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Below are the mail items that we have received. Check out both our flame mail and our fan mail. "Guten tag", The reason I greet you in German is because I happen to browse through your organization page and, after reading it, decided that you potentially could become the Yale Chapter of Neo-nazis. It is, however, delightful to see such a plethora of opinions among the graduate students at Yale. However, I think, that despite the cheerful puppy-enthusiasm which springs off your page, there won't be enough people at Yale who are moronic and indifferent enough to buy all the cheap libel that you are "advertising" on your page. What comes to mind is a question: "Who are your sponsors?" Best wishes to your short-lived enterprise. --[name reluctantly withheld] -- EE, '02 Editorial Comments -- It's difficult to comment on a statement which lacks any coherence, but to address the one clear question that was raised regarding our sponsorship -- Sponsorship of what? It's a webpage. Whoever wants to print out a poster buys the paper, prints it out, and hangs it up. Whoever wants to contribute to the page types it and emails it. There are no non-members of gaso getting paid to do anything. Gaso is not prostituting itself to any other entity for the sake of money. Gaso really is a grass roots effort. It may be inconceivable to you that people will do things that they believe in without monetary compensation, but believe it man, it's happening. "Woof".  "I found your website by chance. I wanted to send you my encouragements for your initiative, which I find very positive. It is not that I disagree with Geso's goals (I don't even know what they are), but I strongly disagree with their methods. I indeed think that Geso's disrespectful ways toward people (both fellow grad students and the Dean) and their undemocratic tactics are simply not worthy of Yale students. Thanks for the time you spend defending free-thinking, respectful-of-others, unharassed grad student life at Yale." "Please, feel free to post my email on your website --and include my name: we live in a free country." Benoit Mercereau, PhD student in economics Please count me in as being opposed to the formation of a union of grad students at Yale Name withheld upon request. The GESO missionaries are out harassing me again -- for fourth time in three months. They stuff my mailbox with their (unwanted and unappreciated) newsletters, they showed up eager and unannounced on my doorstep last spring, they called me on the phone and under the guise of a friendly 'conversation' trapped me in a circular, propagandistic rant for 20 minutes: "I really have to go now... Excuse me, I really don't have time now... Sorry, I'd really rather not talk any more ... Sorry I really do have to go now ... No, I really don't want to discuss this any more... I really have to get back to my work now..." for TWENTY FREAKING MINUTES. These people will not take a hint. They will not take a direct statement ("I do not want to talk about this."). They will not even take the most baldly direct and insistent declaration: I DO NOT EVER WANT TO TALK WITH YOU ABOUT GESO AGAIN -- I know, because I tried that last time, and what happened? Somebody else came to try to recruit me, again under the pretense of a casual, friendly conversation. Who do they think they are fooling? And no, neither the sincerity of their devotion to the GESO cause nor their earnest beliefs in the omnipotent goodness of the union is any excuse for this behavior. WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO MAKE THESE PEOPLE GO AWAY? I stand, on principle, against propaganda in the guise of 'friendly conversations' (always one-sided, you will note), distorted ideological-political arguments, and the pressure of zealots. If they would respect a "no" answer then I could, maybe, respect them. But they have shown (repeatedly, to my great misfortune) that the only answer they will accept is the GESO answer. Thank God for GASO. If there is any active party to oppose GESO, sign me up. Name withheld upon request I hate unions
and dread the thought of being forced into one. You have my full
support in your efforts against unionization. Best wishes, Just wanted
to add myself to the official unofficial list of anti-GESO students.
how can I
help?!?!? Dear gaso
folks, --Name withheld upon request The sickly politicization of recent Assembly and Charter events by those with very particular, vested interests has made clear that the Yale "apathetic" community needs to wake-up! Come on GASO folks, arise from your slumber. There are many who support you on campus. -- received from an anonymous email address! As a Ph.D. candidate at Yale School of Forestry and Env. Studies, a note to add my name to GASO (if non-organizations have lists of names). I have been significantly annoyed by the GESO campaign and the calls I have received asking for me to sign petitions. I would go so far as to say that I was harassed to sign the petition. I happen to be very happy with the graduate deal I have here at Yale. I think that if GESO wants better funding and job opportunities, etc., they should lobby Congress, not bite the hand that feeds them (that being Yale, a non-profit organization that is doing a great job). Please contact me if you want any further support. Cheers, Bronson Griscom Dear gaso folks, Please add
me to your list of non-members. When I arrived here a few years
ago, GESO wanted nothing to do with science students. Now they're
working feverishly to convince the more junior science students
that we're all oppressed and unhappy. I'm disgusted. Count me
in. Thanks for all your time and effort. "You
guys are right on. Keep on fighting the good fight. I mean that." "Thank
you. I'm glad somebody's finally saying something." "Please add me to your register of non-members. I enthusiastically decline GESO's representation. Thanks for creating a forum for "alternative" discourse. I hope it has legs. If you ever
hold a non-meeting, please send me a non-invitation. I will not
decline. In the meantime, I hope that people are planning to attend
the "town meeting" on Weds. It would be a real shame
if the "town" is only "represented" by the
usual choir. Thanks again for taking a necessary and courageous
stand." "I read
over some comments in the GASO site and just wanted to say BRAVO.
It is refreshing to hear that free will and creativity are still
alive and sacred to some." "It's comforting to know that there are others here at yale who don't believe in biting the hand which feeds them. Thank you for publishing your webpage. I could not agree more strongly with its philosophy. In the short
time I have been a grad student here, I have been bombarded by
a slew of GESO propaganda. It sickens me to know that students
in my own department (who are treated extremely well by the university)
are capable of generating such noise. The aggressiveness with
which they express their views is unwarranted and annoying. If
there is ever anything I can do to help GASO, you can count on
my support." "My congratulations
on forming just the necessary counterbalance to GESO's nefarious
influence. I'm interested in getting more involved, although that
may not be an option with this type of organization. If you ever
have a non-meeting or similar non-event, please let me know." Regarding GESO Organizing Strategies An email sent 23 August 2000: Greetings Shafali, Harmonious with your shameful disregard yesterday, I can only again aver that I am unsalvageable. With infinite sincerity and seriousness I requested to be left alone and yet you showed up at my house. Perhaps I had not voiced my desires of hermitage strongly enough. The intersection of my naivete and your tenacity led us down the familiar path to nowhere. Yesterday, in this unsolicited exchange, we truly reinvented the wheel so that we could debate the nature of circularity. How you counsel your laborious ponderings over the weightiest of scholastic matters bespeaks to the gravity you so laboriously manifest. How am I to respond to such an advance? I cannot. For I, as you put it, am an asshole. I beg of you to take your ascription seriously. Please, please, please, believe that I am an asshole. Your honest words spoke so essentially to the heart of the matter. Absorb your beliefs about my character and move beyond me. Please. Nonetheless, you continue to sally forth into my personal space, fully armed with knowledge of my detestable condition. So cavalier you are to my nasty qualities, my assholeness, that you persist in contacting me despite my many requests to the contrary. Such reckless persistence befits the minister, the meretrix, the mendicant. The canine returning to it's vomit. Kindly view me as someone you can hardly bear to think tranquilly. Make yesterday's visit your last. Make it your swan song, your farewell performance, your final manifestation of decency in my lowly presence. Make yourself aware of the legality of your actions. I cannot control your emotional response regarding my outrageous requests of privacy. However, if you--like so many others--would hold me in so great contempt, I would forever get what I so rightly deserve: pristine sequestration from your sincere and agenda-less advances. Please, I beg of you. Consider me as the embodiment of disgust, a great discomfort, an unruly plague. I want to be the sharp staple in your office carpet, the palsied homunculus that runs around your brain, the palpable cyst on a loved-one's neck, the oozing track-mark on a junkie's arm. I am not worthy. Your attention should be drawn, pulled, forced to others--those unsullied by the saturnine epiphany that all academia--indeed life--is nonsensical. In all this, I am simply asking that you develop a deep repulsion for me. Thoughts of contacting me should be wrestled to the floor with impunity. My birth-name should invoke a Pavlovian distaste for my unsavoriness. My entire daily routine should summon an involuntary urge to detour. Please, I beg of you. I am not worthy. Let me fester in my anonymous, uncaring, indifferent world. Please leave me be. Please leave me. Please leave. Please. with waxing
impatience, On the sanctity of the home...or lab Dear Sir or Madam, I briefly became more than non-active in my stance against GESO, and thought I'd share my tips with any interested parties. We've all been harassed by GESO. And, in my misguided youth three years ago, I saw how and why from the inside. The GESO 'organizer' for a department pushes every member in that department to submit a list of names at every meeting. Those names are 'people we will talk to about joining GESO.' As MCDB GESO members began to realize what GESO really stood for...unionization and only unionization, at any cost, on any front, MCDB GESO support rapidly declined. To remedy this, the current GESO fearless leader, Antony Dugdale, employed GESO's favorite tactic of bothering you until you give in. They called MCDB grads at home, numerous times. They visited our homes, numerous times, (and often, appeared in supposedly secure and locked apartment buildings!) And, much to the annoyance of our friendly EPH inspectors, would stop by 'to chat' as we were engaged in the use of radioactive and hazardous materials in our labs. They concentrated on the new guys, the first years who didn't know the real story on GESO, and foreign students, most of whom had no prior experience with such brutal assault tactics, never having encountered Girl Scouts in cookie season. We got them to STOP! YEAH! A cheer for all of those who don't give a rat's ass about whether or not walking to class be counted as part of the 57% teaching load us TAs supposedly have. How? I circulated a polite request, enforced with the suggestion of legal prosecution for trespassing, amongst my department, and any student not interested in having a GESO representative contact them at home, (either in person or on the phone,) or at work, signed it. The response was so favorable...or, I suppose, unfavorable, if you're a GESO member, that GESO couldn't help but take notice that, surprise surprise, in today's world, NO MEANS NO! I suggest other departments, to help out the new students before they, too, are forced to join just to get GESO to stop bothering them, circulate a similar petition. Simply state that the undersigned people do not wish to be visited, or to otherwise engage in conversation, with a GESO representative. Send a list of the names you collect to antony.dugdale@yale.edu, and cc your chair and Dean Hockfield. -Alycia Shilton 5th year MCDB The petition itself: Appended 27 April 2000: Just Say No To Geso We, the undersigned,
being of sound mind and body, and knowing as much as we feel necessary
to make a fair judgement in matters of joining GESO and the drive
for unionization, hereby request that members of GESO and GESO
representatives leave us alone. Please do not call us, do not
come to our homes, do not visit our labs or classrooms or offices,
and do not seek to engage us in 'conversation.' Any attempt to
do so will be considered harassment and will be treated as such.
If GESO members do not respect our wishes, we will be forced to
seek legal enforcement of the right to privacy [this includes
but is not limited to prosecution for trespassing and the attainment
of restraining orders]. A Question Regarding Gaso Opinion ...
If time teaching contributes to our education than would it not be enough that we each teach just one course? How would you , for example, like to take the same course over and over and over again - like the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray - is not once enough for educational purposes? -- name withheld for lack of explicit permission ... And a Response
The question you are interested in is an important one, but the fact that you have addressed it to GASO raises the prospect that there may be a common misinterpretation of GASO's mission and its status as a non-organization. GASO is a collection of individuals who have gathered for the singular purpose of generating a repository of data and logic that support why unionization of the graduate student body is not an acceptable proposal. In this light, GASO is not an alternative organization to GESO. Gaso has no desire to ask anyone to swallow unpalletable ideas in order that they may have one of their issues represented. Gaso represents only one idea--that we wish not to be assimilated into a union, which robs us of our choices by homogenizing our opinions into a collective, narrow-minded agenda. To be more substantial and to refer to the problem you pose, students in different disciplines have different teaching requirements that reflect a balance of the department's teaching load, the pedagogical needs of the students, the emphasis of teaching in your field of scholarship, the financial support that teaching generates, the time required for research at a prestigious research university, and a myriad of other departmental and class specific needs that I can or cannot identify from my vantage point as graduate student. There will undoubtedly be times where these factors are unbalanced, but what is also certain is that there is no single formula for every department, class, and TA, and as such those cases have an appropriate arena in which they should be addressed. I can't begin to digest how this balance is accomplished for every department, class, and TA, so I would personally feel remiss is signing my name to a solution to a problem with which I have no connection or understanding. This resolution is the very intention of a union, to bully administration into a solution that has been forged by people who are largely indifferent or in disaccord by virtue of their dissimilar graduate situations. GASO's intent is to collect and disseminate ideas like these, that argue why a union cannot effectively solve problems like yours given its by-nature, inappropriate sense of scope. In regards to your comments, we can only recommend that you contact Dr. Hockfield, as this is exactly the sort of question that she is actively soliciting. You should also contact your Graduate Student Assembly representative either directly or through GSA's Webboard, as they are in close collaboration with the administration in matters of graduate student life. These avenues, not GASO and not a union, are the appropriate recourse for your concerns. -- Dan Price, 4th year MB&B GESO: intolerant of other graduate students' rights Thanks for your eloquent expressions of the reasons why it is important for us not to unionize. I appreciate the efforts you have made to get the word out that we con't have to join an organization that will tell us what to think, take our money away from us in the form of dues, and commit horrible misdeeds such as calling me at home during the second half of the first closely contested Super Bowl in a decade to tell me what to think about allegedly hugely important issues that only affect two or three people. Thanks for your efforts on behalf of those of us who don't want to protest anything. During my first year in the Yale Graduate School, I was asked to take a survey by a member of GESO. I was told that it was unnecessary for me to be a member in order to take the survey and that GESO was just interested in finding out what all students thought. The GESO coordinator assigned to survey me, Antony Dugdale, asked me to meet with him. I found this a bit curious since most people distributing a survey will usually allow you to fill it out at your leisure, but I found out soon enough why I had to meet with Antony to take the survey. Some of the questions on the survey were asked from a purely factfinding point of view to find out how much teaching and other work students had done, but others were intended to poll students to find out their opinions. Whenever I gave an answer that did not correspond with the GESO party line, I was "educated" with "background information" and asked if I wanted to change my answer. Prior to this occurence, I was not very strongly supportive of GESO's efforts, but I was willing to grant that as scholars that at least had some integrity. Later it got even worse. I had no intention of ever dealing with GESO again, but they called me at my home during the Super Bowl(I have a friend from Indiana who was called at home while a Pacers' playoff game was on TV, and we are not certain that this is a standard form of tactics by GESO, but they certainly harass you more often than long distance companies trying to get you to switch carriers), so in order to get off the phone ASAP without being rude I agreed to meet with Mr. Dugdale again. While in my office, my officemate and I discussed our issues over the way the survey was conducted (the person who surveyed her was even more forceful about pushing her to give the "correct" answers), and Mr. Dugdale admitted that the person who had surveyed my officemate was out of control, but that GESO had made no effort to get someone else to take the surveys instead of him. This whole incident, I think, encompasses all that is bad about GESO - the intolerance of the rights of other graduate students to hold opposing viewpoints, the overzealous recruitment, and most of all the dishonesty - that they are willing to take and use a survey that not only doesn't sample a random cross-section of students, but also fails to reflect accurately the opinions of those who do take the survey. I object mildly to the concept of a representative body forcing binding contract conditions on all students within the university. I object much more strongly to a non-representative group of students trying to tell me what to think and claiming to represent me when in fact they do not. BTW, I recently heard another story about why unionization is bad. I was talking to a physics grad student from Rutgers, which has a union. One of the stipulations of their contract is that all students are paid the same amount of money, regardless of department. The physics faculty were concerned that this was preventing them from getting good students, because the free market dictates that physics students be paid more than students in the humanities. They took a vote and agreed to give up their pay raise for one year if the money could be added to their students stipends instead. The collective bargaining agreement prevented this action from actually taking place. -- Tom Maccarone, 4th year Astronomy A Graduate Student Union Insults Real Workers
-- Madeleine Fitzgerald NELC (Near East. Lang. and Civ.) '01 Some Wise Words
My own experience has been that, by and large, GESO is doing very little of this because their leaders are blinded by unshakeable conviction, namely unionization at any cost. --anonymous upon request Will everybody have the chance to vote "no"?
-- anonymous concerned graduate student A: No, you most certainly DO NOT need to be in GESO to have the chance to vote against unionization, if the matter ever gets pushed so far as to take a vote. The language in the www.yale.edu/gaso/NLRB.html page may have been confusing -- if that's was gave rise to your question. GESO could theoretically petition with the NLRB for an election to be overseen by the NLRB if they deliver evidence that 30% or more of the putative bargaining unit -- which is all graduate students, not just the few instigating the whole thing -- have signed cards. In fact, the only way for people who have signed cards to "undo" it if they change their mind is for the whole thing to be killed in an election. (this fact came from the www.yale.edu/opa/gradschool/gradschool.html FAQ page) The simple answer to your question, therefore, is -- No. All grad students who will potentially be represented by the proposed union, which is all graduate students, will have the chance to vote "no". You raise an interesting point, however. If every graduate student was to join GESO, we could probably vote the whole dumb idea out of existence before it went any further -- provided GESO really does run in a democratic fashion. But the vast majority of graduate students are probably working too hard to afford the time. If there is an election for/against unionization, it will be decided by simple majority of those people voting. This means if only the GESO bunch turns out to vote in any significant way, even though they are the minority (At the end of 1997, they reported 378 members to the US Dept. of Labor -- there were 2381 graduate students in fall '97), we're stuck with their bloody union. To keep this from happening is one of the points of gaso -- to make people aware that this is not going to go away if we just ignore it (which was what gaso non-members were doing for a long time and saw that it wasn't working.) At the very least, if one wants to be left alone to do their research and teaching, then one must vote "no" if and when the opportunity arises. Follow-up from the concerned graduate student: Thanks so much for your replies!! I for one will DEFINITELY vote no if and when the time comes. I hope that everyone else who opposes unionization will do so too; just yesterday, I spoke with someone who said that he'd joined GESO a couple of years ago just to "get them off of his back," so to speak. (Though this person hates GESO and, I'm sure, will vote no). So I'm sure there are others who oppose the group but joined to stop their constant badgering. I just hope that people like us are in the majority and that they all turn out when the times comes to vote no! A GESO organizer responds: Hi, just wanted to correct what seems to be a misconception. Recently your web page stated: "In fact, the only way for people who have signed cards to "undo" it ..." This isn't entirely accurate. Yale's web page reports that under governmental regulations, an organization cannot be compelled to return membership cards. I can't speak to this point, not having a lawyer handy at the moment, but it's irrelevant, because GESO's standing policy is that we are a strictly voluntary organization, and we will return any member's card upon their request. GESO opposes intimidation of any sort, and no GESO organizer I have spoken with would want anyone to join "to get us off their back." Chair Rachel Sulkes spoke forcefully to this point at the town meeting. If you or anyone you know feels you have been intimidated by GESO membership, I encourage you to contact us so that we can remedy the problem. Feel free to use my name on this posting. I'm happy to discuss these or any other issues with graduate students who are concerned about them. Curtis Mitchell
Editorial comment It should be pointed out that while it may not be "official GESO policy" to engage in tactics of intimidation and coercion, that seems to be a common MO. We have heard numerous incidences of the sort that you are questioning, and other accounts of students individually being sat down behind closed doors with two GESO agents, emerging an hour later emotionally drained. In addition, most people that contact gaso with notes of support request strict anonymity, as they feel their lives could become much more difficult if their names were to appear anywhere in association with gaso. These requests are honored in every way possible, but suggests that the situation has become pathological -- quite different from an environment free of coercion and intimidation. While official GESO policy may be stated above, which is refreshing to hear, that some individuals' experiences differ suggests that the reality is much different. This would also seem to be an appropriate place to identify a contradiction -- this organizer states that GESO (or more precisely, perhaps, the card-signing commitment to a union) is meant to be entirely voluntary. However, if there is to be a vote, and if the GESO union won, then it would be forcing its style of representation onto those that specifically did not sign union cards (or withdrew their support). In effect, while students' support for a union now may be voluntary, the goal is to force the union on them quite against their will. How is this just? Statement by a Militant Apathist
Ryan MacArthur, 4rth year, Chemistry "I don't give a rat's ass" John Lapham, recent graduate student who did the radical thing -- worked hard, learned a lot, humbly taught many around him, and graduated with a PhD. The only posters he ever made were for happy hour. "Wait, Lapham took mine [quote]" Rachel Martin, 2nd year chemistry "fuck
geso." |