"Over a year ago, we started the immediatecampaign," Weinbaum said. "We started havingteaching assistants and potential teachingassistants signing up, demanding an election. Wegot a majority pretty quickly."

GESO leaders have spent the last year trying tonegotiate with Yale University administrators.

"There have been an endless round of meetingswith administrators. The upshot is that there hasbeen almost no movement," Liazos said.

"They've expressed a lot of sympathy, but saidthey're not the ones to help us," Weinbaum said.

GESO has also tried using rallies, marches andpetitions to sway the administration. Leaders saythey're using the successful 1984 election driveof Local 34 as a model.

"The university underestimated them becausethey were women, they were white collar," Weinbaumsaid. "[The university] forced them out on strike,and they lasted 10 weeks."

But Weinbaum said GESO members hope to avoid astrike longer than the April job action.

"It's something we have to consider. But it'ssomething we really want to avoid, more thananything," she said. "There's no reason it has tocome to that. All we want is an election."

Weinbaum said GESO is already recognized by thefederal Department of Labor and the ConnecticutDepartment of Labor as a union.

GESO does not include science graduate studentsbecause conditions are different in the sciences,organizers say.

"They're treated very differently, basicallybecause of the way their research is funded. Theyenjoy stipends, guaranteed research and jobs,"Liazos said.

"They scientists have what they call adifferent community of interests," Weinbaum said."They have a fellowship whether they teach or not.They almost all have free health care."

Teaching assistants are organized at theUniversity of California at Berkeley and theUniversity of Michigan. But general consensusamong Harvard officials is that nothing on thescale of GESO has been widely considered here.

"In passing I've heard students say, 'Yeah, weneed that sort of thing here,' but nothingofficial, not here or at MIT," said Donene M.Williams, president of the Harvard Union ofClerical and Technical Workers, the largest andyoungest of the University's seven unions