Mar/101,368
The Power of Nonviolence
Published on Friday, March 4, 2010 by The Daily California (UC Berkeley)
Mahatma Gandhi applied the idea of ahimsa, or doing no harm and avoiding violence, to the political and social realms, crafting a philosophy of nonviolent, civilly disobedient resistance. In light of the violence of last week, and with March 4 before us, we must reflect on the idea of violence.
I witnessed the incident on Telegraph Avenue last Thursday, and it was undoubtedly violent and fits into what most people’s conception of violence is.
But physical violence and major property destruction are not the only forms of violence.
Structural violence, the most widespread and destructive form of violence, is perpetrated systemically against the people by those who have power (politicians, administrators, etc.) in the form of policy and ideology.
When families are forced to live in hunger and without healthcare as a result of cuts to social programs, that is a form of violence. When environmental regulations are scaled back and tens of thousands of air pollution-related deaths result, that is violence. When higher education is cut and prison spending increases, resulting in ruined futures, that is violence. When all of us see this happening, but go on as if nothing’s happened, that is violence.
For those of you struggling to understand the pain and outrage caused by the events at UC San Diego against students of color and at UC Davis against Jewish and LGBTQ students, not feeling safe on campus is also structural violence.
The consequences of structural violence are real: shortened lifespans, unnecessary death, loss of opportunity and alienation from knowing that society doesn’t care about you or your plight.
We are all engaged in structural violence against each other, albeit unknowingly, through our participation as actors in this social system. We didn’t design it, but we drive it.
So March 4 is an opportunity to be nonviolent, not only in the sense that we will not hurt others or destroy things, but also in connecting the struggles for social, racial, sexual, gender, economic and environmental justice to our struggle for a fair and just public education system.
We must make the distinction between acts of violence and acts of peaceful civil disobedience.
Throughout history, many of the iconic leaders that we remember as agents of social change have understood that one of the most powerful methods for exposing the violence of the state is through acts that are nonviolent but that also stop the normal order of business.
Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez used sit-ins and strikes to gain the popular support of civil society. As a campus, we should become comfortable with these actions and support them if and when they occur.
I urge everyone to participate in March 4, to stand in solidarity with students of color and other marginalized communities feeling pain and insecurity on our campus and campuses across the state. I also urge everyone to adhere to nonviolence, reflect on the system of violence that we are all part of and how we can and must change it.
Mar/100
Building a Student Movement, Starting Today
by Nick Palmquist
Published on Friday, March 5, 2010 by The Daily California (UC Berkeley)Today our newspapers will be dominated by the headlines that March 4 was a historic day for public education. They will say that never before have so many people from all the sectors of education mobilized across the state and country. 
They are right that March 4 should be remembered for all of these things. Unfortunately, the real history-making day will have been misquoted. It is our actions and decisions on March 5 that will truly mark just how determined we are to transform our broken education system.
March 4 alone will not guarantee an end to the budget cuts. To fight them, we must start connecting public
education with other societal issues, namely the runaway spending on the wars, prisons and banks. This is not because we wish to take on all the issues plaguing our society but because these issues are intruding into our campuses and wallets, whether we want them to or not.
It costs an estimated $1 million to deploy a soldier to Afghanistan for a year and $49,000 to incarcerate a prisoner for a year in California. The state of California spends less than $10,000 to educate one K-12 student each year. The tradeoff is clear and unjustifiable.
Participating in and organizing for the March 20 anti-war protest in San Francisco would be a good start to contesting these misplaced priorities.
Successfully connecting these issues will also mean building more deeply the links we have been making with the other sectors of public education beyond the University of California.
On simply moral grounds we ought to stand in solidarity with K-12 because our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters are facing cuts and lost opportunities much worse than our own. Public school budgets for K-12 campuses rely much more on state funds (which roughly constitute 13 percent of the UC budget) and so they are more susceptible to cuts.
Also, a well-funded K-12 system will raise the quality of our universities and do much to address the terrible underrepresentation of students of colors in the UC system. Furthermore, uniting with other sectors will support us in our own fight.
For example, during the 1968-69 strike at San Francisco State University that shutdown their campus for nearly five months, the Black Student Union was able to mobilize as many as 2,000 high schoolers to support the strike because the youth knew that the college students were fighting for their university as well. If we want support, we must earn it by reaching out to the other sectors.
To truly look forward, though, we must reaffirm what has brought us this far. March 4 was the product of persistent grassroots mobilizing and organizing. Such grassroots organizing brought us the initial spark on the university campuses as well as the Oct. 24 statewide conference of students, workers, and activists that called for the actions and strikes on March 4. From that conference many local organizing committees were organized that built up the March 4 events.
We must continue this grassroots organizing as it is the best method to build the mass movement we need. It is the only way ensure that the politicians and UC Board of Regents
follow through with their promised commitments to affordable and accessible public education.
So I encourage you to start talking to your friends and coworkers about how to get more involved.
If you live in the Bay Area, bring yourselves and your friends to the Regional Mobilizing Conference that will be held at Laney Community College in Oakland on March 27. From there, we can coordinate and organize for the fight back that will, by necessity, be a long one.
All over the country, predictions are that the budget deficits will continue at the same destructive levels for many years if nothing changes. We can change that, but only collectively.
Then, when we are successful, history will remember just how important a day March 5 was.
Aug/096,007
UC Faculty Walkout – 9/24
(to support this action, send your name and affiliation to: ucfacultywalkout@gmail.com)
A CORRECTION: FROM SHARED GOVERNANCE TO COLLECTIVE ACTION
An Open Letter to UC Faculty
August 31, 2009
Dear Colleagues,
We are grateful for Provost Pitts’ letter of 21 August—sent at the opening of a late summer weekend, with unimpeachably cowardly timing—for clarifying certain matters. Foremost among them is the farce of shared governance, in distinction to emergency powers. It is now finally inarguable that the polling of the faculty on significant matters is a fig leaf for the will of the Chancellors and the Office of the President. We stand corrected: shared governance is merely the polite name for emergency powers.
The implementation of the Regents’ furlough plan—approved on the same day as the President’s emergency powers—was presented to faculty as a process to be worked out at the discretion of each campus. On July 29, the Academic Council, representing the Academic Senates of all ten campuses, voted unanimously for systemwide implementation of at least six instruction-day furloughs over the academic year, with permission for campuses to have up to ten such days.
This recommendation—based on the expressly stated will of the faculty—was summarily rejected by the Chancellors and the Office of the President.
The reason for this unilateral decision is clear: the administration seeks to evade public accountability for the manner in which it has managed the budget crisis. It was the “optics” of the Senate Council’s recommendation that were judged untenable. The Office of the President has failed to arrive at a plan that would protect the interests of both students and workers. It wishes to disguise the harm this failure has done to the University’s mission. Or better: it seeks to shift the blame for this failure to the faculty, should we be so bold as to hold the President accountable to the consequences of his own plan. Toward this evasion, UCOP has flagrantly erased the difference between a furlough and a paycut, presenting the latter in the guise of the former.
The ten Academic Senates unanimously mandated furloughs taken on instructional days for good reasons. These reasons exceed the particular interests of the faculty; they pertain to the collective interests of all workers and students. Instructional furloughs pressure the state to cease defunding the UC system, and they pressure the Office of the President to confront the fact that its overall approach to budget reform is unsustainable and unjust. UCOP seeks to alleviate that pressure by feigning the minimal impact of cuts upon the operations of the University and the education of its students. By doing so it makes clear its real interest: not to engage in a serious reevaluation of budgetary priorities, but to occlude the necessity of doing so.
The University’s “paramount teaching mission,” we are told, justifies the imposition of furloughs on non-instructional days. But the President does not hesitate to fund the budget shortfall through ballooning tuition payments and increased class sizes. The decision on furloughs does not serve to mitigate the effects of these policies; it serves to perpetuate them while dissimulating their effects. We cannot allow either the California legislature or the Office of the President to proceed as though cuts to public education do not have debilitating consequences.
We are told that the management of the cuts is a collective process. In fact it operates by autocratic fiat. We are told that the cuts are temporary measures. But we know we are in the midst of a long-term crisis. Each day that we continue to accept our role as bystanders to the administration’s plan for remaking the University only helps to guarantee that the sequence of pay and enrollment cuts, layoffs, tuition and workload increases will continue. Thus far we have attempted to intervene by choosing among the options offered to us by the administration. The Office of the President has made it obvious that even such modest interventions will not be respected. We call for a decisive response.
If we find the President’s disdain for collective decision making unacceptable, we must make it clear, collectively, that we will not accept it. If we hope to intervene in the process of decision making that will determine the future of the UC system, we must interrupt our exclusion from that process—now.
It has been made evident that we cannot intervene as governors; we are compelled to intervene as workers.
We call for a systemwide walkout of all UC faculty on September 24, 2009.
We call for the suspension of faculty teaching on this date pending three demands, which we understand as absolutely minimal:
1. No furloughs or paycuts on salaries below $40,000.
2. The immediate institution of the Academic Senate Council’s July 29 recommendation
regarding the implementation of furloughs.
3. Full disclosure of the budget.
These demands are addressed immediately to the Regents’ furlough plan and the Office of the President’s edict concerning its implementation. However, despite their local character, these demands are made in solidarity with those of all UC workers and students. They cannot be used as a pretext for further layoffs or fee increases.
We, the undersigned, ask all faculty who support this collective action to send their name and affiliation to the following address: ucfacultywalkout@gmail.com
Judith Butler
Maxine Eliot Professor
Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature
UC Berkeley
Lyn Hejinian
Professor
Department of English
UC Berkeley
Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
UC Davis
Joshua Clover
Associate Professor
Department of English
UC Davis
Parama Roy
Professor
Department of English
UC Davis
Richard T. Scalettar
Professor
Department of Physics
UC Davis
Catherine Liu
Director, UCI Humanities Center
Associate Professor
Departments of Film & Media Studies and Comparative Literature
UC Irvine
Ignacio López-Calvo
Professor of Latin American Literature
Chair of the World Cultures Graduate Group
Faculty Chair of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts
UC Merced
Sianne Ngai
Associate Professor
Department of English
UC Los Angeles
Piya Chatterjee
Associate Professor
Department of Women’s Studies
UC Riverside
Mike Davis
Distinguished Professor
Department of Creative Writing
UC Riverside
Michael Davidson
Professor and Vice-Chair
Department of Literature
UC San Diego
Rita Raley
Associate Professor
Department of English
UC Santa Barbara
Christopher Connery
Associate Professor
Department of Literature & Languages
UC Santa Cruz
Barbara Epstein
Distinguished Professor & Chair
History of Consciousness
UC Santa Cruz
Donna Haraway
Distinguished Professor
History of Consciousness
UC Santa Cruz
source: http://ucfacultywalkout.wordpress.com/
Jul/09519
Mark Yudof’s Proposals Will Harm UC
By Tanya Smith
UC President Mark Yudof recently made three ill-thought out proposals-pay cuts, furloughs, or a combination of the two-for UC employees at all campuses in order to cover a shortfall in funds from the State. UPTE objected to all three proposals. The union joins other UC stakeholders in calling for a transparent account of the UC budget with a full disclosure of all sources of revenue and a listing of all possible cost-saving measures. With this in hand, the UC community can discuss the problems and find compassionate and fair solutions.
Without this information, informed discussions cannot take place and educated decisions cannot be made.
Given the complexity of the issues, and the lack of information provided to stakeholders, only one decision can be made at this juncture-layoff Yudof.
The atmosphere of fear and dread at UC that he has created is shameful.
Despite the absence of innovative problem-solving at the top (and the lack of understanding of the scope and complexity of the consequences of implementing Yudof’s proposed changes), others in the campus community have grasped the seriousness of the situation and made humane suggestions for handling the shortfall in state funds.
The financial statements of the university indicate that many options exist for covering this shortfall such as the billions in financial reserves, the fundraising ability of the university, and other sources of UC income. In the 2007-2008 fiscal year UC received $3.13 billion from the state of California. Under the governor’s current proposal this would drop to $3.07 billion in 2008-2009 (with the help of federal aid) and to $2.63 billion in 2009-2010. This $500 million decrease represents 2.5 percent of the $20 billion UC budget. At the same time, $7.2 billion exists in the Short Term Investment Pool, a reserve fund separate from endowment and retirement funds.
UC has seen steady increases in gifts and donations, most recently reaching $1.6 billion raised during the 2007-08 year. UC receives revenue streams from Medical Center income (where 2009 profits already exceed those of 2008), federal grants (expected to increase by hundreds of millions at UC in 2009-2010 due to stimulus research funds), contracts, patents and other activities.
I am heartened that the greatest wealth of the UC-its people-has been tapped. The thoughtful responses of union members, faculty, unrepresented staff, alumni and other campus community members have been enlightening and helpful. Through our collective involvement, fair solutions can be found. An online petition opposing the regents giving emergency powers to Yudof and urging greater transparency of UC’s budget will soon be accessible through the UPTE CWA website,
http://www.upte.org/
Join us for an Emergency Town Hall on Thursday July 9, 2009 from noon to 1 pm in front of California Hall. Together we can discuss the obstacles and find solutions. Our collective knowledge and actions can and will save UC.
Article Link: http://www.dailycal.org/article/106015
Jul/09287
UC Regents Ignore Students and Workers
Substandard Wages, Increasing Student Fees And Irrational Spending Must Be Changed Now
By Tanya Smith and Caroline Szymanska
Workers, like students, face an unfair university administration in many areas of their life at the University of California. Students face endless fee hikes and less emphasis on education. Workers face endless harassment and poverty-level wages. After 14 months of unfair labor practices at the bargaining table, researchers and technical employees (UPTE-CWA 9119, Local 1) will strike this Wednesday, May 6 in protest of these wasteful and illegal practices. Since 2001, student undergraduate fees have doubled due to diminishing educational resources because of policies implemented by UC Regents. From the attempt to abolish affirmative action by Regent Ward Connerly to the willingness of current UC Regents to limit enrollment and raise fees, actions by UC Regents hurt students and those from underrepresented communities the most. Decisions by the regents such as the one to buy two properties in Berkeley for at least $70 million make no sense when the UC pays much more than the assessed value of the property during a major downturn in real estate value. The purchase makes no sense when student fees will probably increase by 9.3 percent, student enrollment is curtailed, and workers are laid off and denied annual cost-of-living increases.
The regents have set a course for UC that ignores students and workers and occasionally gives faculty a nod of passing recognition. They court corporate donors and scorn elected leaders who question their secret decisions to raise executive salaries in these difficult economic times. They use the livelihoods of their employees to make up for any loss in state revenues, even though the UC has plenty of money in reserves-enough to keep UC workers out of poverty and to give longtime employees cost of living increases, enough to restore the 2,300 freshmen who will not be admitted due to “State financial problems.” Instead, the UC Regents have tripled the number of executives making over $200,000 in recent years. Executive average pay is $305,000. By cutting all 400 executives’ pay in in half, UC would save $61 million. Restoring student enrollment-adding 2,300 students at $11,073 each-would only cost $25.5 million. Bringing the wages of 3,800 researchers and technicians to a “family sustaining wage” (the amount two adults need to make to support a family of four) would cost $21.6 million. And that still leaves another $13 million! It is up to students and workers to Take Back UC.
UPTE’s elected bargainers have been harassed, in some cases to the point of layoff and dismissal. UC management has failed to bargain changes in policies and has engaged in bad faith bargaining by canceling scheduled sessions and disrupting one day’s negotiations five times by moving the union bargainers to different rooms. The climate of fear created by the harassment of UPTE bargainers is unacceptable. UC management must ensure that workers who participate in bargaining are not victimized in the workplace, especially not over the time that they spend in bargaining. We would be happy to suggest possible solutions. For 14 months, UC management made no initial proposals and only two counter proposals to the over 40 proposals submitted by UPTE. Such stalling is wasteful, disrespectful and an abuse of the authority vested in the UC Regents. On behalf of 9,000 UPTE members statewide, we demand that the UC Regents bargain in good faith with them and with all UC workers.
Clerical workers from the Coalition of University Employees, also in bargaining, will be on the picket lines. Other union members-UAW (graduate student instructors), UC-AFT librarians, and AFSCME who recently won a contract after over a year of hard fighting with UC management-will join the lines. Some will come before and after work. AFT lecturers will bring classes to the picket lines and some brave faculty will join in solidarity.
It’s time for us to join together to convince the UC Regents to change their priorities. The priorities in place today, excessive executive pay and top heavy management, don’t preserve and enhance education and research at UC. Instead, these priorities reward a few hundred overpaid, underperforming executives who act with extreme callousness toward the students for which this institution exists and who have shown little willingness to bargain in good faith with the workers who keep UC running. Stand up for justice for students and for workers; join the picket lines on May 6. Take Back UC.
Jul/09836
URGENT ALERT: DETAINED WORKER
On Wednesday, April 29th, UCPD arrested Jesús Gutiérrez from his work at Clark Kerr Dining Hall at UC Berkeley on criminal charges of identity theft and false impersonation. UC Police Officer George Hallett identified himself to Jesús as ICE. Jesús requested union representation and was denied union representation. According to Assistant Chief of UC Police Mitch Celaya, UCPD contacted ICE after the arrest. UCPD is not obligated to contact ICE. ICE subsequently put a hold on Jesús, forcing him into indefinite detention at Santa Rita Jail. He is now facing the prospect of deportation.
The UC continues to harrass workers, in violation of the union’s contract.
Actions:
Rally/March on Wednesday, May 13, noon, Sproul! Please come to support migrant workers’ rights!
Jul/091,419
UPTE struggle and increased student fees
Wednesday, May6th, UPTE held a one-day Unfair Labor Practices’ Strike. The University refuses to give these workers a fair and decent wage! For updates on actions, please check the blog!
Also, the Regents voted to increase student fees by 9.3%!! Wow. This is the first time that the University is making a PROFIT from each undergraduate student. Where is all this money going? Until the Regents and UCOP agree to make the budget completely transparent, we will never know! But most likely this money is not benefiting the average student or worker! For more information, check out C. Schwartz’ blog: http://universityprobe.org/
Op-ed from the Daily Cal on UPTE:
Workers, like students, face an unfair university administration in many areas of their life at the University of California. Students face endless fee hikes and less emphasis on education. Workers face endless harassment and poverty-level wages. After 14 months of unfair labor practices at the bargaining table, researchers and technical employees (UPTE-CWA 9119, Local 1) will strike this Wednesday, May 6 in protest of these wasteful and illegal practices. Since 2001, student undergraduate fees have doubled due to diminishing educational resources because of policies implemented by UC Regents. From the attempt to abolish affirmative action by Regent Ward Connerly to the willingness of current UC Regents to limit enrollment and raise fees, actions by UC Regents hurt students and those from underrepresented communities the most. Decisions by the regents such as the one to buy two properties in Berkeley for at least $70 million make no sense when the UC pays much more than the assessed value of the property during a major downturn in real estate value. The purchase makes no sense when student fees will probably increase by 9.3 percent, student enrollment is curtailed, and workers are laid off and denied annual cost-of-living increases.
The regents have set a course for UC that ignores students and workers and occasionally gives faculty a nod of passing recognition. They court corporate donors and scorn elected leaders who question their secret decisions to raise executive salaries in these difficult economic times. They use the livelihoods of their employees to make up for any loss in state revenues, even though the UC has plenty of money in reserves-enough to keep UC workers out of poverty and to give longtime employees cost of living increases, enough to restore the 2,300 freshmen who will not be admitted due to “State financial problems.” Instead, the UC Regents have tripled the number of executives making over $200,000 in recent years. Executive average pay is $305,000. By cutting all 400 executives’ pay in in half, UC would save $61 million. Restoring student enrollment-adding 2,300 students at $11,073 each-would only cost $25.5 million. Bringing the wages of 3,800 researchers and technicians to a “family sustaining wage” (the amount two adults need to make to support a family of four) would cost $21.6 million. And that still leaves another $13 million! It is up to students and workers to Take Back UC.
UPTE’s elected bargainers have been harassed, in some cases to the point of layoff and dismissal. UC management has failed to bargain changes in policies and has engaged in bad faith bargaining by canceling scheduled sessions and disrupting one day’s negotiations five times by moving the union bargainers to different rooms. The climate of fear created by the harassment of UPTE bargainers is unacceptable. UC management must ensure that workers who participate in bargaining are not victimized in the workplace, especially not over the time that they spend in bargaining. We would be happy to suggest possible solutions. For 14 months, UC management made no initial proposals and only two counter proposals to the over 40 proposals submitted by UPTE. Such stalling is wasteful, disrespectful and an abuse of the authority vested in the UC Regents. On behalf of 9,000 UPTE members statewide, we demand that the UC Regents bargain in good faith with them and with all UC workers.
Clerical workers from the Coalition of University Employees, also in bargaining, will be on the picket lines. Other union members-UAW (graduate student instructors), UC-AFT librarians, and AFSCME who recently won a contract after over a year of hard fighting with UC management-will join the lines. Some will come before and after work. AFT lecturers will bring classes to the picket lines and some brave faculty will join in solidarity.
It’s time for us to join together to convince the UC Regents to change their priorities. The priorities in place today, excessive executive pay and top heavy management, don’t preserve and enhance education and research at UC. Instead, these priorities reward a few hundred overpaid, underperforming executives who act with extreme callousness toward the students for which this institution exists and who have shown little willingness to bargain in good faith with the workers who keep UC running. Stand up for justice for students and for workers; join the picket lines on May 6. Take Back UC.
– Tanya Smith and Caroline Szymanska
Jul/091,185
AFSCME Victory!
After over a year of fighting with the UC, the UC workers won a meaningful contract!
Oakland, CA – 98% of UC Service Workers voted yes to accept the historic contract agreement with the University of California that will start to lift thousands of families out of poverty. After a year and a half of bargaining, custodians, gardeners, food service workers and drivers voted to accept this historic agreement that will include significant wage increases, a pay system that rewards seniority and a first time ever statewide minimum wage for their job classifications.
“After a year and half of negotiations, this is truly a historic day. We have gone on strike, held informational pickets, lobbied, ran television commercials and many other things that were key to get UC executives to do the right thing and readjust their priorities from executives to the lowest paid workers at UC.” expressed Lakesha Harrison, President, AFSCME Local 3299.
This new agreement includes wages increases over five years of 4%, 3%, 3%, 3%, and 3%. For the first time, UC service workers will have a state wide minimum wage that reaches $14.00/hour by the end of the contract. In addition the contract includes the adoption of a fair pay system that gives employees credit for their service and dedication to the University. The agreement also includes stronger benefits protections.
“This has been a truly historic fight for all of us. For years, we have been struggling to make ends meet each month on UC’s low wages. Finally UC executives have recognized their moral responsibility to provide a wage increase that will start to lift us and our families out of poverty, and provide better jobs in our communities” stated Kathryn Lybarger, Gardner, UC Berkeley.
After a year and a half of bargaining, the negotiations over this contract were able to move forward when Art Pulaski, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the California Labor Federation, stepped in to serve as a mediator. “In addition to the fight that service workers waged to win this historic contract, the skillful negotiation abilities of Art Pulaski were crucial in putting the final pieces of this deal together. We appreciate his time and effort to help secure this historic contract” stated Ms. Harrison.
Throughout this contract fight, service workers have received strong and wide support. This support includes former President Bill Clinton, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Retired General Wesley Clark, Lt. Governor John Garamendi, Speaker Karen Bass, State Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, State Senators Leland Yee, Gil Cedillo, and Gloria Romero, Assemblymembers Anthony Portantino and Julia Brownley and Congress members Barbara Lee, Henry Waxman and Hilda Solis. Their support has included multiple letters, meeting with UC leadership, speaking and appearance boycotts at UC campuses and other forms of public support.
“This is a good settlement. It will give some of the lowest paid workers at the greatest university system in the world enough of a salary to meet the minimum needs of their families,” Lieutenant John Garamendi, a UC regent said. “It should also be noted that only a small portion of the worker’s contract comes from the state budget.”
“We appreciate the strong support of many of California’s leading elected officials and community organizations. Lt. Governor Garamendi, State Senator Leland Yee, Speaker Karen Bass, Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, State Senator Gloria Romero, Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice and other religious leaders, and many others helped convey the importance to the leadership of the University to get a fair and just contract for service workers. We appreciate their support for starting to end poverty wages at UC” stated Ms. Harrison.
For more information, check out afscme3299.org
