At the University of Illinois/Champaign-Urbana, the members of the Graduate Employees Organization/ AFT are moving into high gear to persuade the university to recognize their union. Last month, at one of the best-attended membership meetings in its history, says Toby Higbie, GEO communications chair, the membership voted unanimously to support a stepped-up action plan for the spring. The plan includes holding "negotiations" in administrative offices, where grad students set up a table and chairs, and put a "contract" on the table that pledges the signatories to honor the outcome of a collective bargaining election. GEO also held a "work-in" at the end of March.

Higbie notes that these actions are "positive representations of what is going on--the work we are doing." He adds, however, that there is great sentiment among the 5,000 graduate employees to strike. "People are tired and frustrated," he says. "We've been at this for a long time." The union filed 3,226 cards in 1996 to petition for an election. The GEO was voted in the following year, but the university refused to recognize the vote. In 1998, it got a negative judicial ruling on the employee status of the graduate students. Last year, the GEO got a bill of support through both houses of the Legislature, but the chairman of the senate rules committee would not pass it out of the committee.

"We plan to send messages that the president and chancellor will find hard to ignore," says Higbie.

AFT opposes Fla. plan to end affirmative action

The AFT executive council is calling on the governor of Florida to withdraw a proposed executive order that would end the state's affirmative action programs. While Gov. Jeb Bush claims his plan is designed to end racial "quotas" and "preferential admissions" at Florida's public higher education institutions, groups like the AFT-affiliated FEA/United, the Florida NAACP, and the state's AFL-CIO are strongly opposed to the executive order and the closed process that produced it.

The AFT is opposed to quotas and preferences to determine who will be admitted to college or hired for a job, the council stressed in a resolution passed at its meeting earlier this month, but it "strongly supports affirmative action programs that help prepare minority students for higher education and that help students succeed in college after they are admitted." Gov. Bush, the AFT resolution says, has failed to show that the state's affirmative action programs have led to "quotas" and "preferences" in college admissions and hiring. The resolution urges the governor to withdraw the proposed executive order "until solid information is available to determine what course of action will best serve Florida's students and schools."

Mark your calendars

Mark your calendars now for the AFT biennial convention, which will be held in historic Philadelphia, July 2-7. A number of preconvention events are also scheduled, including the Civil, Human and Women's Rights Conference (June 30-July 2); the Retirees Conference (July 2-3); the AFT Communications Association Conference (July 1-2); and the AFT Educational Research and Dissemination Program's conference (July 1-2).

The AFT convention call, which outlines procedures for delegate elections, credentials, per-capita requirements, resolution deadlines and committee assignments, has already been mailed to AFT locals. Convention registration will begin on Sunday, July 2, with a special reception for delegates and visitors to be held that evening. Convention business will begin on Monday morning, July 3.

Please note that the deadline for convention resolutions to be submitted to the national office is May 15, 2000.