Many of you will be familiar with a bill that recently made it through the California state legislature: SB 259, which would allow graduate student researchers (GSRs) at public universities to unionize. It passed the state senate on August 23 and has been sent to the desk of Governor Jerry Brown for a signature. Living up to all of our expectations, the UC administration -- like many other universities across the country -- has come out in public opposition to the bill, urging Brown not to sign it. A number of predictably managerial arguments have been enlisted, such as the fact that this could cost the UC $10-18 million a year, as UC spokesperson Dianne Klein put it, without yielding "significant benefit." It goes without saying that the university's 14,000 GSRs might see things somewhat differently. Notably, the UC Berkeley Faculty Association has also come out in support of the bill, deftly critiquing the administration's arguments and "affirm[ing] the right of all employees to organize and . . . the importance of Graduate Student Researchers helping to shape the contract stipulating conditions of their work." [Update: the Council of UC Faculty Associations has written a letter as well.]

For obvious reasons, the UC administration doesn't want any push back from its faculty. This is because the faculty play a key role in the administration's media strategy to defeat SB 259, according to which it's not really a question of profitability but rather one of maintaining the pleasant relationship between GSRs and the professors they work for: "extending collective bargaining rights to graduate student researchers would change the relationship between these students and their professors from an academic mentee/mentor relationship to a professional employee/employer relationship."

It appears that the administration is doubling down. What follows is an email sent yesterday by Jeff Gibeling, the Dean of Graduate Studies at UC Davis, to the Academic Senate. In it, he lays out the UC administration's case against SB 259 and "suggests" that faculty members write to the governor to voice their opposition. He also attached a document containing the administration's talking points as well as a letter from UC president Mark Yudof to Brown. Toward the end of the email, almost as an afterthought, comes the following line: "you are, of course free to express that position as well - notwithstanding that it is different from the official UC position." Of course, this brings up a series of questions about whether recommending and facilitating your employees taking a specific position of a piece of public legislation is legal, and what constitutes implicit coercion. At the very least, it reveals just how desperate the administration is.

From: "Gibeling, Jeffery"
Subject: Legislation Affecting Graduate Student Researchers
Date: September 7, 2012 11:05:42 AM PDT
To: "academic-senate@ucdavis.edu"

Dear Academic Senate Colleagues

In the past, the Public Employment Relations Board has interpreted state law in such a way that Graduate Student Researchers were deemed to be students rather than employees, hence ineligible to be represented under a collective bargaining agreement. Recently, legislation that would extend collective bargaining rights to GSRs (SB 259) has moved through the legislative process. It has passed through the State Senate and the State Assembly and has been forwarded to Governor Brown. He has 12 days from last Wednesday to act on the legislation (sign or veto). The text of the bill is available at http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120SB259&search_keywords=).

The University administration has officially taken a stand in opposition to the bill as described in the attached talking points and letter from President Yudof to the Governor. Last year, the systemwide Academic Senate also took a position to oppose this bill (http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/AcademicSenPositiononSB259_REVISED_050411.pdf).

Some of the concerns are that under a collective bargaining agreement, compensation for GSR’s could be forced to be the same across all disciplines and all campuses. This change would impact our ability to offer competitive stipends that vary by discipline. A collective bargaining agreement might potentially result in fewer UC graduate researchers being hired due to the additional requirements that will likely be imposed as part of a union contract. Moreover, a union contract may seek limits on working hours during a given period, preventing well-intentioned graduate students from pursuing their research and degree objectives as they see fit. The costs associated with implementing the collective bargaining process will also draw away from UC campuses some resources that could otherwise be devoted to providing direct services to students. While I agree that the cost and workload issues are important, my greatest concern is the potentially damaging effect that this change in relationship between graduate students and their faculty mentors may have on our graduate students and our programs.

I anticipate that some faculty will have concerns about this legislation. If you wish to express your opposition, you may want to visit the website:
http://www.ucforcalifornia.org/uc4ca/home/opposeSB259 and consider sending an email or making a phone call to Governor Jerry Brown and asking him to veto SB 259. I also recognize that some faculty colleagues may support this legislation, and you are, of course free to express that position as well - notwithstanding that it is different from the official UC position. Following is the contact information for the Governor and key advisors on this matter:

· Governor Brown: (916) 445-2841
· Nancy McFadden: Executive Secretary to the Governor: (916) 445-2841, nancy.mcfadden@gov.ca.gov
· David Lanier, Chief Deputy Legislative Secretary, Office of the Governor: (916) 445-4341, david.lanier@gov.ca.gov
· Marty Morgenstern, Secretary of Labor & Workforce Development: (916) 327-9064, marty.morgenstern@labor.ca.gov

If you have an opinion on this matter, you may wish to make your views known to the Governor.

Sincerely,

Jeff Gibeling


Jeffery C. Gibeling
Dean--Graduate Studies
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
phone: (530) 752-2050
FAX: (530) 752-6222

Original call for the march is here and check out this video reportback from Ian Alan Paul.

The student strike in Quebec has lasted more than 100 days and has faced increasingly intense repression from the state. Following last week's solidarity march in New York, Natasha Lennard wrote that "solidarity is spreading in the US." This week, solidarity marches will take place across the country and in NYC "Infinite Strike" marches will leave Washington Square Park every night at 8pm.

Logistics: Friday June 1st, 7:00 P.M. meet up at: 19th & Telegraph

Over the last few months, we have been enheartened by the revolt taking shape in the streets of Montreal. The students of Quebec have taken a struggle against tuition hikes and mobilized hundreds of thousands against austerity and state repression. What began as a one-week university student strike has precipitated into an anti-capitalist revolt against universities, banks and police in what many are calling a general and indefinite social strike. In the face of intense state repression, including the draconian law 78 more or less banning protest, court injunctions against university picket lines, and mass arrests, the rebels of Montreal return to the streets night after night for over 100 days. They have called for solidarity actions from everyone and everywhere that can connect with the struggle, saying that if the strike “cannot inspire disruptions of its own, then it will die out quick.”

In the Bay Area, we, too, have seen revolt spread from universities into the community through Occupy, and we’ve seen tens of thousands come together against state repression for the November 2nd general strike and December 12th west coast port shutdown. And during those days of intense struggle, we drew strength and joy from the solidarity extended to us from as far as New York to Mexico City to Cairo.

It is now time for us to extend our solidarity to our comrades in Montreal and work to inspire the same solidarity and desire to disrupt business as usual in our friends, families and neighbors.

Keep striking and don’t ever stop!

Infinite solidarity with the infinite social strike!

At one year from the Egyptian uprising, much love and solidarity from the occupied Crush Culture Center at UC Davis. For more on the occupation, see the Communiqué from the Occupied Crush Culture Center and the Communiqué for a Radical Occupation.

Also, this anecdote:

“Yesterday, hanging a solidarity banner with Egypt, written in Arabic, with two of my closest comrades, a Palestinian man and a queer Iranian-jew, we were told by a group of mostly white women that our ‘movement’ was run by straight white males.”

[Update 1/20 9:02 am: Check out Zunguzungu's reportback from the library occupation.]

Via Occupy Cal:

We love our libraries and are here to protect them. Libraries are critically important for excellent education for all. We students, faculty, and community members collectively have decided to occupy the Anthropology Library at UC Berkeley to protest the dismantling of the library system on campus and public education as a whole.

We chose to occupy this space because the Anthropology library is a recent victim of extreme service cuts. The hours of operation are being cut from the previous, already slim, 9am-6pm to the current 12pm-5pm, because the university has not taken the necessary steps to sufficiently staff the library. The multiple attacks on campus libraries are a reflection of privatization and the devaluation of the public education system.

We are here to reverse this process. We call on the administration to take immediate action to hire another full-time librarian to ensure full access to this valuable resource.

The administration may claim that there are insufficient funds, but in reality these resources exist, but their allocation by UC administrators and the state does not adequately reflect the values of excellent public education. Why have the UC Regents continued to approve 21% increases in administration salaries, while students are being denied access to their libraries? Why are the taxes of the 1% so low while essential social services are being cut across the state and country?

We stand in solidarity with the Occupy movement as a whole and the protestors at UC Riverside who were met with violence in their attempt to protest the austerity policies of the UC Regents, Sacramento, and Washington D.C.

Defend our libraries and schools. Occupy together.

--- The Anthropology Library Occupation
January 19, 2012

Calls for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi have come from the Occupy Davis GA, the online petition which currently has over 110,000 signatures, and numerous academic departments on campus. The English Department has called for not only Katehi's resignation but also, in the interest of student health and safety, the disbanding of UCPD. But some faculty, it seems, are privileged enough to feel differently. They signed a nauseatingly disingenuous letter of support for Chancellor Katehi:

We, the undersigned UC Davis faculty, support the free exchange of ideas on campus and students’ right to peaceful protests. We are appalled by the events of Friday, Nov. 18, on the Quad, but heartened by the chancellor’s apology and her commitment to listen to and work on the students’ concerns.

We strongly believe that Linda Katehi is well-qualified to lead our university through this difficult healing process and oppose the premature calls for her resignation; this is not in the best interest of our university.

Who are these people? How could they be so ignorant about the history of police violence at UC Davis and across the UC system? A quick glance is all it takes to see that they overwhelmingly represent professional schools and the hard sciences, departments which tend to benefit most from the UC administration's privatization agenda. But a compañero went even further and compiled the following list: "Meet the Snakes: Salaries of Faculty who Support Katehi."

It's a long list so we're putting it below the fold, but we recommend taking a look. The bottom line, however, is this: the average salary of the signatories is $151,111.50.

Support Occupy Cal and its fight against police brutality and the privatization of the UC system.

From the Bicycle Barricade:


When they raised tuition, they told us they had no choice. When they cut our programs and majors and increased our class sizes, they said they had no choice.

When we protested, they told us to go to Sacramento.

When we refused to be misdirected, they beat and arrested us.

When they told us we couldn’t change anything, some of us believed them. After all, the fees kept going up. But some of us kept fighting. We occupied buildings and highways, we confronted the cops they sent to hurt and intimidate us, and we kept talking to our friends.

And some of our friends listened. The nationwide Occupy Wall Street movement draws inspiration from the California student movement begun in Fall 2009. The slogan “Occupy Everything,” once derided as absurd or vanguardist, is now on everyone’s lips. And when the Occupy movement came back home to the University of California last week, the administration responded with violence, sending sheriff’s deputies onto the Berkeley campus to beat students engaged in non-violent protest. A student was hospitalized, and several others came out with bruised and broken ribs.

Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau justifies his actions by claiming that the students, when they linked arms to counter the threat of violent dispersal were themselves “not non-violent.” In other words, the forming of a human chain is now declared to be an action which forces police to break students’ ribs with batons. This is the familiar logic of the authoritarian mind employed by abusive parents to justify the harm they inflict on their own children—”You made me do it. I had no choice.”

But we are not children, and we will not stand for this. We know by now that the only thing that has restored state funding, even temporarily, to the University of California has been the threat of student protest. We know that the only reason the regents have tabled their planned mid-year tuition increase is the threat of student protest. And we know that what the mis-managers of this institution fear most is when we stand together and put our bodies on the line to say “Stop!”

Last Wednesday, after being brutalized by the police, 3000 students and faculty at Berkeley rallied and called for a system-wide strike. This Tuesday we will walk out of our classes and strike in solidarity with our friends and colleagues across UC campuses. We demand an end to police violence and an end to the systematic looting (privatization) of our public universities.

For two years we’ve been chanting “Our University!” It’s time for us to prove it. Faculty, students, and workers: Join us at noon this Tuesday, Nov 15th, on the Quad, to renew the fight to take it back.

After a mass rally and march of over 3,000 people, and repeated police assaults on the encampment, the Occupy Cal general assembly decided -- with over 500 votes, 95% of the assembly -- to organize and call for a strike and day of action on Tuesday, November 15 in all sectors of higher education. We will strike in opposition to the cuts to public education, university privatization, and the indebting of our generation.

We also call for simultaneous solidarity actions in workplaces and k-12 schools. We will organize through daily, 5pm strike planning meetings at our encampments, followed by general assemblies.

On November 9th, an outdoor encampment, modeled after the encampments in New York, Oakland, and other cities worldwide, will be established at UC Berkeley in order to protest the privatization of public education. We write to express our support for the project of Occupy Cal, and to state publicly that we view outdoor encampments as a legitimate and potentially transformative form of political activity. The occupation at UC Berkeley—like other occupations established this fall—constitutes an instance of free assembly and should be allowed to persist and reproduce itself free of police interference.

We understand that the occupation at UC Berkeley will be organized through daily general assemblies; will enable important political discussion and debate over contemporary social conditions; and will provide for the material needs of students, workers, and wider community members, offering emergency medical care, food, basic supplies, legal support, and a place to live. The encampment will also allow for the emergence of creative and other effective responses to the interrelated crises we’re living through, including those that threaten public education.

UC Berkeley should be a place where political expression and assembly are encouraged. Public fora, as envisioned for Occupy Cal, should be able to convene free of police violence, and there should be no temporal restrictions on assemblies or encampments. The University should not arbitrarily restrict the right of the public to assemble on its grounds, and certainly not when such assemblies contribute to the education of the campus community, and when it is possible for such activity to take place alongside of, or as a supplement to, formal teaching and research regimens. Furthermore, in no way will this encampment disrupt or restrict any student’s ability to attend classes.

If University administrators decide to arbitrarily restrict or repress public assemblies on campus, including those associated with Occupy Cal, they would do so ostensibly in the name of policy and public safety. In truth, however, they would be acting in violation of the sentiments of representative student bodies including the GSA and ASUC, the appeal of the undersigned organizations, and the promise of the public university. They would enforce, through blunt force, the enclosure of our educational commons—a privatizing turn the UC Regents are also imposing through layoffs and fee hikes. By calling on the police, University administrators would subject students, workers, and community members to potentially traumatizing police violence and incarceration—a reality that we will not allow to be papered over by cold, bureaucratic discourse about policies, finances, and purported public safety concerns.

We stand with the encampment.

The Public Education Coalition

Cal bloc takes Telegraph on the way to Oscar Grant Plaza, about 30 minutes ago.

[Update Wednesday 12:55pm]: About to arrive at Oscar Grant Plaza (thanks to Justin Beck for the photo!).



[Update Wednesday 1:34pm]: Blockading UCOP! Police lock doors.

Whereas UAW 2865 witnesses firsthand how the 1% (in the form of UC Regents and top UC executives) conspire to steal ever more from students and workers through repeated tuition hikes, reduced services, layoffs, increased workloads, outsourcing and other austerity measures; and

Whereas we stand for the rights of all people to living wage jobs with affordable health care, quality education, a voice on the job, fair housing and a well-funded public sector, and

WHEREAS: Unemployment is the highest it has been since the Great Depression, and people are staying unemployed longer now than in the Great Depression, 1/3 of California homes are underwater, 1/5 of the foreclosures nation-wide are in California, and San Franciscans alone have lost almost $6 billion in home value costing their city over $74 million, and

WHEREAS: Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Manhattan's Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and the Wisconsin protests earlier this year, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future, and

WHEREAS: the Occupy Wall Street has galvanized public sentiment and a broad-based movement protesting the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations, and

WHEREAS: the National AFL-CIO and Change to Win coalitions have endorsed Occupy Wall Street, a growing number of trade union activists have joined this movement, both as individual workers, and as part of an increasing number of International and Local union contingents connecting their own fights to the larger demands of the movement for economic justice and fairness, and

WHEREAS: Union and Community organizations together have been working in coalition since the crash of the economy to force Banks to pay for public services and to renegotiate predatory loans with home owners, governments, and non-profit agencies, and

WHEREAS:  public safety officers have used excessive force against peaceful protesters at Oscar Grant (Frank Ogawa) Plaza and violated their first amendment rights when more than 500 public safety officers with firearms aimed at the occupiers, tore down their tents in a predawn raid on October 25; and

WHEREAS: public safety officers on the evening of Oct. 25 again used excessive force  injuring and endangering the lives of demonstrators when they marched on the evening of October 25th to protest the violence against the occupiers that morning;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that this union will encourage its members and allies to act in support of Nov. 2 actions and honors as a "Sanctioned Union Strike Line" OccupyOakland and Occupy Wall Street, encourages union members and Local unions to participate in the movement, will actively support any unionized or non-unionized worker who refuses to break up, "raid," or confiscate the belongings of protesters, and calls on unions representing DPW workers to not participate in such activity, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this union and its allies stand with our sisters and brothers of Occupy Wall Street, OccupyOakland, and cities and towns across the country who are fed up with an unfair economy that works for 1% of Americans while the vast majority of people struggle to pay the bills, get an education, and raise their families, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that UAW 2865 recognizes that protest movements, like strike lines and organizing campaigns, do not have curfews, are not 9-5 activities, and in doing so UAW 2865  recognizes and will work to protect the right for OccupyOakland to protest 24 hours a day, on-site and with proper protection including food, medical supplies, water, and tents, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that UAW 2865 has endorsed and will continue to endorse and turn-out members to OccupyOakland rallies and events, to provide in-kind donations like tents and food, and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that UAW 2865 joins its sister unions in the UC Berkeley Labor Coalition in forwarding this resolution for adoption to other local unions and central labor bodies.

The following statement was approved by the Occupy Oakland General Assembly:

1. From this point forward, we offer our support for all strikes taking place in the Bay Area and specifically within Oakland.

2. We commit to offer practical and creative support to those who walk out from union or non-union work places, with or without union leadership.

3. This statement also applies to student strikes.

By issuing this statement, we wish to send a message to everyone in this city, that if you are fighting back, then we got your back. Talk to your co-workers and fellow students. Every grievance against this system is worthy of a collective response.

We encourage everyone, ourselves included, to no longer let our discontent boil beneath the surface. We believe the time to act is now.

Rough translation of an article from the Mexico City daily La Jornada [more pictures from yesterday's clashes here and here]:

Santiago, October 6. Heavy clashes took place this Thursday in several parts of Santiago between Chilean police and marching students, during a day in which the police fired tear gas and water cannons against the protesters. There were 130 arrests, 25 police officers injured, and dozens of civilians wounded.

After the collapse of the dialogue between the right-wing government of President Sebastián Piñera and representatives of the student movement on Wednesday night, the police attacked an unauthorized march through the Santiago Regional Government Building (intendencia metropolitana) when it was just beginning peacefully at the downtown Plaza Italia and starting to move down Alameda Bernardo O'Higgins Avenue toward the presidential palace of La Moneda.

The violence of the repression was of such magnitude that even student leaders were assaulted, among them Camila Vallejo, who ended up soaking with water and affected by the tear gas, along with various journalists and photographers from the local and international press. Radio Cooperativa de Chile reported that two journalists were wounded and a third was arrested.

The tear gas made it impossible to breathe, and several people who had been affected by the chemical gas and by the police's baton strikes had to be taken to hospitals. Many protesters responded by throwing sticks and rocks against the police, which spread the skirmishes through various areas of the city center.

The police charged indiscriminately, thus resulting in the injury of CNN journalist Nicolás Orarzún and Megavisi��n photographer Jorge Rodríguez. In addition, Chilevisión journalist Luis Narváez was arrested and "taken for a ride" in a police vehicle along with other arrested protesters.

Against accusations from the regional governor (intendente), Cecilia Pérez, that the student leadership was responsible for the "disorders" and that legal action will be taken against them, Vallejo deplored the way in which the government had confronted the movement.

"The intendencia gave them absolute freedom to repress, in order to not permit meetings in public spaces, and this is unacceptable because it violates a constitutional right," said Vallejo, spokesperson for the Confederación de Estudiantes de Chile (CONFECH). She added that "the government is guilty because they have denied us everything: we ask for permission to march and they refuse, we ask for free education and they refuse again. What is the government trying to do?"

The Minister of the Interior, Rodrigo Hinzpeter, defended the so-called "anti-occupation" law, announced last Sunday by the government, through which it will seek to sanction those who occupy schools, public or private buildings, and those who cause damage during protests. The official said that he was sure that the members of the right-wing government represent the majority of Chileans.

After negotiations with the students and professors fell apart, the Minister of Education, Felipe Bulnes, declared that the Piñera government was "committed to advancing free education for the most vulnerable as well as credits and scholarships for the middle class, but not for all students." He added that they would continue to be open to dialogue.

He insisted that making education free forall would mean that "the poor would have to subsidize the education of the more wealthy." Along these lines, during the second meeting with the student leadership the government only offered the benefit to 40 percent of the student population, which finally lead to the collapse of the dialogue with the student movement.

Camila Vallejo said this morning that CONFECH would only be open to returning to the negotiating table if the Executive presents a new proposal with respect to the demand of free public education. While she affirmed that the attitude of the movement isn't "all or nothing," she emphasized that the will not continue discussions that are based on the government's current plan.

She noted that Minster Bulnes had said that the government doesn't want the poorest sectors to pay for the wealthier ones, and added that "we don't want this either, what we want is for the rich to pay for the [services used by the] poorest and middle class sectors. This will happen through tax reform."

Occupy Oakland will begin at 4 pm on Oct 10th, in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street and the dozens of other occupations taking place across US, as well as indigenous resistance day. A delegation from the Glen Cove encampment will be present at the opening of the occupation.

The organizers of this encampment want to link up Oakland with a growing social movement, but also adapt it to the realities and needs of our city with its rich and powerful political history.

There will be a final meeting to prepare for the occupation on Saturday, October 8 at 4pm in Mosswood Park.

For more information:

On the web: http://occupyoakland.wordpress.com/
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=290818544264175&ref=ts
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/occupyoakland

Download flyers and other propaganda here: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/10/07/18692504.php

On September 22nd, during the Day of Action demonstration at University of California Berkeley, two people were arrested and have been charged with misdemeanors by the Alameda District Attorney's Office. Drew Phillips, 25, was arrested and charged with battery on a peace officer with injury, wearing a mask in a commission of a crime and resisting arrest. The incident took place at the entrance to Tolman Hall after police rushed the demonstrators and pepper-sprayed a number of students. His lawyer, John Hamasaki is looking for anyone who witnessed the incident or has any photos or videos of the incident. Contact him at john@hamasakilaw.com.

Richard Dereck Clemons (arrested UC Berkeley, Tolman Hall, East Wing) is charged with Battery on Peace Officer, Resisting Arrest, Escape from Custody, all misdemeanors. Anyone with any information should email his lawyer at m.kamran@bourdonlaw.com.

In solidarity with the #OccupyColleges walkouts taking place today across the country.