U of I's GEO Emerges Victorious After 13-Hour Sit-In
By Arun Bhalla
Urbana Indymedia (urbana.indymedia.org)
After 13 hours of occupying the Swanlund Administration Building in civil disobedience, the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) emerged victorious on March 13.
Following over three weeks of planning, around 60 members and community supporters of the GEO met early Wednesday morning, proceeding to the Swanlund Administration Building on UIUC campus following the "go ahead" signal from two scouts. By 7:45am, nearly 40 members and allies of the GEO had gained control of the two entrances of Swanlund Administration Building, the administrative center of UIUC, preventing over 100 employees of Swanlund from entering and working within the building. Their demand: the Board of Trustees and the UI Administration negotiate an out-of-court settlement that respects the express wishes of graduate employees for union representation; the agreement must be made as a public promise and written down in a signed, official letter. Not coincidentally, the Board of Trustees for the University of Illinois system had been scheduled at the Illini Union, just one block away at the Illini Union.
Not long after the GEO established its presence in Swanlund, employees arrived for work, attempting to break through the rows of people lined up behind the doors. While a few employees were able to forcibly shove their way through the lines in the back door, no person was able to enter the front door without GEO's during the occupation; in the first few minutes, one employee trying to enter through the front door informed the participants that "[they] are in big trouble." Within the first 20 minutes, the university police arrived on the scene, turning away anyone else that might try to enter Swanlund. Within the first hour, all Swanlund employees had exited the building, including Chancellor Nancy Cantor on her way to the Board of Trustees meeting. GEO banners were unfurled inside and outside the building.
From the start, the GEO remained extremely reasonable, polite, and accommodating in its civil disobedience. Once the GEO took control of the building, they informed any employees within the building that the GEO were preventing employees from entering but would also allow all employees already within the building to exit. The GEO remained as cooperative with University Police as much as possible without compromising the occupation. The university police were likewise friendly and lax, and no one was arrested in relation to the action.
Around 9am, Vice Chancellor Charles Colbert informed the occupants that while they were preventing employees, no one and nothing, including food, would be allowed to enter the building. Within a couple minutes, a few police officers were stationed in front of each of the building's two entrances. The police officers later allowed the occupants to order in pizzas for lunch, but Colbert informed the occupants that this would be their last meal inside. Nevertheless, supporters were able to smuggle in food and some other supplies later in the day.
Outside, supporters maintained a picket line in front of the building. The crowd swelled as over 50 people met for the rally beginning at 10am. Many spoke to the crowd, including GEO members, UIUC professors, and fellow members of the AFL-CIO and Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) / American Federation of Teachers AFT), with whom the GEO is affiliated. Supporters remained outside Swanlund for the rest of the day, including local troubadour Paul Kotheimer, and later political folksinger David Rovics, still in town from the previous night's show at the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center.
At 4pm, UIUC Provost Richard Herman arrived at the front of Swanlund to read a statement to the occupants. The statement, written by Herman and Cantor during the day, sought to address the GEO's demands. The occupants discussed the statement in private, preparing their own statement in response. Around 5:20pm, Herman returned to Swanlund with the University's legal counsel, and the two entered Swanlund to meet with GEO co-presidents Uma Pimplaskar and Jon Coit and GEO staffer Mike Stewart.
After two meetings over the course of over three hours, a compromise was finally reached and presented to the rest of the occupants. In this statement, similar to the original statement but with vagueness replaced by details, the UIUC administration and GEO agreed to meet weekly to negotiate which graduate assistants may qualify as part of the bargaining unit and later be eligible to vote for union representation. The statement had the goal of completing by April 28, 2002, with significant progress expected by April 15. The GEO members among the party of occupants voted unanimously to accept this statement as having met the demand of the occupation, and the GEO members and community supporters exited Swanlund after 13 continuous hours within. While participants expected to be arrested quickly after the action began, most were prepared to stay overnight, and many were prepared to sit in Swanlund until Friday.
The Graduate Employees Organization (shout.net/~geo) has fought since at least the early 1990s to allow UIUC graduate students to decide whether they want union representation. Despite repeated majority support by both graduate and undergraduate students for the graduate employees' right to union representation, the university administration has repeatedly to refused to enter dialogue ofer the issue. The 1983 Educational Labor Relations Act of Illinois does not require universities to grant students the right to unionize, but universities may voluntary grant them the right.
The March 13 victory is the GEO's greatest achievement yet, finally entering dialogue with university administration that will hopefully allow for graduate employees at the University of Illinois (and later the other universities in the state system) to have the right to elect union representation.
