Election for a grad union begins today

After years of rhetoric, debate and contention, Penn's first graduate student union election will be held today. Coordinated and supervised by agents from the National Labor Relations Board, elections will begin at 10 a.m. in Houston Hall's Benjamin Franklin Room. The board agents will "try to ensure that there is smooth sailing" throughout the two days, during which the NLRB will be accepting ballots, according to NLRB Assistant Regional Director John Breese. In addition to the watchful eyes of the board agents, security precautions include colored ballots -- as no one knows what color the official ballots will be tomorrow, successfully printing and casting fake ballots will be that much more difficult, Breese said. All those with a valid Penn ID who fit the eligibility criteria posted around campus on the official notices of election and are included on the NLRB approved "Excelsior list" may vote. Anyone with only a Penn ID and a firm belief that his vote should count, however, must cast a special challenge ballot to have a shot at legally influencing the outcome of the election. Though all votes may be challenged, votes cast by individuals not on the Excelsior list are challenged automatically and are only considered if the total number of challenge ballots cast is greater than the margin of victory. While the votes themselves are anonymous, each challenge ballot cast is placed in an envelope bearing the voter's name after the vote is sealed. Should the challenge ballots be counted, each name will be debated before the NLRB to determine whether or not the individual in question should be allowed voting rights. "Decide for yourself whether you think you'd be eligible," Deputy Provost Peter Conn urged. "If you feel you may have been mistakenly left off [the Excelsior] list, then by all means come and cast" a challenge ballot. Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania, however, encourages graduate employees to "vote only if you are in the unit," according to GET-UP spokesperson Joanna Kempner. "We do... have a concern that the administrators have urged people who are clearly not eligible to vote" to cast challenge ballots, Kempner said. "They know that the votes aren't going to be counted, so encouraging a lot of people who clearly aren't eligible can really make the election seem less legitimate." Regardless, GET-UP members said they are sure of victory at the polls. "We know that a majority of the eligible voters support us on paper," Kempner said, referring to a GET-UP petition released yesterday. She added that even more voters probably support GET-UP privately. However, the University is less than convinced. "I don't think anybody should count on their voting in favor of the union," Conn said, noting that some students whose names appear on the petition may either be unaware that they signed it at all or may simply have wanted to be left alone, whatever their views -- and votes -- may be. "We look forward quite confidently to the outcome of this process," Conn concluded. Confident as they are, neither GET-UP nor the University anticipate any major problems or interference with the elections. "We would be concerned if the University was passing out pamphlets, just as they would be concerned if we were," Kempner said. "The very fact that there are observers from both parties tends to stifle the impulse that anyone might have to corrupt the system." "We have no reason to anticipate that this wouldn't be a perfectly uneventful... routine process," Conn agreed.

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