NEWS OF THE WEEK EDUCATION
YALE STRIKE—AGAIN Graduate students back union workers and seek right to organize
H
UNDREDS OF YALE UNIVER-
sity graduate students—in cluding chemists—joined about 2,500 of the university's unionized employees in demon strations and a strike last week. By interrupting their teaching and re search activities, the students, who belong to the Graduate Em ployees & Students Organization (GESO), hope to pressure the uni versity to sweeten contract terms being offered to unionized staff. GESO is also pressing the uni versity to improve its treatment of students and to work out a pro cedure to allow students to vote on whether to unionize. The uni versity plans to hold negotiations with students and union members
during spring break this week. The campus has experienced eight strikes in the course of 11 contract negotiations over the past 35 years, according to the unions. But Yale administrators said the university "remains hope ful that new contracts can be reached in the near future." Chemistry department Chair man Andrew D. Hamilton said last week that "at this stage, there hasn't been any disruption in the function of the chemistry de partment. Only a handful of stu dents are participating in the strike, and, consequently all of our classes, teaching labs, and research labs are running as normal." Fifth-year graduate student
Lara A. Estroff said that chem istry students who support the movement want more say in in tellectual property issues, health care for dependents, diversity and training in English for interna tional students. They are also seeking fairer pay scales to ad dress such dis parities as the smaller stipend that physical sci entists receive compared with biological and life scientists. COLD BUT COMMITTED Grad Other institu students and unionized employees tions that have strike at Yale. recently experi" ~~ enced unionization drives include Cornell University, whose gradu ate students rejected unionization last fall, and Columbia University and Tufts University which have challenged the right of students to unionize.-SOPHIE WILKINSON
BUSINESS
CHANGE AT DEGUSSA Potpourri of news marks RAG's buy of stake in specialty chemicals firm
S
INCE TAKING OVER 4 6 . 5 %
of Degussa, German con glomerate RAG has lost lit tle time making changes at its new property. In the space of about a week, Degussa named a new supervisory board chairman, announced annual results, agreed to sell a joint venture it owns with Bayer, and announced a start-up in nanomaterials. And, RAG says, it will divest three of the four business units of chemical maker Rutgers, which it owns inde pendently of Degussa. Karl Starzacher, 57, chairman of RAG's management board, is the new chairman of Degussa's supervisory board, replacing Wilhelm Simson, chairman of Ε.ΟΝ. In May 2004, Ε.ΟΝ will sell its HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
46.5% stake in Degussa and RAG will increase ownership to 51%. Simson will remain a member of the board. Degussa announced that total 2002 sales declined 0.8% from 2001 to $11.2 billion, but sales from core operations rose 1.1% to $10.4 billion. Pretax earnings were 0.5% lower, at $619 mil lion. Because of unspecified one time items, however, net income plunged 63.8% to $215 million. Utz-Hellmuth Felcht, chair man of Degussa's management board, predicts a 5% increase in sales from core operations this year and improvement in pretax earnings, "despite all the uncer tain factors." Seeking to focus on core oper
ations, Degussa and Bayer have sold their PolymerLatex joint ven ture to Soros Private Equity part ners for $254 million. And De gussa is investing $27 million in a new unit to produce nanomateri als. Degussa expects that the unit, with a current staff of 20, will es tablish itself as a profitable busi ness with new products by 2 0 0 6. For its part, RAG will sell the Isola (plastics for electronics), Bakélite (thermosettingplastics), and Troplast (construction plastics) divisions of Rutgers. RAG will keep Rutgers' chemicals unit, which could be merged into Degussa.-WILLIAMST0RCK C&EN
NEW AT HELM Starzacher (left) shakes hands with his predecessor, Simson.
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