Chicago, IL – 1100 faculty members at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) went on strike, Feb. 18, to demand a fair contract. Several rallies drew 500 strikers and their supporters to the middle of campus.

These members of Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) Local 6456 showed a high degree of solidarity. Issues in the strike include a wage increase for the entire bargaining unit, but also a minimum salary for the non-tenured full-time lecturers – teachers with PhDs currently earning only $30,000 a year. IFT Local 6456 is demanding a $45,000 minimum for them.

The union points to the wrong priorities in place at the university, where tuition has risen 25% since 2007 and where the school has over $1 billion in reserves, but where faculty are not paid what they are worth. Most professors have gone two years without raises. Three years ago, their pay was docked through the use of furlough days.

IFT leaders blame the Board of Trustees and University President Bob Easter. Joe Persky, president of UIC United Faculty, said in a statement, “The administration’s priorities don’t match the University’s mission, and after trying to negotiate a fair contract for eighteen months, they’ve left us no choice but to strike.”

UIC looks more and more like a corporation each year. The IFT notes that the number of administrators has increased by 10%, while tenured faculty positions have decreased by 1% in recent years. In response to this, one of the chants heard from picketers has been, “Chop from the top!”

#ChicagoIL #ChopFromTheTop #UniversityOfIllinoisChicago #tuitionHikes #teachersStrike #workersRights #IFTLocal6456

Students and Youth Hit Hard

One of the groups hit hard by the economic crisis is college students and youth. The crisis led to class cuts and tuition hikes at public colleges and universities across the country. While the pace of budget cuts and tuition increases slowed with the economic expansion, they still continue today. One example is the growing threat to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), many of which are seeing dramatic and dangerous drops in enrollments because of cuts in federal student loan programs.

Double Whammy

Youth who do manage to graduate from college, which is taking longer and becoming more expensive than ever, face a double whammy. On one hand the economic crisis sped up the restructuring of the labor market. Over the last 30 years millions of manufacturing jobs were automated away, off-shored by multinational corporations, and/or workers’ wages and benefits were cut. Now, government is one of the last remaining sectors with decent paying jobs, benefits and union representation. However, this sector has been hit harder by the Great Recession of 2009 than any other recession since the 1930s. Hundreds of thousands of local and state jobs are being lost, while government workers face wage and pension cuts and loss of union protection. Republican politicians are taking away hard-earned bargaining rights in states like Wisconsin and Michigan.

Restructuring Youth: Low-wage, Part-time and Temporary

In addition to the loss of jobs that pay a living wage and benefits, more and more permanent, full-time jobs are being replaced by temporary and part-time jobs. Today about half of all recent college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed, with part-time or temporary jobs, many of which don’t even require a college degree.

Skyrocketing Student Debt

There is an explosion of student loan debt, which totals as much as $1.2 trillion. Student loan debt is now the largest form of consumer (non-mortgage) debt, about 40% of the total. Caught between rising tuition and the cost of living on one hand and stagnant grants and wages, college students and their families have been borrowing more and more to pay for college. This student debt is a growing burden on youth, especially those who were not able to graduate or find a full-time, permanent, decent paying job.

Boom then Bust, Repeat

The boom and bust cycle under capitalism is not an accident – it is part and parcel of a capitalist economy. Wages are pushed down to grow profits, and this limits workers ability to spend. Then the profits are reinvested in expanding production, thereby increasing the ability to produce more, but the workers cannot buy all that they produce, and a periodic crisis of overproduction, or what we call recessions occur.

Crisis upon Crisis

On top of this, the build up in debt and deregulation and expansion of the financial sector following the end of the post-World War II economic boom in the 1970s led to growing financial crisis in the U.S. From the Third World debt crisis and Savings and Loan crisis in the 1980s to the Asian Economic Crisis of the 1990s, and most recently to the financial crisis in 2008, these crises have grown and become a greater and greater threat to the economy as a whole.

People Over Profits

The government is turning away from stimulating the economy to policies of more and more austerity – higher taxes on working people and cuts to programs that serve the people. The spending cuts are really felt at the state and local levels, hurting education funding from Head Start through university level. With financial regulation blocked by the power of Wall Street, it is more and more clear that the government, along with both political parties, are bought and paid for by the rich. They offer no real hope for working people and college-aged youth. Only a socialist economy, one based on people’s needs and not profit, can offer an alternative of expanding access and affordability to higher education, while creating jobs that pay a living wage.

Masao Suzuki teaches economics at a community college in California and is a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

#SanJoséCA #crisisOfCapitalism #recession #PublicSchools #economy #corporateProfits #tuitionHikes

Minneapolis, MN – About 40 students and campus workers rallied at Morrill Hall and marched through the University of Minnesota (U of M) campus on March 14 to protest rising tuition costs and the university’s top-heavy administration. The protest was part of a national day of action for education rights.

The U of M administration has come under fire recently for having too many highly-paid top level administrators and too few front line workers and for raising tuition year after year. The unions at the U of M have made these points repeatedly for years. In December, a Wall Street Journal investigative reporter caught on to the story and wrote an in-depth expose on high-level administrative bloat at the U of M, which happened amidst a decade of skyrocketing tuition and layoffs of front line workers. This threw the administration into a tailspin as the Minnesota state legislature held hearings to question President Kaler about it. Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton made the university’s funding appropriation in the new budget contingent on an outside audit of the university administration’s priorities.

In her speech at the protest, Michelle Spivey of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) said that at the U of M, “There is one administrator for every 3.5 students. On the other hand there is only one faculty member – or one professor – for every 16 students. It is unacceptable to support a bloated administration at the expense of students! Education is a right and students like you and me have had enough!”

The protest was organized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the U of M clerical worker union, AFSCME Local 3800. The protest was also endorsed by the Women’s Student Activist Collective (WSAC) and La Raza Student Cultural Center.

U of M union leaders spoke at the rally, including Cherrene Horazuk, president of AFSCME Local 3800 and Barb Bezat of AFSCME Local 3937.

Horazuk told rally participants, “We will continue to speak out against administrative excesses and the increasing corporatization of the U. We will continue to fight to ensure that this university is a university for the 99%, not the 1%. We will continue to demand that the U chop from the top.”

Students who spoke included Grace Kelly, representing graduate students, and Katherine Soenke from the Women’s Student Activist Collective.

#MinneapolisMN #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #EducationRights #UniversityOfMinnesota #ChopFromTheTop #tuitionHikes

Tampa, FL – Students gathered in the Marshall Student Center, on the University of South Florida's (USF) campus, on March 6 protesting budget cuts and tuition hikes. The average USF student's debt is over $22,000 from loans. Meanwhile, the school's Board of Trustees – those who cut the budgets and raise tuition – are made up of representatives of corporations like Tampa Electric Company and Fifth Third Bank. Last year the Board voted to raise tuition by 11%. On top of this, Florida Governor Rick Scott has cut $300 million from the eleven state universities' budgets. Now, the USF administration is threatening to raise tuition yet again.

Students marched into the Marshall Center demanding that the school “Chop from the top.” From there, they dropped a banner from the fourth floor which read “Education is a right, not a privilege.” Inside, the students, most of whom were a part of Students for a Democratic Society, gave speeches.

Susie Shannon, a staff worker and member of AFSCME Local 3342, said “The union's position on education is that it should be free! Students shouldn't have to get two jobs or put debt on their families in order to get an education. We have the voice to do something about it.”

Jared Hoey of Tampa Bay SDS said, “We can't default on student loans. While the banks on Wall Street got billions in bailout money, we didn't get a dime! Where the hell is our bailout?”

From there they marched through campus to the office of USF President Judy Genshaft. The USF president has not taken a firm stance on the budget cuts nor the tuition hikes. SDS demanded that she join the students and fight against the budget cuts brought on by Governor Scott's office in Tallahassee. Across campus the crowd chanted, “No cuts, no fees, education should be free!”

20 students occupied the lobby of the Patel Center, where the president's office is located. With them they brought a list of eight demands to pressure the president with. One of these demands was that, instead of raising tuition and implementing mass layoffs, the administration should chop from the top and cut administrative salaries and reduce bureaucracy.

Once inside, they were immediately confronted by two USF administrators who attempted to argue with the students. Though the students came to see President Genshaft, the administrators were sent down in order to try and prevent that from happening. They claimed the university president was unavailable. Nevertheless, the students remained vigilant and waited for her to come down from the fourth floor. They told the administrators to send the president a message: they were not leaving until she met with them.

At that point a few of the students called the President's office to demand that she meet with them. The secretary over the phone gave them the run-around, not giving them a definite answer on when or if they could meet.

From there, SDS in Tampa organized a call-in action, in which people from around the city, state, and country called the President Genshaft’s office demanding she meet with the students. Impatient with the administration's refusal to meet, the students gathered in front of an elevator waiting for it to open, as it only opened from the inside. Administrators quickly called the police.

The police, who were already on site, blocked all entrances to the elevator and stairs. At one point they shoved students from entering the elevator. Students were demanding that the police move out of the way. There is no law or administration policy barring students and people from the president's office. USF, a public institution, is open to the public. However, university police working directly in the interests of the administration blocked the students from the office. The students were only trying to set up a meeting physically, after all other means over the phone and through the administrators had failed.

Fearing more confrontation, more administrators came out to try and convince the students to leave. With them they brought the student body president, who wanted to meet with the students. The student body president, who sits on the Board of Trustees (USF's governing body), voted in favor of last year's 11% tuition increase. The students met briefly with him in order to pressure him to get them a meeting with the president. The students told him they did not come down to meet with him. From there, he went upstairs to try and arrange a meeting.

The administrators, with the student body president, came down half an hour later announcing that they could not set up a meeting with President Genshaft because none of the secretaries in the President's office had her schedule. On top of that they said that everyone had gone home an hour before. With police and administrators blocking the stairs and elevators, and after three hours of occupying the lobby, the students decided to continue the fight for another day.

It was clear that President Genshaft had refused to meet with the students. Along with other administrators they had barricaded themselves up on the fourth floor using police officers as protection. The students struck fear in the administration and forced them into hiding. SDS has vowed to come back to the president's office and plans to have a meeting within the next few weeks.

More actions and struggle to come!

#TampaFL #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #BudgetCuts #tuitionHikes #UniversityOfSouthFlorida

Tallahassee, FL – On Oct. 2, dozens of students from the Florida State University (FSU) Progress Coalition rallied on campus to protest FSU President Eric Barron's tuition hike policies. Students marched from the student union to the FSU administration's Westcott building, where they stormed into the president's office. Students demanded that Barron meet with students to address record student debt and his pursuance of the pre-eminence legislation, a bill that, if passed, could lead to possible record high tuition prices at Florida State University.

Students chanted, “Education is a right! Fight, fight, fight!” as they marched into the president's office, disturbing administrators’ offices.

“Increasing tuition is an attack on students,” said student organizer John Saullo. “We believe that raising tuition to make up for the loss of state funding is wrong and that new economic burdens shouldn't be placed on the backs of hard working students.”

President Barron was grilled by FSU Progress Coalition members who were able to force him to agree to a public forum with the student body as a whole.

“Students marched into the president's office to demand that he doesn't assist in policy that shackles students in debt,” said Progress protester Shivaani Ehsaan. “We know this campaign against higher tuition won't be solved in one action, but this is definitely a start.”

The Progress Coalition at FSU is a student rights group fighting against cuts to education and higher tuition.

“We are dedicated to making sure that the rights of students aren't being trampled on just for the interests of crooked right-wing politicians like Governor Scott who could care less about higher education,” said Cecelia O'Brien, an organizer with Progress Coalition. “We will keep fighting until universal education is a guaranteed affordable right.”

#TallahasseeFL #tuitionHikes #FSUProgressCoalition #FloridaStateUniversity #FSUPresidentEricBarron

Gainesville, FL – Students at the University of Florida (UF) got a real taste of fear this past week when members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) hosted the “Tuition Hikes House of Horrors.” SDS created a walk in haunted house filled with information about the scary 15% tuition hikes the University of Florida administrators are imposing.

Detailing the University president's $1.2 million salary and the state's plans to increase tuition by 7-8% each year for the next decade, participants were introduced to SDS's Student Budget Proposal. The student proposal emphasizes using the University's billion-dollar emergency endowment fund and demands that UF “chop from the top,” instead of shifting the crisis onto the students and faculty of the university.

Dave Schneider of Gainesville SDS said, “It's important that students not only become aware of the horrifying facts about tuition hikes, but that they take an active role in opposing the administration's plans to commercialize our education. If they had their way, UF wouldn't be a place of learning anymore – it'd be a degree mill and an easy big paycheck for the administration and their cronies.”

#GainesvilleFL #StudentsForADemocraticSocietySDS #UniversityOfFloridaUF #tuitionHikes #GainesvilleSDS

Tallahassee, FL – On Sept. 28, more than 50 students from Florida State University (FSU) came together to rally against proposed 15% tuition hikes and continued cuts to education.

The student protest, organized by the FSU Progress Coalition, marched to the FSU president’s office where administration officials and University Police awaited them, blocking their entry to the administration building. However, refusing to be turned away, the students’ resilience forced a meeting outside with the FSU President Eric Barron. The students demanded that President Barron attend a public forum with students and stand publicly with them against the Florida state legislature’s education cuts.

The students’ demands were met as Barron agreed to a public forum with students where he would address projected tuition hikes and education cuts, all while taking questions and concerns from students.

Student leaders then presented Barron with 1400 petition signatures, collected by members of the Progress Coalition, reflecting FSU student opposition to the 15% tuition hikes. Barron promised to stand with students against state-initiated education cuts.

“Regular students from all inclinations are very upset with higher tuition and continued education cuts,” said Tallahassee student activist and Progress Coalition member Michael Sampson. “Continued tuition hikes will create a situation where only the privileged minority can receive a college education, hurting many working families and students. Students must unite against these attacks on their ability to get an affordable and quality education.”

Students at FSU are expected to see their tuition rise a projected 60% over the next four years.

“The hypocrisy comes when tuition is raised while President Barron receives a 10% pay raise this year and new pricey construction projects are being built on campus”, said Sampson. “Why are students taking the brunt of cuts to higher education? How can you talk of raising students’ tuition while simultaneously receiving a pay raise or allow the construction of these massive buildings?”

Just a few weeks ago, the FSU Board of Trustees approved a 10% raise for Barron as well as the beginning of a new state-of-the art $15 million athletic facility. All while FSU’s private endowment stands at $450 million. Given these facts, Barron will face an increasingly angry student body.

“As students, we feel as though this issue is more than just an education issue but a moral and social justice issue,” said Tallahassee activist and protest attendee Melanie Zardoya. “This is about institutional transparency and holding higher-level administration and politicians accountable to the needs of the students and their families.”

That accountability from school administrators is missing on campuses resonated with many students during the FSU education rights rally. Members of FSU Progress Coalition hope that President Barron will live by his promise of standing with students against education cuts, and by the appearance of the rally that took place last Sept. 28, the FSU students will hold their administration accountable.

FSU Progress Coalition was formed on the campus of Florida State University in the spring of 2011 as a union of student groups fighting for education rights. For information on how to get involved or information on FSU Progress Coalition, contact fsu.progresscoalition@gmail.com, on Facebook at FSU Progress Coalition, and on Twitter @FSUprogress.

#TallahasseeFL #BudgetCuts #FloridaStateUniversityFSU #tuitionHikes #FSUProgressCoalition