long-standing ef- fort to coerce students into learn- ing a foreign language is failing. However, it is illogical to assume that tightening the screws further will improve the situation. In- stead, we should look critically at what is really wrong with the lan- guage learning experience at this university. First, there is a definite lack of direction. The college has never really defined "fourth-semester proficiency"-possibly the most ambiguous phrase in the LSA catalog. While secondary schools and even state legislatures struggle to align exit requirements with proficiency standards ac- cepted by language profession- als, LSA still measures profi- ciency by the outmoded yardstick of "seat time." What yopi are ac- tually able to do with the lan- guage after sitting through 232 varies widely from department to department and from year to year. Second, the college refuses to allocate the resources necessary to do the job. While it is always been eager to spend money on versity. If you come from one of the best high schools, your language. teacher most likely was specifi- cally trained in language peda- gogy and compensated in the $40- 55,000 range. If you study Span- ish here, odds are you will en- counter a native speaker making less than $17,000 a year, with a degree unrelated to language teaching, and limited teaching experience. This person's lack of credentials is supposedto be over- ridden by a corresponding lack of autonomy in deciding what and how to teach, and which grades to assign. This "teacher-proof'sys- tem is a major reason for the fail- ure of the language requirement to date. By contrast, in those cases where LSA actually pays atten- tion to student achievement - such as in the Residential College and the Comprehensive Studies Program - you will find experi- enced instructors with some au- tonomy and salaries above food- stamp eligibility level. Finally, there is an inexpli- cable lack of choice. When I was short a few lab science credits 20 years ago, I headed for that de- lightful class which takes you on outings to the Botanical Gardens - Botany 101. Organic chemis- try would have delayed my gradu- ation by decades. With languages, it's 232 or nothing. There is no choice, and thus no incentive to make these courses attractive. We have seen that your coerced tu- ition dollars do not go to the lan- guage instructor-where do they go? How many people's jobs or Sen. Carl Levin (D) Sen. Spencer Abraham (R)