Consisting of academic student employees, graduate student researchers, postdoctoral researchers and employees, associate instructors and teaching assistants, and spanning from San Diego to Davis, academic workers are not backing down to the University of California (UC) system.

They are demanding that the United Auto Workers represent them and bargain for a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). “The $54,000, it would be a significant cost-of-living adjustment and it would be an amount that would lift most of us out of rent burden,” said Galen Liang, a graduate student instructor at UCB. The adjustment is a necessity for these workers across California as the cost of living continues to rise and their wages do not. Liang states, “We are living in a private housing market, where rates at other campuses can change so drastically.”

They used UC San Diego’s rent as an example, where the university-owned graduate housing rent goes up 100% every two years. Delena Ngo, an academic worker from Yale, who was there in solidarity with the UC strikes, confirms, “There’s just no housing anywhere, now.” The proposition from the UC system lacked other substantial benefits like childcare services and affordable healthcare, especially for those entering their workforce. “The UC should make sure that we have enough to live and get adequate housing,” states Ngo.

At a pre-bargaining caucus, the UAW union discussed dropping COLA from their bargaining demands with the UC. Academic worker strikes erupted across California, a demonstration of the rank-and-file workers’ frustrations with their union and employer. Conor Jackson, a head steward for UAW Local 2865, responds, “First step is raise everyone’s pay, right now, to a livable wage and also, make sure that we have annual increases that are commensurate with the change in the cost of living over time. So, our current proposal for both units is a 7% general range adjustment each year.”

Sean Malloy, professor at UC Merced, states “Given the cost of inflation, 7% isn't even keeping up with it,” echoing the dissatisfaction the academic workers have with these potential contracts. Leadership in UAW 2865 made promises to incorporate COLA as a demand in two years, but the academic workers have not remained silent as an integral demand is threatened to be discarded. “Just because we are treated so horribly and we were paid so little in the past, literally below poverty wages, doesn’t mean that we should normalize that circumstance and situation and we should demand more,” stated Galen Liang.

The workers know they are the ones to decide their demands, and they are prepared for months-long strikes to hold their leaders responsible. Liang adds, “Only through collective action can we really change the direction of how things are going.”

The workers’ demand living wages (adjusted for inflation), inclusive childcare programs, extensive parental benefits, and affordable healthcare for all academic researchers and workers.

With the growing strikes and demands for living wages, those picketing are hopeful for the futures of unions and workers’ rights. “For the first time in my adult life, I’ve seen a growth of union activity, rather than a shrinkage,” Sean Malloy said, “We’re now seeing both increased membership and militancy, as well.”

As of the week of December 4, the postdoctoral researchers are voting to ratify their contract. The Student Researchers United bargaining team made a new proposal to the UC, which lowers the $54,000 stipend to $43,000. Many academic workers are dissatisfied with the new potential contract; they will continue with the statewide strikes against the UC system until their demands are met.

#BerkeleyCA #UnitedAutoWorkers #UniversityOfCalifornia #Strikes

San José, CA – Thousands of University of California students and workers are currently on strike across the state. In late October, the United Auto Workers union which represents 48,000 academic workers, called a strike authorization vote. In a historic vote, 98% of the 36,558 people who participated voted yes to strike. This is the largest academic workers’ strike in the history of the country.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) represents four types of academic workers at UC: postdocs, academic researchers, student employees and student researchers, each represented by their own bargaining unit. Workers are fighting for higher pay, childcare benefits, subsidies for transportation, reimbursements for international student fees, greater job security, and accommodations for students and workers with disabilities. Since bargaining began last April, the union has filed over 26 unfair labor practices against UC, which include making changes to contracts without negotiations and withholding necessary information at the bargaining table.

On Monday, November 14, the first day of the statewide strike, over 250 workers and students picketed outside UCSF Mission Bay in San Francisco. The crowd stayed strong from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. chanting “48,000 workers strong! We can fight all day long!” and “Who’s got the power? We got the power! What kind of power? Union power!”

Anagh Sinha Ravi, a graduate student worker, linked the need for higher pay to skyrocketing rents in San Francisco. About 92% of academic workers spend over one-third of their salary on rent, with 40% of these workers spending over half of their salary on rent. “Being rent-burdened has had a big effect on my ability to perform my work because I'm constantly worrying about being able to find an apartment or being able to make ends meet when I do find an apartment,” says Ravi. He also stressed the importance of showing solidarity with international students, who have to pay an additional $15,000 in tuition on top of their visa fees. The union is demanding a $54,000 minimum salary for graduate workers. Currently the average academic worker’s salary is only $24,000.

Transportation costs also burden workers, many of whom cannot afford to rent near the UC and have to spend hundreds of dollars a month on transit passes, parking fees and gas. To address this, the union is demanding free public transit passes, subsidies for bikes and e-bikes, and cash incentives for students to commute more sustainably. Students claim this will also help mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Just a day before the strike, the union won an anti-bullying protection that would establish real recourse for workers. “The only reason the UC even took this seriously was because we called a strike authorization vote to make them take it seriously,” says Dr. Evan Holloway, a postdoctoral fellow and member of the bargaining team in UAW 5810, which represents postdocs. This victory was a direct result of mass action by UC workers.

Academic workers are rising up. They are not afraid to withhold their labor because they know that the UC cannot exist without it. They are not afraid because they know what is possible through mass action. In the words of graduate researcher Maura McDonagh, “This is what it takes. We know that together we have the power to get the UC to change.”

#SanJoséCA #UAW #UniversityOfCalifornia

Los Angeles, CA – The fight for public education at UCLA began early this morning, March 4. By sunrise the campus had transformed. A walkout and rally is planned for 11:30 a.m. this morning where students, workers and faculty will join together at Bruin Plaza to denounce the budget cuts. Picket lines led by the unions, AFSCME, UPTE and UWA have sprung up all over and their chants can be heard all from almost everywhere on campus, “Whose university? Our university!” The administration will not be allowed to lay off workers and raise tuition without a fight! Things are expected to heat up as the day goes on, with teach-ins and marches and sit-ins.

UCLA is not alone. Over 122 protests in 33 different states are planned for March 4. Here in California, the students and staff have already shut down the University of Santa Cruz, demanding an end to the attacks on public education. More updates to come.

#LosAngelesCA #Labor #AFSCME #UCLA #sitin #UniversityOfCalifornia #UPTE #UWA

San Bruno, CA – On Nov. 18, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) announced that the state was facing budget deficits of $20 billion each year for five more years . Over the past fifteen months, California responded to a total budget deficit of $77 billion with a combination of cuts in spending, increases in taxes on working people, federal economic stimulus monies and accounting tricks.

The budget cuts have fallen heavily on public higher education in California, especially the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems, which have taken 20% cuts in funding. UC students have been at the forefront of militant protests, with thousands hitting the streets on Sept. 24 and thousands more protesting the UC Board of Regents decision to hike tuition to more than $10,000 per year.

The cuts have not just hit UC and CSU students. In the latest round of budget cuts in July, the state cut $6 billion from K-12 public schools and community colleges. Almost $5 billion was taken from local governments, adding to the budget problems of cities and counties. State workers were furloughed for three days a month, cutting their pay by almost 15%. Low-income families on SSI, Cal-Works (welfare), and Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid health program) had their benefits cut.

These spending cuts hit low-income, working class and oppressed nationality (mainly African Americans, Asian Americans, Central Americans, Chicanos and Mexicanos who make up most of California’s non-white population) communities the hardest. These communities are already hit hard by soaring unemployment that averages more than 12% statewide. California is home to nine of the fifteen metropolitan areas with unemployment rates of over 15%. The metropolitan area with the highest unemployment rate in the country, 30%, is El Centro, California. El Centro is 85% oppressed nationality. High unemployment is contributing to even more home foreclosures and loss of health insurance.

California’s state budget is being hit by a triple-whammy of tax cuts, prison spending and the recession. Following the Proposition 13 property tax cut in 1978, the state took on the main role in funding local school districts, so K-12 education spending grew to about 45% of the state budget. Following the 1994 ‘three-strikes’ law, California came to be the state with the highest rate of imprisonment. Today two out of three state workers are prison employees. Finally, the recession has hit California tax revenues hard, despite increases in taxes on working people, such as the sales tax, which is now almost 10% in most areas of the state.

California is the only state that requires a two-thirds majority for both tax increases and to pass a budget. This allows a minority of right-wing Republican legislators to hold budgets hostage to their demands for more spending cuts. But pro-business Democrat legislators are also at fault. In the latest budget deal in July, the deficit was closed with spending cuts and accounting tricks without any tax increases. Democrat votes passed this deal in the legislature, while most Republican legislators voted against it.

While the federal government has provided billions of dollars in aid to California state and local governments, it was not enough to offset their budget deficits. Given the yawning budget gap, more federal aid is needed. In Washington D.C., concerns about the federal government deficit – $1.4 trillion (or $1400 billion) in Fiscal Year 2009 – is said to limit the options to create jobs or aid state governments. But right now the escalating war in Afghanistan is costing more than a $1 million per soldier per year. It is clear that the Obama administration is placing priority on the military over education and on bombs rather than books and jobs.

In the middle of cutting spending and raising taxes for working people, the California government has given businesses tax cuts worth almost $2 billion dollars a year! Educational administrators such as UC President Yudoff, who has a pay package that costs more than $800,000 a year and a mansion that costs about $300,000 a year to maintain, are rewarded with stunning pay increases.

On college campuses across the state, students, staff and faculty are mobilizing to oppose tuition hikes and cutting programs. They are raising the slogan of “chop from the top” to cut administrative costs and protect classes and student services. A new tide of activism is growing on California college campuses.

Masao Suzuki is Professor of Economics at Skyline College and active with a group of concerned faculty fighting for more cuts in administration and against the termination of programs.

#SanBrunoCA #SanBruno #StudentMovement #BudgetCuts #UniversityOfCalifornia

As students and youth across the country prepare for the November 10 day of action for education rights, Fight Back! sat down with Josh Sykesof UNC-Asheville Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Sallie Linfrom the Bay Area in California and Stephanie Taylorfrom University of Minnesota SDSto discuss the day of action, organizing the student movement and the movement to demand education as a fundamental right, not a privilege. All three organizers have been deeply involved in building for the day of action, and led the workshop at the Oct. 3 “We Say Fight Back!” conference in Chicago that launched the initiative for the Nov. 10 day of action for education rights.

Fight Back!: Josh, could you start by giving us some background on the Oct. 3 conference and what came out of it?

Josh Sykes: The “We Say Fight Back” conference was a grassroots conference that was put together by trade unionists, housing activists, urban poor organizers, leaders from the immigrant rights movement and student organizers. The conference brought hundreds of activists and organizers from these struggles together to share experiences, draw some general lessons from those experiences, and make common plans.

The most significant thing to come out of the conference was the formation of the Network to Fight for Economic Justice (http://www.wesayfightback.com), linking these struggles together in a very important way. Additionally, one of the workshops was on building the fight for education rights. In that workshop we passed a resolution to call for a national day of student action for education rights on Nov. 10.

Fight Back!: Can you talk about why you all chose to frame the student and youth workshop in terms of education rights?

Josh Sykes: It is the next logical step for the student movement. Many of us in the student movement learned to organize in the anti-war movement and we fought tooth and nail against U.S. imperialism in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan.

Now we’re dealing with the effects of this same system as the crisis hits home. The same economic crisis that propels the U.S. to war around the world is now putting millions out of work and out of their homes. The crisis is now on the verge of throwing working, oppressed nationality and low-income students out school and barring the doors for a long time to come.

People across the country had already started fighting back and winning gains, but the walkouts in the University of California on Sept. 24 really showed the way very clearly and we have to carry this momentum forward. We have to get organized and fight to ensure that education is recognized as a human right, just as we have to fight for the right to housing, healthcare and living-wage jobs.

If the rich have their way, higher education will be consolidated as a bastion of the elite. We can’t accept education for the privileged any longer. It has to be for everyone. We have to tear down the 'ivory tower' and lead a struggle that can make education free for everyone.

Fight Back!: Sallie, at the conference you spoke about how education access is denied to many oppressed nationality youth. How do you see the struggle of oppressed nationalities for full equality linking up with the Nov. 10 education rights actions?

Sallie Lin: Firstly, for the Day of Action for Education Rights on Nov. 10, I hope to see all student forces unite, whether these are students of oppressed nationalities or students who come from relatively more privileged backgrounds but are equally concerned about the ever-shrinking access to higher education. We are all in this together and solidarity will help us win this fight.

Second, as students of oppressed nationalities, our demands would be for the University System to recognize our unique circumstances and how their continuous, unreasonable cutbacks push students from low-income families, many of whom are from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, out of the educational system.

We want an end to the slashing of programs that attract students of color and women, programs that help contribute to campus diversity, and which the University takes pride in. We want a public acknowledgement from the University that our needs as students of oppressed nationalities and our needs as students in general, are more important than the paychecks of the top executives of the University. If we cannot pursue higher education anymore due to the 250% tuition increase, then their positions shouldn’t exist.

Personally I believe that, we, as students of oppressed nationalities, as people who have been historically marginalized, as well as our families and the workers of the University, deserve an apology.

Fight Back!: There have recently been huge demonstrations in California around the cuts to higher education, part of a movement that has been unfolding across the country over the past year. How do you see the education rights movement developing, and what do you think are the key demands to put forward?

Sallie Lin: I believe that as long as the public education system is being unjust, the power of the students will keep making our voices heard. The education rights movement will continue its momentum because we have invested trust in the system, and it has failed us. Our key demands would be: One, Affordable tuition; two, oversight on University spending and executive salaries; three, increase financial aid and four, an end to the slashing of programs that are crucial to campus diversity.

Fight Back! : Stephanie, you have been involved in getting the word out for the Nov. 10 day of action. Can you give us an idea of what actions will happen on that day?

Stephanie Taylor: Specifically on our campus, the University of Minnesota, the Campaign to Save Our School, a campaign initiated by SDS which has united diverse student groups throughout campus, will be calling on students to bombard the bursars office with tuition and loan bills/statements. This would essentially bring tangible attention to the fact that students can't afford their bills anymore.

From the bursar's office we will then have a disruptive rally/dance party/flash mob outside the administrative building, administrator-esque piñata in tow, to demonstrate having a sort of ‘going away’ party for accessible education. We'll be delivering our tuition bills and demanding the president take a pay cut to ameliorate our debt.

Students throughout the nation will and have been engaging in a diversity of tactics which are appropriate to the situation on their campus. Students need to ‘get out of their desks and into the streets’ to affect change on their campuses. Now is the time to fight, before education in our country is degraded even more.

Fight Back!: What is the response you have seen locally, or nationally, in response to the call for a day of action around education rights?

Stephanie Taylor: Students are really latching onto the call to action, more than I have ever seen in the years I have been organizing on campus. I think this is indicative of the fact that students really get it, that we are actually realizing how tough it is going to be for us after our college careers. When you say “cut tuition hikes” you have ten people stop to hear a little bit more.

Locally, our campus paper on a daily basis has editorials speaking to the contradictions we see on campus (layoffs and tuition increases while spending billions on construction projects). Our campus is becoming rejuvenated with more criticism of university politics than I've seen in a while.

Nationally, students seem to be extraordinarily motivated by the NYU occupation that happened last winter, along with the UC fight backs that are happening daily as we speak.

We need to pay attention to the national actions so we can learn from each other as we struggle for change. This is why the national day of action is incredibly important to rally students around...to unite our struggles separated by cities and states into one movement for education rights.

Fight Back!: Where do you see the movement for education rights heading after Nov. 10? What is next?

Stephanie Taylor: Nov. 10 will hopefully be the first critical move to uniting students at a national level. Staying connected post-Nov. 10 would be the most critical thing here. Ensuring that campuses continue to pursue not only radical actions on their campus in the name of education rights, but also the research and insight it takes to fight against the bureaucracy of our administration will make our campaigns winnable.

It is incredibly important to build this movement according to the particular situations on our campuses, while at the same time uniting as a national movement demanding that education be accessible to all, because education is a right!

#UnitedStates #EducationRights #Interviews #UniversityOfCalifornia #NetworkToFightForEconomicJustice

Thousands of union workers, faculty, undergrads and graduate students across the University of California system stood up and said “no more!” to the severe budget cuts, layoffs, furloughs and tuition hikes. On Sept. 24, they stood up and walked out. The UC faculty initiated the walkout. The United Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) union called a one-day unfair labor practices strike. All ten of the UC campuses saw protests. UCLA saw 1000 students walkout and sit-in at the administration offices, demanding, and winning, a meeting with the chancellor to discuss grievances. At UC-Berkeley over 5000 took the streets, shutting down busy intersections. Students at UC-Santa Cruz occupied a campus building to protest the cuts.

As the U.S. government stumbles over itself to bail out the billionaires who caused the economic crisis, the broad masses of the people are left out. Already we have seen working and poor people lead struggles that have exposed some of the sharpest contradictions of the crisis. From the movement to save the home of Rosemary Williams in Minneapolis, to the Republic Windows and Doors factory occupation and the SK Tools strike for healthcare in Chicago, people are fighting back. Rightfully, the students, workers and faculty in California are joining this call for a people’s bailout in demanding that state budgets not be balanced on the backs of their jobs or their right to an education.

The students and workers who walked out, sat in and fought back throughout the UC system have a done a great thing. They are showing the way forward, especially for the student movement. And the way forward is struggle.

The student movement made its biggest gains in the period during and following the Civil Rights Movement, first in smashing school segregation and then advancing further as oppressed nationality students such as the Third World Liberation Front fought huge struggles to win university programs like ethnic studies to teach the history of racism and national oppression in the United States. Likewise, women’s studies, queer studies and similar programs were fought for and built by students.

Now these programs are faced, in many places, with the chopping block. Many scholarships that are supposed to help working people attend college are being completely eliminated. These programs must be defended. Students, workers and oppressed people on campuses across the country must raise the slogan “chop from the top.” Every cut that the ruling class and their flunkies succeed in pushing forward further elevates the universities as something unattainable to working people and slams the door on oppressed nationalities.

The chants of the students at the rallies in California were advanced and correct: “No cuts, no fees, education should be free!” Others are rightfully calling for “Money for education, not war and occupation,” saying clearly that the trillions of dollars being sunk into the U.S.’s wars and interventions could be better spent on people’s needs here at home. Now the student movement needs to advance, moving beyond a struggle for ‘accessible’ education, and into a struggle for the right to an education, instead of the current system that, despite the gains that have been made, still privileges the rich.

The student movement needs to take the lead, building on the momentum of the UC protests, and spread the struggle for the right to an education throughout the country like a prairie fire. Ultimately, we need socialism. We need to tear down the ‘ivory tower’ and make the public universities serve the people.

Josh Sykes is a member of the National Executive Committee and co-chair of the Student Commission of Freedom Road Socialist Organization

#California #CA #Editorials #walkout #UniversityOfCalifornia #UCBerkeley #furlough #UnitedProfessionalAndTechnicalEmployees #UPTE

Los Angeles, CA – The fall quarter started off with a bang across the University of California system, Sept. 24 as thousands of workers, faculty, undergrads and graduate students walked out of work and class to protest severe budget cuts, layoffs, furloughs and tuition hikes.

At the UCLA campus, the faculty and student walkout was combined with a one-day unfair labor practices strike by United Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE), which represents thousands of workers across the University of California system. Other campus workers and supporters joined them at the picket lines.

At noon, all of these groups came together for a rally at Bruin Plaza, which had as many as 1000 people at its peak. “They say furlough, we say hell no!” was a popular chant, as was “Whose university? Our university!”

Speakers included union members, graduate and undergraduate students and professors. UCLA’s student government, graduate student association and several academic departments formally endorsed the event.

Susan Li, External Vice President of the student government, spoke about the rising cost of education at UCLA: “Since my freshman year the cost of education at UC has risen from $6141 in 2006-2007, to $8266 this year – that’s a whopping $2125 increase in just four years. Now is that right? And what’s worse is the projected 32% increase this fall for next year, which will raise our tuition to $10,302. And that doesn't include books or living expenses!”

Protesters didn't hesitate to connect the UC budget crisis with other issues, either.

“The federal government found the money to bail out Wall Street, to bail out the banks, to bail out the auto industry – but where’s the money to bail out public health care? Where’s the money to bail out public education?” asked a graduate student speaker. Each mention of a bailout was met with resounding booing from the crowd. “There’s no bailout for us – because it’s a higher priority for the government to spend billions and billions of dollars for imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Then crowd took up the chant: “No cuts! No war! The cuts are for the war!”

Other speakers talked about how the cuts on campus impacted students of color and immigrant students by eliminating resources they relied upon, from grants to ethnic studies programs. “UC regents, we say racists!” the crowd chanted.

At the conclusion of the rally, hundreds of protesters marched across campus to Murphy Hall, where top campus administrators, including the chancellor, have their offices. A group of students demanded entry in order to meet with Chancellor Block and present their demands. When told that the chancellor wasn’t in, a group of about 60 students staged a spontaneous sit-in until he agreed to schedule a meeting on Oct. 5 to discuss the cuts.

On other UC campuses, similar events took place – all ten of the UC campuses saw some level of protest. At UC-Berkeley over 5000 marched from campus into the city streets, closing off intersections. Students at UC-Santa Cruz have launched an occupation of a campus building to protest the cuts.

#LosAngelesCA #EconomicCrisis #walkout #UCLA #UniversityOfCalifornia