|
Having
trouble viewing this email? Click here. To
subscribe, please send an email to subscriptions_mondaymemo@upte-cwa.org.
You will only get one email a week from the Monday Memo on this list. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Meanwhile, last week saw a wave of demonstrations and other
solidarity actions against racism and intolerance at several campuses. At
UCSD, a February 15 fraternity party that promoted racist stereotypes and
mocked Black History Month was defended as “satire” by organizers on a campus
TV program a few days later, prompting students to confront UCSD
administrators with demands
for action. UCSD’s Black Student Union, sharply critical of a
campus-sponsored teach-in on At UC Davis, a swastika was
carved into a student’s dorm room door on February 26, and the Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center decried vandalism of UCSD faculty have issued a condemnation and
petition over racism and the climate at the campus, and students, faculty
and staff are discussing further action next week. UCSD has suspended
the student who admitted placing the noose. UC president Mark Yudof was
joined by 10 UC chancellors in a statement
condemning the incidents, while UCSD launched a “Battle Hate” website. Fourteen students and three workers at UC Irvine were arrested
in a Feb. 24 sit-in at the administration building over a breakdown in
negotiations with AFSCME. AFSCME has been seeking to “insource” janitorial
and maintenance jobs, but UCI is demanding citizenship checks on the workers.
In Berkeley, protestors who had been occupying Durant Hall on
February 25 later clashed
with police on nearby Telegraph Avenue. Service workers at UC, represented by AFSCME, picketed a
February 24 Bay Area appearance of university regent Richard Blum and former
president Bill Clinton. Fearing Clinton would not have crossed the picket
line to deliver his speech, the San
Francisco Bay Guardian reports that UC agreed to the union’s demand to
abandon a plan to contract out bus service at Berkeley. But according to
AFSCME’s Liz Perlman, the LBNL drivers are still contracted out. Some 2,400 University of Montreal teaching assistants have gone
on strike, saying their fight is for better working and teaching
conditions. In response to a union lawsuit, an Alameda County judge has ordered
back pay for some state workers furloughed by Governor Arnold
Schwartzenegger who worked for certain state agencies. The governor’s office
says it will appeal. Amid financial crisis, reports California
Watch, UC Berkeley is forging ahead with spending $320 million on a new
football stadium, even while the athletic department itself is mired in debt. How much would it cost to restore public higher education? The
Council of UC Faculty Associations has issued a new report with
the answer: the bill would be $32 for each California taxpayer. With that,
the entire system would be restored and student fees could be rolled back to
what they were a decade ago. Higher education can be fixed, argues CUCFA vice
chair Stan Glantz, a professor of medicine at UCSF, in the Daily
Californian. Why won’t the California legislature do what’s right and raise
that $32 per taxpayer? Because a minority has a stranglehold on the budgeting
process, and every budget vote requires a two-thirds majority to pass. UCB
Linguistics Professor George Lakoff has authored a ballot initiative that
would change that, the California
Democracy Act, creating majority rule in California. You can read
Lakoff’s letter
to students or sign
a petition in support of the initiative. Please feel free to forward this memo to your colleagues.
Anyone may subscribe to the Monday Memo. |
|
_____________________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
|
UPTE-CWA 9119 | P.O. Box 4443, Berkeley, CA
94704 | 510.704.8783 | info@upte-cwa.org |
