Bargaining continues this week between the campus and the Association of Graduate Student Employees/United Auto Workers. Graduate-student instructors at UC Davis recently voted in favor of a strike should current efforts to reach their first contract with the university fail. Academic student employees voted 433 to 84 to support a strike, according to AGSE/UAW. Approximately 1,200 UC Davis student employees are members of the union. The United Auto Workers affiliate has indicated that a strike could be held as winter-quarter finals approach. Instruction this quarter ends Wednesday, March 15. "The university continues to negotiate in good faith, and we are hopeful we can make progress in our next round of discussions," said Dennis Shimek, associate vice chancellor for human resources. "Given the outcome of this vote, the responsible thing for us to do now is to plan for the possibility of a strike in order to ensure minimal disruption to our undergraduates' education. But we remain optimistic that we will be able to reach agreement on remaining issues." Affiliates of the United Auto Workers represent about 10,000 teaching assistants, readers, tutors and other certain academic student employees systemwide. The state Public Employment Relations Board ruled in December 1998 that these students were eligible to unionize. The students on UC's eight general campuses voted last spring for exclusive representation by the UAW. Systemwide bargaining began last September. Strike votes are expected to be concluded at the eight campuses within the next few weeks.