What apathy? Students rise up across nation

marc rodriguez wrote this. i'm posting it without permission.

uri

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"Right next door to the apathy that is almost universal on U.S. campuses, there has been an amazing revival of student activism unseen for decades in Québec. Yet almost no U.S. students will know anything about it because of a virtually complete black-out in mainstream U.S. media--and very little coverage even on U.S. alternative and left-wing sites. Perhaps that doesn't matter, since most U.S. students seem perfectly content with the status quo. . ."

-Tom Reeves, "Lessons for US Radicals: Students Rise Again in Quebec," 4/15/05,
http://www.counterpunch.org/reeves04152005.html


Amidst continuing anti-military-recruitment work
(http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/145294/index.php), students and allies recently stepped up their struggles for justice on campuses across the U.S., focusing on, but not limited to, issues of fair treatment and compensation for the essential work done by staff and graduate student employees at institutions of higher education, as well as around questions of who has and doesn't have access to these institutions.

Here at UMass/Amherst a coalition of undergraduate and graduate students (represented, respectively, by Take Back UMass [www.takebackumass.com] and the Graduate Employees Organization/UAW [www.geouaw.org]) succeeded in virtually shutting down the campus on Thursday the 21st with a massive class boycott and one-day graduate employee walkout which saw huge pickets of graduate employees and allies as well as a barbeque and outdoor teach-in attended by 1,000 people at its peak.

A loud and boisterous "Critical (U)Mass" bike ride through the campus lifted the spirits and increased the visibility of picketers. Tours of prospective students and their parents were followed by loudly chanting and sign-waving protestors. As the day progressed and the realization of how dead and empty the campus was came over more and more people, the intensity and sense of victory on the picket lines increased. Picketers looked at each other and tried to say "we're winning" in voices that had become barely audible due to the constant chanting and yelling.

Speakers at the teach-in included several leaders and activists from Take Back Umass and GEO, in addition to UMass faculty and professors, author Barbara Ehrenreich, and striking graduate employees from Yale. A message of support from activist-scholar Howard Zinn was read out by a student.

UMass students made it clear that they would not accept the authoritarian, corporatist restructuring proposal being promoted by the chancellor (http://www.takebackumass.com/documents/lombardi-brochure2.pdf), and that cuts to real wages and benefits and the blatantly political and opportunistic targeting of queer union members (http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~geo/gp/barg/barg-latest.html) would not be tolerated.

An amazing day and demonstration of unity and power was pulled off with relatively little time yet an awe-inspiring amount of hard work spent on organizing.

In the days leading up to the 21st, grads and undergrads fliered and talked with their fellow students, phone banked, held teach-ins during classes in lecture halls, dropped banners, chalked the campus, won pledges of support from literally hundreds of faculty members, and in general succeeded in getting a progressive, pro-union and pro-diversity message out to thousands upon
thousands of students who chose either to stay home or attend the teach-ins rather than show up to class on Thursday. Folks who walked through classroom buildings during the day's activities found them to be near empty.

What follows is only a quick roundup of some recent actions across the country (and beyond)... for an excellent write-up on the actions at UMass and their overall political, national and international context (as well as some great photos), see "Student-workers, unions and community a potent force: Spring rebellions show signs of a growing movement" by Bryan G. Pfeifer, available at: http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/35553/index.php.

-Marc R., GEO; student, UMass Labor Center

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The aforementioned Quebec student strike, involving 230,000 students:
"Québec Students Strike, Occupy, Blockade": http://dominionpaper.ca/canadian_news/2005/03/28/quebec_stu.html


"Campuses With a Cause: Diverse issues inspire students":
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/04/18/diverse_issues_inspire_students/
The Boston Globe takes note of actions across Massachusetts in support of educational access and university employees, including a forum held at UMass/Amherst on the Free Higher Education Campaign (http://www.freehighered.org/).


Protestors at UC Santa Cruz, creating a "tent city" April 18-22 to demonstrate against and symbolize the "displacement of higher education..." and "unjust budget priorities that manifest at our campus, including massive student fee increases and unlivable wages for campus workers," were met with brutal police repression but vowed to continue the encampment anyway:

"It's Our University: Tent University Santa Cruz":
http://ucsc.tentstate.com/

"Tent University Santa Cruz, April 18-22: Claiming UCSC As Our Own":
http://santacruz.indymedia.org/feature/display/17074/index.php

"Tent University Outrage: A Photo Editorial":
http://santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/17462/index.php



The AFL-CIO reports "Student Fight for Workers’ Rights Spreads Nationwide":
http://www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/ns04152005.cfm

...as does the Washington Post, "Students' Clout Helping Workers -- and Unions: Colleges Are Bright Spot For Labor Organizing":
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35521-2005Apr7?language=printer


Why the strike at Yale and Columbia?
“Bush’s Labor Board Denies Graduate Employees of Rights as Workers”:
http://www.aflcio.org/aboutunions/voiceatwork/ns07162004.cfm


“Yale, Columbia, UMass Amherst grad students fight back: Strikes, walkouts,
boycotts mark week of April 18-22” By Bryan G. Pfeifer:
http://wmass.indymedia.org/newswire/display/4650/index.php


Graduate Student Employees United at Columbia:
http://www.2110uaw.org/gseu/

Graduate Employees and Students Organization at Yale:
http://www.yaleunions.org/geso/



What has become clear to many in the Graduate Employee movement and the overall educational acces movement is the context of exclusion and increasing corporatization of the university. In essence, students in these struggles are fighting for a democratic vision of the university where all are able to attend and fully develop as people regardless of race or economic class. On the other side is a corporate vision in which the university exists to train the future technicians and middle managers of American capitalism, with the university itself serving as a profit-making institution.

This context is clearly explained by GESO President Mary Reynolds in her piece “University's future at stake on picket lines,” where she writes, “We are striking because American universities, like Yale, are run more and more like corporations, with less control by those who do the teaching and research and more focus on the bottom line. We are striking because our university administrations look to shift their teaching and research to people like us -- graduate teachers, postdoctoral fellows, adjunct instructors -- who are a cheap and flexible source of labor…”:
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=29352


Updates from the Coalition of Graduate Employee unions:
http://coalitionofgraduateemployeeunions.blogspot.com/

Send a message to Bush and the presidents of Yale and Columbia:
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=47


Last but certainly not least, April 22nd also marked the anniversary of the 1969 Open Admissions student strike by the black and Puerto Rican students of New York’s City College, and a ceremony was held at “rememberance rock,” where a plaque marks the spot of one of the buildings that was taken over during the strike. Struggles such as those of the CUNY students in 1969 paved the way for us today and continue to be an inspiration as we continue to struggle and organize for a free and democratic university…

“The Politics of Race and Class at CUNY”:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/6353/chrislnr.htm

“memories of the events of May-June 1969 at City College”:
http://theword.hunter.cuny.edu/archive/vol44/aboutcuny/april3.html