By an overwhelming vote last night, members of the Graduate Employees’ Organization voted to go on a one-day walkout today. Union members will forego teaching their classes and instead will be picketing outside of various University buildings where classes are taught — Angell Hall, the Chemistry Building, Natural Science and others — as well as staging a rally at 4:30 p.m. in front of the Michigan Union.

University Provost Paul Courant has sent out an e-mail to the University community condemning GEO’s plan for a walkout. In his e-mail, Courant said, “I do not believe this action is warranted in light of the University’s serious and good-faith efforts to arrive at a fair contract.” He continued to say that all University business, including classes, would be conducted as usual.

Many professors and lecturers say they support the efforts of GEO and its members, but they do not wish to take away learning time from students. Karen Weinbaum, an environmental science graduate student instructor who is picketing today, said that the professor of the class she teaches offered to cover sections for his GSIs.

“(SNRE Prof.) Dave Allan has been here for many years and understands that we need to picket to support ourselves,” Weinbaum said.

Other picketing GSIs have asked students to attend other sections during the course of the week. Some have decided to hold extra office hours, while some plan on holding classes outside of University building in coffee shops around campus.

Negotiation sessions continued yesterday during the day and then well into the night, but a contract settlement was not reached. The parties did not make any substantial progress on the major issues of increasing GSI wages and expanding their health care benefits. Various proposals were modified but no new key agreements have been made outside of the inclusion of gender identity and gender expression in the anti-discrimination clause of the contract.

University spokeswoman Julie Peterson said the current proposals offered by the University indicate a great improvement over the previous contract. These improvements offer health-care with no premiums and include dental coverage, life insurance up to $30,000 at no cost to members and buy-in options for greater life insurance. Also, GSIs working in the fall and winter semester, would be covered for the summer under the new proposal. “In fact, in these negotiations GEO has made more substantial progress in its

contract than we can recall in any of its past contract negotiations,” Peterson said.

In the last two days of negotiations, the University and GEO have both adjusted their salary proposals. GEO had initially proposed that next year’s salary be increased to $16,000. The union has reduced its demand to $15,300 and decreased the increases for each year of the contract adjusted according to increases in the consumer index, which would be approximately 5 percent said GEO president Dave Dobbie.

The University did not agree to the demands of GEO in regards to wages. Initially the University offered a 2-percent increase each year for the first two years and a 2.5-percent increase each of the next two years of the contract. Peterson said the University has now offered GEO a 2-percent increase the first year of the contract, and then a 2.5-percent increase each year after.

“In this point in the game, (the salary proposal) was a ridiculous effort (by the University) that amounts to an $8 increase,” Dobbie said. “We modified our wage proposal in good effort.”

The University is also proposing that GEO accept a four-year contract instead of the usual three-year contracts that have been the norm. The four-year contract would terminate at the end of the winter semester, which Dobbie finds to be unfair because it would make bargaining with the University difficult, as many members will have already vacated the campus.

The University has proposed that GSIs will not have to pay premiums for the GradCare health insurance provided that they agree to a four-year contract. Dobbie said that according to the University’s health care share formula, GSIs would not be required to pay premiums. He said that he feels the University is unfairly tying the length of the contract and health care premiums together. “We are not interested,” Dobbie said. “That (type of) contract is not in our interest.”