University gives false impression that striking means not caring

There are some lines you just don’t cross.

Or at least, lines you shouldn’t cross unless you have a really, really good reason and there’s no getting around it – like the line in front of Best Buy on Black Friday. Or, y’know, picket lines.

Or the invisible line in disagreements and controversies – the one you cross with a carelessly flung comment only to realize a moment later that you’ve gone too far and there’s no going back. This is the kind of crossed line that, depending on who you’re talking to, leads to things like being grounded, getting the silent treatment, the oh-no-you-didn’ts, crying and apologizing to Sarah Palin on your talk show.

You could say there have been a lot of lines crossed in the University’s spat with the Graduate Employees’ Organization, and both sides have accused the other of misrepresenting the situation and either overhyping or making light of certain facts. But the University has been toeing one of those “do not cross” lines recently.

The Daily Illini recently asked University spokeswoman Robin Kaler some questions about the situation. In response to a question about what to do if a student gets to class and there is no teacher, Kaler begins with, “We would hope assistants respect their instructional obligations and do not impair students’ progress in their current courses.”

Well, obviously, if there is a strike and a student is in a course taught by a graduate assistant, that student’s progress will be impaired. But Kaler offers up a false dichotomy when she says that the University hopes “assistants respect their instructional obligations” and not impair progress, which striking obviously does. The message I get is that graduate employees who strike don’t care.

That’s also the message I’ve heard graduate employees recoiling from. Whenever I’ve heard graduate employees addressing the situation, all of them have stressed that they really don’t want to have to strike – and that undergraduate education is still important to them. Most of my classes last week were prefaced with tense little conversations about the strike (basically, the instructor laying out what will happen and students’ hands flying up to ascertain the future of their grades, or else sitting back and imagining being asleep that time next week).

The GEO’s dispute with the University is a labor dispute. It’s an issue of wages, waivers and other benefits, not a commentary on whether GEO employees take their jobs seriously.

The University has not suggested that wages are down because of the caliber of instruction and assistant these employees offer; all the arguments boil down to the budget.

So, as in any argument where you have to live with someone after the fact, the University should make sure it sticks to the issues at hand because once you cross a line, you can’t take it back.

Rachel is a junior in Media.