Grad Union Ends Organizing Efforts For Spring Term

The Graduate Student and Teaching Fellow Union, still plagued by the apathy that crippled its strike efforts last month, voted last night to postpone its drive for National Labor Relations Board recognition until next Fall.

At an open meeting that drew only 22 graduate students, Union members concluded that they lack the manpower to carry out the drive, which began late in March.

Members announced last night that only 107 teaching fellows had signed petitions designating the Union as their NLRB bargaining agent.

NLRB regulations require that the Union solicit signatures of 400 teaching fellows--30 per cent of the bargaining unit--in order to gain recognition. Graduate students who are not employed as teachers do not qualify as Union members before the NLRB.

In place of their drive for NLRB recognition, Union members will conduct an educational and publicity campaign beginning in the Fall to try to organize both teaching and non-teaching students against the Kraus plan.

The Union launched the petition drive early this month in an effort to revive opposition to the Kraus plan--the financial aid program for students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Strike Three

Their drive followed an unsuccessful four-day strike in mid-March during which almost 700 graduate students endorsed demands for revisions in the Kraus plan's need criteria and for a reallocation of authority among students and Faculty in the GSAS.

Several students at the meeting questioned the value of NLRB recognition, nothing that it could divide teaching and non-teaching graduate students.

Others disagreed, but doubted that recognition would ultimately bring more benefits that their present status.

Arguments in favor of recognition stated that it would oblige the Administration to bargain in good faith with Union demands, it would lend legitimacy to Union efforts among "more moderate" graduate students and it would insure the Union's permanency for at least the academic year.