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Friday, November 1, 1996

Berkeley grad students vote for three-day strike

Members of UC Berkeley's Association of Graduate Student Employees voted overwhelmingly earlier this 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 University of California, 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 Inc. has proposed a merger with The Vons Companies Inc., 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 Inc. 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.