Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh wait, this wasn't meant to be funny?

Yes GEO, the faculty will DEFINITELY support you. After all, there's nothing that upper-middle class guilt-laden liberals like more than "showing solidarity with the workers." They will definitely be joining you on the picket lines, and some of the older ones will even get to relive their 1960s era pasts while they bore you to death with stories about what it was like to be in Madison, Wisconsin in 1968.

What they won't be doing, however, is anything meaningful. You could have your work load cut in half and receive the same paycheck - right now - and all it would take is for the faculty to teach one of your classes, or do some of your grading, or lead one of your discussion groups. The administration is willing to keep the stipends at the same level, but by doing half the work your pay would effectively be doubled. But don't expect the faculty to show quite THAT much "solidarity." They will support you right up to the point where they have to actually do something.

By asking for more money when the rest of the campus is on pay freeze and perhaps being furloughed, GEO may actually push the campus into having to lay people off. I would like more money, but I don't want anyone to lose their job for it. Meanwhile, the faculty will be showing "solidarity" with your cause, despite the fact that it's their desire for time off to research that has you working 40 hours / week for your "half time position" BEFORE you even write anything for your dissertation. Don't look for the oppressor in Swanlund - just pop over to your advisor's office.

The GEO does not seek "more money" for all graduate students They seek a living wage for the graduate students who make the minimum TA salary. The GEO has explicitly stated that the money to fund the living wage initiative should be taken from administrative budgets, not departments or undergraduate education.

My advisor - despite being an excellence hire - makes a mere fraction of what ex-President White will make as a business professor. A fraction of what many administrators make. Not everyone's pay was frozen last year - just take a look at the public records & see who continued to receive increases.

If you think that the professors have sole control over how much grads work or get paid, you are sorely mistaken. Grads in my department (which, by the way, pays the minimum salary) teach much, much more than other departments in similar fields. Yet the College is in such debt that they have refused to allocate any additional funds for TA salaries, despite our department's enormous number of IUs/credit hours taught. There appears to be no rational process by which a department is allocated funds in some areas of the university.

I can't believe the audacity of this university. They seem to have no regard for their graduate community - a sharp difference when compared to other top research universities in Illinois and Big Ten universities. By denying students a living wage, they are turning future alumni and donors against them. I fear this trend of flippant disdain for intellectual posterity. It can only lead to an increasing number of shady online campus initiatives, not to mention continued corruption at the highest levels in order to secure cash. Students, when treated well, become wistful alumni, become donors. When treated badly, well, you fill in the blank.

this 92% approval for a strike is a big fat joke. i am a graduate student, and i teach as well. but since i am at a department traditionally known to be apathetic about union activities, NO ONE has approached me on this matter. and NO ONE has asked for my representation in the decision process for a strike. the fact of the matter is, GEO is nothing but a bunch of liberal crazy students who think repeating some hippie lines is a way of fostering "progress." no, it's not about money they get - the increase they ask is actually quite minimal if you ask me. but it's about the "me me me me me" of these crazy liberals who just need to be in the center of all attention. they know it just too well that in these days and age, students will show "support" for anything liberal, anything for the "underdog," and they want to be in the spotlight to somehow feel vindicated for the under-appreciation they think they experience as a graduate student TA.

one thing is clear though, none of them can claim that they were unaware of this pay arrangement become they came here. in fact, most of them chose to come to U of I most likely because this is the best school they can get themselves into, or this is already the best package they manage to get out of those schools they applied. now they are here, they want more, they want to claim victimization. if any of the GEO member can produce a single case that shows the University is paying them less than what they are offered at the time of admissions, then I will join the strike. but the simple fact is, they can't. they came here willingly, knowing fully that graduate education is a huge financial and personal sacrifice.

on the one hand, they want the glory of the selfless educator, who gives up more comfortable lifestyle with "fair" income to pursue academic excellence, to educate our next generation, blah blah blah blah blah. you all know the glorified story. but on the other hand, they want more money, more appreciation, more recognition, MORE.

as of the "unfairly high" pay administrators or some professors are receiving, well, this is my take: if you truly care about the quality of the University, you go attack ex-president White pay, ask him to cut it in half, and put the extra money to research fund or undergraduate education, or scholarship for underprivileged students. those programs are far more underfunded, yet I see none of the GEO members expresses ANY INTEREST to divert the so called "over paid" administrator's salaries to those far more deserving programs. so much about caring for this University. bunch of phonies.

what's more disgusting about GEO is the way they turn this issue into a "movement" not much unlike the cultural revolution in China. the strategy is simple - "let's see which graduate students dare to cross the picket line." this is the way these phoney hippies form "solidarity." they managed to seize the framing of the issue, and impose it on anyone who is either in silent opposition, or in the vast majority of graduate students' minds, COMPLETE APATHY.

we want to learn to do good research, to become a true scholar, and at the same time, contribute our educational experience thus far to our fellow undergraduate students. we don't want to be overworked, and we want to be competitive once we graduate and join thousands of other graduate students to compete for an academic placement. and that should be our main focus here. this is not a communist country, nobody told you graduate education is FREE and living expenses are PAID FOR before you came. so if you ask me, i'd say you should STAY FOCUSED ON THE TRUE PURPOSES OF GRADUATE EDUCATION, and stop being a liberal hippie wannabe. GEO disgusts me.

GEO Scab,

I love the screen name. Feel free to shoot me an email. It might be time for a counterprotest.