Strike ends with little disruption

The University continued to run normally last week, maintaining operations throughout the two-day strike held by Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania on Thursday and Friday.

On Friday, protesters were seen once again picketing at six locations throughout campus. Later in the day, all picketers concentrated in larger groups on Walnut Street.

Picketing songs inspired by the cause were chanted to the tune of such Beatles classics as Yellow Submarine, Let It Be and I Will.

"We were just looking for something that was a) singable and recognizable, and b) we wanted to make it topical," fourth-year doctoral candidate in History of Sociology and Science Hilary Smith said. "We wanted the lyrics to directly relate to the issues here at Penn."

Smith was the co-lyricist along with her boyfriend and fourth-year History of Sociology and Science Ph.D. candidate Babi Hammond.

In the last hour of protest, supporters consolidated into one larger picketing circle of roughly 85 people to hear speeches from GET-UP member Katie Paugh and GET-UP Chairman David Faris.

"This is not a small, vocal minority. This is a large, pissed-off majority," said Faris, responding to cheers from the gathered crowd.

"We think that the strike was a success ... for energizing our members," GET-UP spokesman Dillon Brown said.

"And also one of the most exciting things was getting the opportunity to make our case to the undergraduate body. We were surprised by the amount of positive response from the undergraduates," Brown said.

While GET-UP members were enthused by the two-day strike, most other members of the Penn community continued with their daily routines.

"I think it [had] little impact," College freshman Paul Reid said. "I've been able to walk by and have been offered flyers. It's not like I can't go about my business. Their presence is too little to be an inconvenience."

Reid added that most of his friends were not impacted by the two-day event either.

Since the strike, the University has not revoked its appeal with the National Labor Relations Board that has prevented the votes from the election held last year on graduate student unionization from being counted.

University officials stressed throughout the strike that their stance against dropping the appeal will remain unchanged.

"Of the 1,000 graduate students initially declared eligible to vote in last year's NLRB election, in fact fewer than 200 actually voted to strike," University Provost Robert Barchi said in a press conference held last Thursday. "I believe this furnishes further evidence of the lack of general support among our graduate students for this unionization strive."

Barchi reiterated that the University does not believe that graduate students are employees and therefore do not hold the right to unionize.

"We have a philosophical difference, and that difference remains," Barchi said.

GET-UP members said that after last week's strike the possibility remains for an indefinite strike in the future, although they hold no such plans currently.

"After this, it's time for the University to do the right thing," said Joe Cytrynbaum, a past GET-UP co-chairman and sixth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate School of Education.

"We hope it wouldn't come to it, but there is always the possibility for future striking to take place. But this was definitely the first and last time for a nonacademic strike."

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