The GEO is seeking a full-time staff organizer to begin by June 2012! Click here to view the job post.
After a long public discussion at the last General Membership Meeting, GEO members voted to endorse the proposed Calvin Miller Solidarity Statement. The final draft of the statement is as follows:
The GEO stands in solidarity with Calvin Miller and other people who are targets of police violence or racial profiling in Champaign-Urbana. We call for the immediate creation of a permanent Civilian Review Board to investigate this case and future cases. This Board should not include any members of the police department and should have full investigative and subpoena powers. We condemn racism and race-based excessive force within the Champaign and Urbana police forces, and we demand equal protection and treatment. We recognize that these issues have a long history in this community and require long-term fundamental change. We stand for policies rooted in justice, peace, and equity, rather than excessive force and violent practice. Therefore we call for the following additional actions toward that end:
- The police department must listen to community input as the new police chief is selected.
- Champaign City Council meetings must remain public.
- We insist that Champaign and the University use their resources to fund economic development in poor neighborhoods and communities of color in Champaign-Urbana. In particular, we call for the continued full funding of programs such as the Summer Youth Employment Program to ensure that at least 150 Champaign students ages 14-18 can gain valuable job skills and build connections to employment opportunities in their local community.
The 1,750 graduate employees, represented by Graduate Assistants United (GAU), at Southern Illinois University Carbondale have now been working without a contract for more than 480 days. They are joined by tenured and tenure-track, civil service employees and non-tenured faculty – together making up 3,500 unionized employees on the SIUC campus.
This past Monday members of GAU voted to set a strike deadline. If no agreement has been reached by 12:01 AM November 3rd, union members will walk off the job, commencing one of the largest higher education strikes in history.
Their demands are simple: a contract that guarantees quality, affordable health care to graduate employees, the option to buy coverage for spouses and children, and an end to skyrocketing fees, which have doubled over the past 5 years. Faculty are fighting to preserve tenure (the administration wants the right to lay offtenured faculty due to financial reasons) and civil service employees and those non-tenured faculty are fighting layoffs and furloughs.
It’s not too late to help our fellow graduate employees in Southern Illinois. You can email or call the SIUC administration to settle these contracts today! Help keep grads and faculty in the classrooms and offices and off the picket lines!
Ms. Misty Whittington
Executive Secretary of the Board
Office of the Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees
(618) 536-3357
Rita Cheng: rcheng@siu.edu
SIUC Chancellor
(618) 453-2341
Glenn Poshard: poshard@siu.edu
SIU President
(618) 536-3357