A Graduate Employees’ Organization strike could now be a distinct possibility. As of Nov. 16, the union overwhelmingly voted in favor of authorizing a strike, which means that it could happen any time in the next three weeks.

If the teaching and graduate assistants in this organization strike, it is likely many classes will be canceled, whether because the TA doesn’t show up to teach a course or because some professors will refuse to cross the picket line to teach.

After the initial excitement of a canceled class subsides, reality will sink in. Finals are less than three weeks away, so classtime is as vital as ever for crucial review sessions, normally conducted by TAs. We are paying money to attend this university, too, and a class canceled is money wasted.

At the worst, the strike, if it lasted long enough, could cause grades to be withheld beyond the due date of Dec. 26. This could mean that students graduating in December might not receive their final transcripts in time to begin their jobs.

To continue class, some professors will try to find alternative spaces to teach, but even that wastes more time than necessary.

From the beginning, we, like the GEO, have said that the only way the University responds to the requests of the organization is to go to these extremes. Ideally, the University should be more willing to compromise, and the GEO should not strike.

But neither of those seem all too likely.

Despite the TAs having to counter their mission, we still feel that the GEO should strike in the event that no reasonable compromise is reached this week. Without a compromise, the GEO needs to make their point. Members of the union need their tuition waivers and students need to be taught. And if the University will be unwilling to serve the GEO what it’s asking for, then students won’t be taught.

By canceling classes and withholding grades when striking, the GEO knows that the undergraduate students at this University will be the ones directly affected, not the University. Essentially, the strike runs counter to every responsibility a TA has: to educate students.

The success of the strike depends on the GEO — TAs and GAs — pitting the undergraduate students against the University, even if that wasn’t the outright intent of the strike.

But because students are not being taught, then the University is failing at its most salient mission, too.

Ultimately, the responsibility of educating students rests not with the TAs but with the University.

Undergraduate students could be negatively impacted by whatever happens in the bargaining sessions this week, but as it stands now, the TAs’ tuition waivers seem a little graver: Without the money to pay for rent, insurance or even groceries, they can’t reasonably teach their students well.

All we can ask from the next bargaining session and of the eminent strike, if you must involve the undergraduates, keep the damage low and the mission focused — the GEO has been without a contract for far too long.