Nothing could be further from the truth. Following is the list of first 10 names of signatories from the website (the rest are in the page source; I’ve commented it out so that you don’t have to scroll down 6000 lines)

Allison Wyper
Nanor Mankerian
Jonathan Cass
Rebecca Fraynt
Kathy Swift
Jordan Hanson
Rebecca Bonebrake
Janel Fink
Ashley Koda
Chien-Ting Chen

I challenge you to look up those names in the Calnet Directory. You won’t see them there. While all this proves is that in a sample of 10 names, none of them were UC Berkeley (graduate) students, a random checks of several more names reveal the same result.

I won’t lie like the despicable “leaders” of UAW 2865. I do see a couple names that I do recognize (one current GSI and another who has been a GSI before), so I do recognize that there are real signatories there. But if UAW 2865 is going to quote “6000″ as if those “6000″ were drawn from pool of “12000″ GSIs, etc., then they should have done due diligence to ensure those 6000 signers were actually current, teaching members of UAW 2865.

This kind of trickery is both an insult to the administration’s and GSIs intelligence. The fact is, UAW 2865 is intentionally botching up this contract negotiation in order to have an excuse to declare a strike.

GSIs of UC Berkeley—Unite! Stand up against these corrupt union leaders.

This supposed protest didn’t come up in our weekly Physics 111-BSC GSI meeting, and I hope it never will (because that would indicate that no one plans on skipping work that day). But in case it does, and in case any of the GSIs normally in the lab on Thursdays walk out, I will volunteer to be in the lab.

I know unions don’t like that v-word. People who volunteer don’t make any money and that means they can’t get a piece of the paycheck. Fuck the union. Fuck United Auto Workers Local 2865, a.k.a. the GSI union.

I have tried hard to keep politics out of my classrooms, whether it’s from me (you might have seen that I leave most … inflammatory political posts off this website) or from anyone else. I haven’t had to so far worry about the “anyone else” part, but if you think that I would let anyone harm the learning environment to serve their political cause just because opposing would be unpopular among my peers or because the damned GSI union would be displeased, you would be wrong.

There are only two things, short of me falling deathly ill, that can keep me out of the BSC lab on Thursday, Sept. 24: (1) my fellow GSIs show up to work and I don’t have to do their job for them; (2) none of the students come to the lab due to their enthusiasm with this walkout.

We will see what happens.