Berkeley grad students vote for three-day strike
Members of UC Berkeley’s Association of Graduate Student
Employees voted overwhelmingly last week to stage a three-day
strike  a move expected to drive graduate student instructors
out of their classrooms and onto the picket lines.
The fall strike won the support of 82 percent of the
association’s members. Isaac Mankita, spokesperson for the union,
said executive board members, department stewards and union
activists will later determine the strike’s exact date.
Mankita said the strong vote in favor of a strike is evidence
that union members are generally dissatisfied with the working
conditions of graduate student instructors.
"I think a ‘yes’ vote shows a real frustration with the way the
university has been irresponsible in dealing with student
employees," he said. "There were huge crowds lining up to come in
and vote in support of the union."
In their decision to carry out a series of proposed
"coordinated, short strikes," the association is expected to join
forces with UCLA’s graduate student employee union, which voted
Tuesday to stage a five-day walkout.
Members of UC San Diego’s graduate student union were also
expected to vote last night whether to strike. Mankita said that
graduate student employee unions at UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara and
UC Santa Cruz are "likely to support the unions’ actions, though
(they) may not strike themselves."
UC clinic patients hope to hide settlements
A lawyer for several UC Irvine, fertility clinic patients who
claim their eggs were stolen asked a judge to keep secret the
amount of public money they will get to settle their civil
lawsuits.
In a motion filed Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court,
attorney Melanie Blum asked that settlement records between her
clients and UC Irvine be sealed.
Blum’s motion argues that publication of the amount of money
being paid violates patients’ rights to privacy and should be
suspended until all negotiations are completed.
But an attorney for other patients said keeping the records
sealed benefits only a select group of attorneys who are
negotiating with UC regents.
"What she’s saying is that the public has the right to know
about the specific allegations being made, but not the right to
know how much they’re being settled for," attorney Walter Koontz
said.
Secret negotiations may also conceal evidence that directly
affects other patients’ cases, especially if that evidence involves
possible misconduct by UC officials, Koontz said.
Blum said such concerns are unfounded, and that disclosing
settlement amounts and patients’ names could jeopardize the
mediation process and worry patients.
"People are requesting that they not be subjected to the same
kind of publicity that surrounded the (first settlements)," Blum
said. "They don’t want the private details of their lives
exposed."
Southland grocer may join nationwide chain
Safeway has proposed a merger with the Vons Companies, one of
the major grocery retailers in Southern California, Safeway
announced Wednesday.
The company said the plan calls for Safeway to issue 1.34
Safeway shares for each share of Vons stock it does not currently
own. Based on Safeway’s closing stock price Tuesday, Vons shares
would be worth more than $58. That would value Vons at about $3.25
billion, including debts, Safeway said.
Safeway currently owns 34.5 percent of outstanding Vons
shares.
Safeway is one of the world’s largest food retailers, operating
1,050 stores in the United States and Canada.
Compiled from Daily Bruin wire reports.