Grad Union Caucuses Debate Free A's, Withholding Grades

The Graduate Student and Teaching Fellow Union is holding departmental caucuses this week to discuss such options as giving all undergraduates A's or holding grades in escrow pending University action on Union demands. The Union is also attempting to obtain signatures for a petition to gain National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recognition.

Union representatives have continued to meet unofficially with University officials, but, Dean Dunlop said Friday, "by the terms of their own wish, they're not a negotiating committee, so I don't know what progress in this situation would mean.

"There was a constructive exchange of ideas on certain issues," Dunlop said. Mahmood Mamdani, a member of the Union's steering committee, said Monday that no progress towards an agreement had been made.

For the Union to be recognized by the NLRB, 30 per cent of the teaching fellows must sign a "showing of interest" petition. The Board would then hold hearings or a secret-ballot election among the teaching fellows, an NLRB official said yesterday.

A Union leaflet lists as benefits of applying for NLRB recognition: the possibilities of forcing University recognition of the Union without a strike, requiring disclosure of the University's budget as "relevant and necessary" information, insuring the permanence of the Union, and making the firing of teaching fellows for Union activity an unfair labor practice.