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Letters from Readers
We Are Smokin' Now!
According to a past issue
of Adbusters Magazine (July/August 2001), "in order
to be a fully informed citizen we need to know the entire
story." Looking below the surface is not often easy,
but with the existence of independent media we can assist
each other to discover more of the truth.
Case in point: In recent days the tobacco industry, and
specifically Philip Morris, has come up with a new plan
to keep citizens tied to it in subtle and creative ways.
Adbusters goes on to explain that this company has initiated
a campaign to position the company name in advertisements,
sandwiched between bedrock-solid food brands that most
households feel an allegiance toward and love.
With the acquisition of Post Raisin Bran, Kraft Miracle
Whip, Jell-O, Maxwell House, Kraft Dinners, Kool-Aid,
Miller Beer, and Nabisco by Philip Morris, we can now
purchase a lot of our food from a tobacco company (list
of products from Adbusters March/April 2001). To further
hide the tobacco industry connection, Philip Morris has
plans to change its food subsidiary name to "Altria".
New name but same deadly game!
Why should we care? Maybe because 4,000,000 people worldwide
die each year from tobacco-related illnesses. Do we really
want to buy our food from a tobacco company?
Jan Kruse
Mattoon, Illinois
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From a Recent GEO Bulletin
3-DAY WALKOUT
-- NEXT WEEK
April 17, 18, 19
BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE: Since 1996, the administration has fought the Graduate
Employees' Organization (GEO) in the courts by arguing
that graduate employees should not have the legal right
to form a union.
Despite repeated calls for dialogue, the administration
refused to settle this issue locally.
Over a year ago, the GEO membership voted to follow
a path of direct action to get the administration to
agree to an out-of-court settlement that respected the
rights of graduate
employees. Two sit-ins and a walkout later, the administration
has finally agreed to negotiate a settlement directly
with GEO.
The GEO and the University administration are currently
negotiating over the scope of a graduate employee bargaining
unit. The bargaining unit is the group of employees
that would be
allowed to vote in a union election and, if they vote
to unionize, be covered by a union negotiated  contract.
The walkout is being planned by the GEO stewards council
so that we can prepare for the worst: that these negotiations
are simply another stall tactic by the administration.
A general
membership meeting will take place on Tuesday next week
so that the GEO membership can get a full report on
the status of negotiations and decide on a course of
action. If significant
progress has been made on the negotiations, GEO members
can potentially vote to call off the walkout based on
this information. We will be sending out an email update to this list
after the Tuesday membership meeting. The GEO thanks
everyone for their solidarity For more information, please contact the GEO office:
geo@shout.net, 344-8283, www.shout.net/~geo
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