Student Run

S

TUDENT

September 21, 2009

SF State’s

FIRST

NEW

STUDENT-RUN

POLITICAL

BULLETIN

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” Paulo Freire

U P NITY&

San Francisco State University

OWER

FREE

First Edition

The CSU Budget Crisis: A Big Lie.

The budget cuts to education are having serious consequences. What we are seeing across the state is the profound restructuring of public higher education. The consequences have been severe. UC Berkeley alone has a 150 million dollar shortfall. Now the remaining professors have no phone lines. Dozens of janitors, administrators, teachers, and even the piano player for the ballet class have been laid off. Dani, a resident assistant (RA) at UC Riverside, reports layoff, heavier workloads, canceled raises, and less training for RAs. At San Diego State University they are firing forty-eight full-time and

496 part-time lecturers. In general, California State University (CSU) fees are up 32%, and as many as 40,000 qualified students will be turned away in the next two years. Dominic, a student at CSU Monterrey Bay, reports that the Film Program (which is supposed to be the best offered at any CSU) has been drastically cut. Michael and Diana, students from CSU Channel Islands, informed SUP organizers that all professors and lecturers were forced to take a 10% pay decrease and Financial Aid was delayed. Because of this, Diana had to pay about $1000 from her own pocket. Fifty two percent of the

Why is it important to support the struggles happening at UCs across the state this week?

It’s important that we understand why there are divisions between the UC, CSU and Community College systems. This three-tiered system serves a particular purpose within a capitalist division of labor - namely, the training of three different sectors of workers. The UC undergrads are being trained to go on to do graduate studies and research in their field, while CSU students are being trained to be middle level management. Community College students are often trained for vocational jobs. Budget cuts often occur differently in each system, splintering unity between students of the three sectors. When SUP organized a walkout of

state’s profitable corporations only paid $800 in state income tax, including 46 corporations with over $1 billion in receipts! That’s less than 0.0000008% in taxes. If those companies paid just one percent tax on their profit, all of the cuts could be reversed. In September 2008 and February 2009 corporate tax cuts were enacted by California that will result in a loss of 2-2.5 billion per year. There were no public hearings. The lesson? Before you

hundreds on March 12th 2009, it lead the walkout from SF State to City College of SF, in an act of solidarity with city college students. This week, we are showing support to the UC students because their struggle is also our struggle. We should work to unite the various sectors together so that we form a powerful student movement - and even then we should not stop there. If we are serious about winning, we must seek to build organization and strategic ties with sectors of the working class being attacked by the budget cuts: nurses, k-12 students & teachers, workers threatened with massive layoffs, and those seeking healthcare. Only by doing this can we expect to defeat these monumental attacks on our lives, and begin to imagine the construction of a more just order where we are making the decisions that effect our lives rather than millionaire businessmen and bourgeois politicians.

write your elected official, or sign a petition, ask your

self if you aren’t begging for crumbs from a government that is really governed by the corporations, for the corporations.

Important Dates Sept. 22, 2009 11AM - 2PM SJSU Student Protest for Quality Education @ SJSU Campus Village Quad. Sept. 24, 2009 12PM - 2PM UC Berkeley Faculty/Staff/Student Walk-Out, Teach-in and Rally @ Sproul Plaza, CAL. Sept. 26, 2009 2:30PM - 5:30PM Community Speak Out Against the Budget Cuts @ Centro Del Pueblo, 474 Valencia St.

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Student Unity and Power

Who We Are Founded early in 2009, we believe that California’s budget cuts can only be defeated by a militant student resistance movement, building awareness and uniting both student bodies in a statement of solidarity with the education sector as a whole. We demand the re-rehiring of lecturers, no future layoff, a reversal of fees to 2002 levels, forgiving of student debt, a transparent budget, and a more longterm goal of creating a worker/faculty/studentrun university. Under capitalism, education is geared towards the interests of profit.

What are we fighting for? The attacks on education are part of a larger systemic problem, and the current economic crisis has its roots in a predatory capitalist system that exploits and oppresses the people in favor of a rich minority who profits. Seven trillion dollars have been given to banks and corporations in an attempt to “recue” the capitalist economy, while politicians and the media would have us believe that cuts to social services like education and healthcare are necessary sacrifices. We are already suffering, forced to pay for their crisis as a handful of people have been profiting.

How To Join? Student Unity & Power meets every Thursday @ 7PM in Malcom X Plaza.

University Of California Strike

You may not notice them but they keep our schools running. They clean up our classrooms after we leave, serve food, mop bathrooms and vacuum dorm rooms. They are the service workers at every campus. At UC campuses across California, custodians, maintenance people, food-servers, dorm janitors, mail deliverers, bus drivers, and cooks, are highly exploited. The average full-time UC custodian or food server makes an average salary of $23, 000 a year or 11.17 p/h, a wage so low, many workers qualify for numerous welfare programs. Meanwhile,

top administrators at UC’s across California make hundreds of thousands. People often think of campus struggles as limited to students, but on April 14th, 2005, service workers at UC campuses across California shut down schools across the state. At UC Santa Cruz in particular, students not only joined in with the struggle of low waged workers, they helped kick up the level of militancy.

Background At most

dispute over contracts spread out over the year between 2004-05 there was other political activity going on at the same time.

AFSCME joined forces with a campus organization called Student Worker Coalition (SWC), which launched a year long campaign to win campus support for the AFSCME workers.

UC’s, low-waged service workers are part of a union called AFCSME Local 3299. In the period leading up to the point when AFCSME’s contract with the UC was set to expire, the union met repeatedly with the UC management, asking that they negotiate a fairer contract for workers. The The campaign UC refused, claiming they included teach-ins, lacked the funds to pay actions protesting the higher wages. administration and The role of students in rallies denouncing the Organizing While the corporate like structure of

the UC system. This kind of action would require massive student and faculty participation, and would not just disturb the university, but would amount to a one-day takeover that did not challenge just the lowwages, but the university power structure as well.

Strike! On April 14th 2005 that’s exactly what happened. Students and workers linked arms and blocked all entrances of the school. Nobody could enter or exit without confronting a vibrant, energized array of students, workers and teachers, all united around the idea that an injury to one is an injury to all. Soon after, the UC broke its budget impasse, and conceded on issues they would have never considered if the strike had not happened. Of course, the contract still is and was not adequate so we recognize that the struggle continues.

RESISTANCE Last week on September 17th, police arrested 14 protesters who disrupted a UC Board of Regents meeting held to discuss an additional increase in student tuition at UC’s. Students and workers disrupted the meeting calling for an end to the budget cuts and for UC President Mark Yudof to be laid off. On September 24th, there will be a UC-wide walkout. This walkout began when a few faculty members circulated a petition calling for a walkout on the first day of school. You can read the letter drafted by the faculty members and the signatures of those who are supportive at: http://ucfacultywalkout.com/ The Graduate Student Organizing Committee has also made

a UC-wide call for UC Graduate Student Instructors to honor picket lines on 9/24. For more information visit www.berkeleycuts.org What Can We Do? UNITE. Back of cuts to education cannot be fought without unity across the UC, CSU and City College campuses. Do it alone. STUDENTS: Walk Out in Solidarity with UC Students, Workers and Faculty! We will be rallying at Malcolm X Plaza at 11am on September 24th, and we will march around before we all jump on the BART and head over to UC Berkeley, where we will noisily, energetically, represent SFSU and communicate to UC Students that we are in the fight with them!

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