Response: Katehi's "Economic Impacts" article

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi recently penned an article for the Davis Vanguard praising “The Economic Impact of UC Davis”. It came as no surprise to this working-poor Teaching Assistant, student parent, and activist fighting to defend public education and student and worker rights that much of the economic impacts of UC Davis were ignored, specifically the financial hardships faced by the workers who make the university run, and the students who the university is supposed to be serving.

Education, Incorporated

Just wanted to share this excellent video made by a UCD student.

Also, I'm featured in it, so that's really cool too. ;)

https://vimeo.com/121801363



Education, Incorporated from Darin Reyes on Vimeo.

Response to Katehi's anti-divestment e-mail

As the time of publication this statement has not been endorsed by any organization or caucus, the views expressed represent only the views of the author. (Though hopefully the Davis UAW will be signing on to this statement soon.)

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On the morning of Friday January 30, Chancellor Katehi sent out an e-mail to the entire UCD community in regards to the previous night’s successful passing of a bill through the ASUCD senate that calls for the UC to divest its funds from companies that profit from human rights abuses in Occupied Palestine. We would like to deeply examine just what is being said in this letter and its implications.

Condemning anti-Semitic hate speech @ UCD

I did not write this, but I did sign it. So I am putting it up on this blog for all to see because I think it is important for people to see that the Divestment movement condemns all forms of hate speech.
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Dear UC Davis Community,

As a coalition of students and campus organizations at UC Davis, we condemn the actions taken sometime during the night of January 31st, 2015 by an unknown person(s) who defaced the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house, which is a Jewish interest fraternity, with swastikas.

Just as we condemned the hanging of a noose, the defamation of the Palestinian dove, or calling students ‘terrorists’ based on their physical appearance or beliefs, we equally condemn the display of the swastika. This reminds us that anti-Semitism, along with all other forms of hate, including, but not limited to, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and misogyny, still exist and are rampant trans-nationally and on our university campuses.
We reject any attempts to blame this on any single student community, including the UC Davis Divestment movement. We hope that the university investigates and exercises due diligence in holding those responsible for this hate crime to the fullest extent of the law.

Sincerely,
The Undersigned:
Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Davis
Muslim Student Association at UC Davis
Arab Student Union at UC Davis
Pakistani Student Association at UC Davis
Afghan Student Association at UC Davis
M.E.Ch.A. de UC Davis
Black Student Union at UC Davis
Sikh Cultural Association at UC Davis
S.M.A.R.T. (Students Matter: Activism, Retention, Teamwork) Coalition
Officers of the Davis Unit, UAW 2865
Hannah Kagen-Moore, Davis Unit UAW 2865
Duane Wright, Davis Unit UAW 2865
Mai Sartawi, National Lawyer’s Guild
Claire White, Student National Vice President, National Lawyer’s Guild
Gonzalo Cortes Moreno, Lawyer and Constitutional Law Professor (King Law School)
Armando Figueroa, ASUCD President

Student papers on the recent UC fee hikes

In an earlier post, Email to my students about the fee hikes, I shared a communication of mine to my students of Soc 3 Social Problems. In it I asked my students to write:

... a brief reflection (2 paragraphs, less than 1 page) on the event to be passed in to me at our next section meeting, it will count as your grade for this week. This is a class on social problems, and we have been talking quite a bit about understanding how personal troubles relate to a larger social structure. Your reflection should introduce a social problem presented at this event (there will likely be more discussed than just fee hikes) and discuss how it connects to the way in which society is organized.


Here are anonymous selections from a couple of the response papers that I felt were really powerful, especially when read together:

"I myself pay for most of my tuition through financial aid and loans, and every now and then these loan companies send an email letting you know how much you have borrowed and if I have a plan for paying it back when I graduate. The amount of anxiety associated with knowing I'm going to have to find a full time job, (that probably doesn't apply to my major), straight out of college just to start paying these companies back is damaging to my overall performance in school. Why I feel this is such a big issue is because every student put in a massive amount of their own time in order to better themselves. Getting out of bed early for 8am labs, staying in the 24hr room all Saturday just to get a passing grade; and with this planned increase, all that effort could have been for nothing. It still bewilders me that they can take students that have struggled to this point to pay all their fees, and then tell, "I'm sorry, now you have to pay more. Oh, you paid for 3 years but you can't pay for your fourth and final year? Sorry you can't attend our school anymore."
-Student paper on the fee hikes


"According to my girlfriend, who works as a caterer for the campus and who has catered for the chancellor, tells me about overhearing the chancellor talk about spending and spending, and how they are the only ones who understand. All that talk, and while spending countless money on parties and gatherings, things that underprivileged and people who live in poverty cannot do. I find it impossible, and frankly ridiculous, to be understanding of the increase, knowing that it will severely affect myself and others in ways unimaginable, and even generations to come."
- student paper on the fee hikes

Why Divestment is an Anti-Tuition Hikes Issue

This post will attempt to explain what divestment -- from Fossil Fuel companies, private prisons, and companies that profit off of the occupation of Palestine -- has to do with tuition hikes. I think there are numerous reasons for divestment (for example), and these aren't even the strongest. But I just wanted to illustrate how these issues are directly tied to tuition.

Briefly, the situation in the UC can be described like this: The state has significantly defunded higher education, and education more broadly. However, the UC administration has not prioritized education and research with its budget. Instead we have seen a massive explosion of full time administrators and skyrocketing executive pay. Yes the state needs to drastically increase funding, but the university needs to be restructured and spending on education needs to be a priority.

Fossil Fuel Divestment

Just a couple weeks ago I sat in a large auditorium with UC adminstrators engaging in a "dialog" about the proposed tuition hikes. A university lobbyist told us that it was unfortunate that the tax on gasoline was beaten, but that the big oil companies had just out lobbied and out-funded the university.

The sentiment and conclusion that they were hoping naive students would take away was that the well meaning university was fighting a battle with a big mean bully and it got beat, but it tried its hardest. 

The situation is actually much less heroic than that, and much more absurd. Because the university is run like a corporation, and growth is the main driving force of the UC it invests its endowment money in companies that make lots of money. Among these companies are fossil fuel companies. So the corporate model that is now our university has locked it into a situation where it is funding the very same companies that it is supposedly politically opposing. So the UC was spending money to lobby against a cause that was spending UC money to lobby. It was UC money vs. UC money. 

Big oil doesn't want to help pay for education, and so we are. 

Divestment from the Occupation

Companies are profiting from the illegal occupation of Palestine, and from human rights violations occurring because of this occupation. The state of Israel continually violates international law, yet is able to get away with it because it has the US backing it up -- and not just with moral support, but with billions of dollars every year in military aid. Israel is the biggest receiver of US foreign aid. 

UC money goes to companies that make bulldozers that demolish Palestinian homes to make land for illegal settlements, to security companies that help run prisons where human rights are violated, and more. So our money is coming into this situation in two ways, through our federal tax dollars, and through UC endowment money. All of this money could instead be used to fund education, but is instead being used to displace people from their land and their homes, to violate their rights, and take their natural resources.

So long as companies are making big bucks off of the occupation than they will continue to lobby the federal government to support the state of Israel, and as long as the state of Israel has the backing of the US the occupation will continue. By funding these companies UC money is going into a cycle which reproduces the occupation -- which means less federal funding for education.

More money for occupation means less federal grants, and more student loans instead. 

Divestment from Private Prisons

source: http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2010/edu/educ_prisons/web-images/SB_const%20amend_fmt.jpeg (if the graph doesn't appear then click this link)

This one is probably the easiest to understand. California has poured almost the same amount of money into prisons as it has taken out of public universities. 

In California about 10% of inmates are in private prisons. It is a booming industry, and it is one that lobbies for tough on crime laws to make sure that there is a demand for the "services" it provides.

Money that could be going to making education more affordable and accessible is going to prisons instead, and private prison companies are going to fight to keep it that way, their bottom-line depends on it.

The Historical Moment at UC Davis - Strategies for Davis Activists

EDIT: updated to include two occupations I had forgot to mention in my late night tired as fuck rush to get this out after a hella busy week.

A brief history of the statewide UC student occupation and anti-fee hikes movements from 2009- present, with a focus on UC Davis

I wasn't here before Fall of 2011, that history is just what I have pieced together from comrades involved at that time during my years of activism at Davis, both in the Occupy UCD movement and as part of AWDU and an officer in UAW 2865.

In 2009, as part of a long trend of austerity in California and the US and the privatization of the UCs and higher education nationally, state funding to the UCs was cut by 12% and the UC Regents proposed to raise tuition 32%. Students responded with rallies, direct actions, and occupations of lawns and buildings. The fee hikes were approved by the Regents and in response the occupations and actions increased.

At UC Davis Mrak Hall is Occupied and 52 people are arrested - 51 students and 1 professor. In response to the arrests Mrak is occupied a second time and students negotiate with university administration for a letter to the district attorney asking that the D.A. consider dropping the charges. In March of 2010, students stage a walkout, shut down Unitrans buses, and around 500 students march to the I-80 to take the freeway but are blocked by the police and met with force. One student is taken by the police, beaten, tased, dragged and arrested. The police, and admin like Sheri Atkinson who continues to be part of the admin's Orwellian-named "Freedom of Expression Support Team", which watches and documents all student protest activity,  then use the student as a hostage and force the students to leave the area in return for the student-hostage to be released with no charges.

On November 17th, 2010, "Students rally and attempt to block a vote at UCSF, where Regents are voting to raise tuition eight percent and cut campus worker pensions. UCI’s police officer Kemper pulls a gun on student protesters."

In November of 2011, Occupy Davis is formed. On the ninth, UCBPD beat students and faculty with batons in the now nationally infamous instance of UC police burtality. Students at Davis responded days later with a rally and an occupation of Mrak Hall. The next day most of the Mrak occupiers and other protesters went to San Francisco, for what was originally going to be a protest of the UC Regents meeting, but the Regents canceled their meeting due to a supposed discovered "threat of violence", and joined with Occupy SF and marched around the financial district and eventually hundreds of people flooded Bank of America and temporarily occupied it, eventually around 100 people were arrested. Then on November 18th Chancellor Katehi told her staff to remove the protesters and the Occupy tents that had been erected on the quad and the now globally infamous pepper spray event took place, where Officer Pike attacked peacefully seated student protesters with pepper spray that UCDPD wasn't supposed to have and in a much closer distance than the spray is supposed to be used. Some students were arrested, and one of the arrestees was an art student whose hands were zip tied so tight that he received radial nerve damage. But the most important thing to remember from that day is that after Pike pepper sprayed the seated students that the entire crowd banned together and told the cops to leave the quad. The cops came, took down tents, arrested people, and attacked students with chemical weapons, but they left the situation having been beaten because we took control over our quad. The next day Chancellor Katehi was surrounded while giving a press conference and refused to come out to address the student who demanded answers from her. After hours of waiting and negotiations an agreement was reached where the Chancellor would be allowed to exit the building if she walked past students sitting next to each other. Students sat in total silence and her walk was a powerfully symbolic moment of the administration's and UCPD's guilt and reckless force juxtaposed by the students unbelievable self control. Two days in a row the admin or the UCPD walked away from a moment of confrontation on the losing end, we of course celebrated. Two days later, on a Monday, the biggest UCD General Assembly in history gathered (pic 1, pic 2), with an estimated 5,000 people. We then Occupied Dutton Hall for a week, as well as the quad which was now full of dozens of tents, and renamed it Paulo Freire Open university, where teach-ins were given.

Between the bad press from the police brutality at Berkeley, Davis, and UCLA, and the constant occupations and shutting down of the Regents meetings the proposed 81% tuition hike was withdrawn and a tuition freeze was enacted that has lasted up until now (Nov 20, 2014).

Reflections on the UCD 11-18-14 Take Back Your Tuition Action

I want to start off this post by saying that while it will focus on a critique of the actions that have happened at Davis since the start of the Take Back Your Tuition movement, it is in no way a personal attack on anyone, and that leadership I am critiquing are my comrades and they have put in lots of hours and hard work into making Tuesday's rally one of the largest that happened statewide this week. I hope that they and others who are participating in this movement will read this and think critically about how to move forward in a way that makes our movement stronger and makes it grow. This is comradely criticism, I write because I see them as comrades. Notice that I never wrote comradely criticism to the reactionaries in the union, I merely wrote them off. I hope that the spirit of debate in the movement can be furthered by this discussion. Love and solidarity. -Duane

Strengths of the current leadership - ASUCD Office of Student Advocacy

The newly formed ASUCD Office of Student Advocacy has done an amazing job in using the resources and legitimacy of ASUCD to engage in grassroots organizing. The last time there was a student movement at Davis ASUCD was no where involved in this level of organizing and support. The night before the pepper spraying ASUCD passed a resolution, brought to them by Occupy UCDers, to support the occupation. That's as far as I think their involvement ever was, other than maybe some ASUCD people supporting it as individuals. This alone is a fantastic step in the right direction. Historically student governments tend to act more like company unions, but they are a contested terrain with potential to be part of the struggle. I think the Davis GSA is much closer to the company union type than ASUCD is currently acting as. The GSA board won't even come out with a statement against the tuition hikes. They sent out the following message in an email:

The GSA represents a wide variety of students who have diverging view points on the proposed tuition fee increases. I'd like to state for the record GSA supports grad and professional students' individual decisions regarding action on this issue. 

They go on to say that they will be bringing a resolution to the GSA assembly in their December 3rd meeting. It is a shame that they can't even show the leadership to oppose the tuition hikes even if the GSA then overturns the boards statement. As students affected by the hikes, and as instructors of undergrads facing these hikes the GSA should be standing up for accessible public education. So ASUCD, mainly through the Office of Student Advocacy has managed to not make itself politically irrelevant to the students it represents, unlike the GSA.

Email to my students about fee hikes

Dear Students,

We will not be meeting for section at noon this week. Instead you all should go to the anti-fee hikes rally on the quad at the same time. You will write up a brief reflection (2 paragraphs, less than 1 page) on the event to be passed in to me at our next section meeting, it will count as your grade for this week. This is a class on social problems, and we have been talking quite a bit about understanding how personal troubles relate to a larger social structure. Your reflection should introduce a social problem presented at this event (there will likely be more discussed than just fee hikes) and discuss how it connects to the way in which society is organized.


(Facebook page for the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1492534877694783/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming)


I cannot in good conscience as your teacher and as a fellow student hold section this week at the same time the anti-fee hikes rally is happening. Many of you may already be planning on attending and I don’t think a student should have to choose between fighting for accessible public education and getting an education. I don’t know any of you personally or your background or life story, but I have to consider that there may be some among you whose continued enrollment in the university is already tenuous due to the already high cost of a UC education, and the proposed fee hikes may be causing you stress as you may not be sure if you will be able to afford to finish your education, or if you will even be able to afford to be here next year. It is not good pedagogical practice on my part to not only ignore the possibility that you or one of your peers may find themselves unable to focus on their studies if they feel that it doesn’t matter anyway because they will not be able to afford to complete their degree, but to put up an obstacle by penalizing you for not coming to class because you chose to go to the rally. I also think that as a teacher at this university it is my obligation to be there to support you all, and to fight for accessible public education. I am also a parent and I hope that one day when my son grows up that he will be able to go to college, but that prospect is already looking dim. As it is right now, even though I am TAing the university doesn’t pay me enough for me and my kid to live in Davis so over 3 years of grad school I have had to take out $15,000 in loans just to pay rent-- and this is after being told when I was accepted to this program that I would be “fully funded”.

The Department of Education reports that public higher education tuition in California is the fastest rising in the country (US D. of E. report 6/12/12) and the cost of the UC has more than doubled since 2002 (Sacramento Bee, 1/24/2011). The cost of education has become so unbearable that students rely on huge loans to afford school, making student loan debt exceed credit card debt, now over a trillion dollars (Bloomberg, 3/22/12).

I encourage you all to read up on the particulars of the situation and discover where your tuition dollars are going. I have included some resources that I think provide a more nuanced understanding of the situation than the overly-simple and deceptive narrative of “we need to increase tuition because state funding has decreased”.

http://reclaimuc.blogspot.com/2014/11/they-want-to-raise-tuition-again.html

http://reclaimuc.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-state-funding-sleight-of-hand-some.html

http://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/UC-resists-law-requiring-disclosure-of-5895688.php

http://reclaimuc.blogspot.com/2013/01/uc-administration-continues-to-grow.html


http://ucsa.org/action-alerts/sign-our-petition/

Divestment and Affordable Housing

University-Banking Complex

On the University-Banking Complex

(Loosely based on a speech I gave in the bargaining room at UC Davis during UC/UAW contract negotiations)

After listening to all these members talk about how they have had to go into serious debt to make it through grad school, despite our so called “full-funding”, due to our extremely low salary I can’t help but make the connection of our current contract struggle for more competitive pay to the larger student movement against privatization and student debt.

On the other side of this wall used to be a US Bank, but students and workers sat down in front of it, day after day, protesting the fact that capital has literally been welcome and given a space on campus. They were protesting what might be called, the University-Banking Complex, that much like the Military-Industrial complex, has some scary implications for society.

After US Bank was forced to close these students faced trumped up charges that could have led to up to 10 years in prison and $1 million in “damages”. The Davis Dozen, or the Banker’s Dozen, as they have been called eventually got community service, but the threat was very real. If you attempt to interrupt the University-Banking Complex your life can and/or will be ruined.

I find it disturbing how many UC Regents are current or former bankers. Monica Lozano for example was on the board of Bank of America, while at the same time a UC Regent. She would literally vote to increase tuition in the morning and then watch as BofA made more money through student loans.

And its not just tied to tuition, but also as grad students, its about our pay. I personally have taken out a total of $16,000 in my three years to just help me pay the rent, since I am a student-parent. Now UCD wants to tear down the only affordable family housing on campus and replace it with housing that costs twice as much.

We demand better pay. We demand affordable housing. Our contract fight is just one small battle in this war against the University-Banking Complex, and is just one way in which we can push back the tides and reclaim our university, our lives, and our futures.

The Invisible Violence of UC Labor Relations

The Invisible Violence of UC Labor Relations

(Based on a speech given during UC/UAW contract negotiations bargaining session at UC Davis.)

I want to talk about violence for a minute - especially because we are here at Davis, just a few hundred feet from the Quad, where the globally infamous pepper spray incident happened on Nov 18th, 2011. UCPD has become the face of UC violence around the world, for both the pepper spraying at Davis as well at the batoning of students and faculty at UC Berkeley 9 days before that. These acts of violence represent the unchecked power and cruelty of the UC system and administration. They are not the root of the problem, as many have been saying, but merely the symptom of a more dangerous disease - privatization and austerity -  meaning the closing of the higher educational commons and selling it off piecemeal to the corporate and banker buddies of the UC Regents.

These highly visible acts of cruelty and authoritarianism are not moments when the system breaks down and must rely on sheer violence for its survival, however. These are just more visible acts of violence because they are public. What we don’t see is the constant and institutional violence of the day to day operations of the university because they tend to be private.

When UC management unilaterally implements pay cuts on unionized service workers, over 90% of whom qualify for public assistance, pushing them further into poverty, when the university refuses to pay Graduate Student Teaching Assistants a living wage and perpetually keep us in or near poverty -especially those of us with children - and when the university raises tuition on students who can barely afford to be here already and force them to take out further student loans, they put us all in a situation where we will keep having to make choices that we shouldn’t have to make: Do I want to visit the doctor or feed my kid? Do I pay the utility bill or my credit card? Do I eat healthy and go further into debt or buy cheap food? Can I visit my family this year or will I go yet another year without seeing them?

When workers have to choose between their long term health and homelessness, between feeding their children and putting the heat on in the winter, they are making impossible decisions. UC workers should not be put in this situation, but they are.

This is the institutional violence of the UC administration. It is an invisible violence, a private violence, and it manifests in our lives differently based on our own personal situations, yet it is a product of the decisions made by UC administration and carried out by UC Employee and Labor Relations (from here on in just referred to as Labor Relations).

When pictures and videos of Pepper Spray cop John Pike went viral many thought that it was a moment of the system stepping out of bounds. Chancellor Katehi and other administrators tried to appease the outrage by saying that this would never happen again, and that new policies regarding free speech and demonstrations would be enacted. However this further invisiblizes the other violence of the UC system, the day to day violence described above.The truth is just that this was a more public moment of the logic of the UC administration being mirrored by the UCPD.

This is why when I look across the bargaining table I don’t see mere administrators, I see a group of John Pikes. Actually I see something worse than John Pike. Pike’s violence was momentary and only affected a dozen or so people. Labor Relations is more sophisticated and doesn’t have to actually look at their brutality, they just pull the trigger and walk away before the pepper spray hits. And they do this to 13,000 Teaching Assistants (UAW 2865) and 22,000 service workers (AFSCME 3299) every day.

So I want to call you out, you specifically members of the UC management bargaining team, for your violence. We will not stand it any longer. We are organized and we will fight back.

On the "Dialogue with the Chancellor"

On December 8, 2013 Chancellor Katehi and other top administrators held a "Dialog with the Chancellor" about issues of diversity and social justice. These are the remarks I wanted to make, but wasn't able to because we ran out of time.
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I find it hard to be optimistic right now. I’m sure many people in this room, student leaders from many different underrepresented groups, see this dialog as progress – that the university is beginning to recognize their concerns and for some even begin to acknowledge that their community exists. However I am much more skeptical. I think that at best this forum is window dressing, and at my most cynical I see it as a demobilization tactic and a divide and conquer strategy.

Why do I feel this way? Because at the same time the university is holding dialogs about diversity and community with one hand, with the other hand the university has just announced new more restrictive free speech policies. The message I see in that is that our own agency is a threat to the university – always has and always will be – and so in order to demobilize an angry and organized student population, administration is brining a small group of leaders into institutional channels – into this suggestion box format. By doing so the university has shown that it is committed do denying our agency, that we are not subjects, that it sees us objects of policy, and that the current problematic power structure will remain.

If it was true that this forum was a sign of a commitment to empowerment then tell me why has the university so strongly opposed collective bargaining rights for Research Assistants. Surely collective bargaining is a way to not just have a voice, but to have a SAY. BECAUSE the university doesn't care if we have a voice, but it certainly doesn’t want us to have a SAY – a say in what our education will look like, what our work will look like, and how the university will run.

If this forum was a sign of a newly found commitment to diversity then tell me why has the UC been repressing the speech and peaceful activities of Students for Justice in Palestine on some campuses? Accusing them of hate speech and threatening them with discipline for engaging in free speech.

If you are really concerned about fostering a welcoming environment and you are opposed to discrimination and micro-aggressions, then why has the university chosen Janet Napolitano – the person who has deported the most people in US history – as its top leader? What I see here is that the university is willing to point the finger at other students and professors who say disgusting hateful things like “go back to your own country” (as many in this room reported hearing in their time here) yet the university is also going to reward the person who HAS ACTUALLY forcibly done so with the most prestigious leadership position. Talk about a mixed message – on one hand you are going to look into workshops about diversity and community and accountability yet on the other the public face of this university is a huge offender of human rights.

Also while we sit in this very room talking about diversity and community the UC is invested in companies that profit off of private prisons. Let me say that again, the university is making money off of private prisons while it talks about diversity and community. You don’t need to be a sociologist or a African American Studies or Latina/o studies major to know that the US prison system is the largest in the world and that men of color are disproportionately imprisoned. Now add to this the perverse incentive to make profit off of that system, that means the incentive to have more POC in prison and to keep them there longer. And that is where the UC’s money is. For every additional victim of the racist injustice system, every family and community torn apart, the UC receives a bigger payback on their dollar. And yet administration sits here talking about diversity and community and respect. As if the students of color on this campus have no history, they have no background in a community of color, they have no family or friends there, as if once you come to UC Davis all ties are cut, history erased, and a new identity is given to you.

I find it very revealing that while this forum is going on the administration is also attacking AFSCME 3299, the campus service workers, who are disproportionately people of color and are among the lowest paid workers on campus.  Over 90% of them are eligible for public assistance. The university has chosen to disrespect the collective bargaining process and to implement a contract on service workers  -a contract is supposed to be about consent, not imposition. The administration is forcing a pay cut on these workers while top administrators are getting HUGE raises. Chancellor Katehi got a 7% raise last year, meanwhile janitors are taking a 1.5% pay cut.

And when these workers use their last resort tactic, i.e. go on strike, you threaten and intimidate them. And when Grad student workers go on strike in sympathy with them, we are also threatened and intimidated.  At UCLA international students had their visas threatened if they went on strike. And when undergrads walk the picket line with them they are also threatened. At UCSD undergrad student leaders are facing disciplinary charges for organizing undergrad support for the strike.

I am the UC Davis Unit Chair of the UC Student Workers Union UAW 2865, the union that represents over 12,000 TAs, Tutors, and Readers across the UC. In our own contract negotiations the university has repeatedly declined our non-discrimination proposals, our demands for more gender neutral bathrooms, and rights for undocumented students for example. Administration went so far as to say that it was “disappointed that the union has chosen to focus on social justice issues” in an email sent out to grad students at many campuses. Yet in THIS room, you somehow want me to believe that it is YOU who has the commitment to social justice.

What I see here then is not a commitment to progressive change, but a calculated political maneuver. It is divide and conquer.

Attack the service workers but welcome in the students.

 Attack the protesters and limit our ability to protest but welcome us in to work in the narrow institutional framework of the bureaucratic maze of committees, all of which of course have no real power and accountability mechanisms.

As Professor Haynes from the sociology department said earlier in this forum, these issues get brought up again and again, and there are always new initiatives and committees, and still the same problems keep arising. 

UCD Pepper Spray: State of the UC Two Years Later

This is a (version of a) speech I gave at the 2nd anniversary of the UC Davis Pepper Spray incident on November 18th 2013 on the UC Davis quad.
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I'd like to give a brief background on what happened on Nov 18th and why and then talk about what has changed (or not changed as it happens to be) since then.

In fall of 2011 the UC Regents were considering a tuition hike of over 80%. The occupy movement reinvigorated campus activism and students were organizing to oppose tuition hikes and other forms of inequality. At UCB on Nov 9 UC police beat students and workers with batons for standing peacefully arms linked around tents on their campus lawn. What happened at Davis was a response to both the proposed tuition hike and the police brutality at Berkeley. We occupied Mrak Hall overnight and a couple days later put tents on our own quad to start Occupy UCD. In an effort to remove then tents and discipline protesters the UC Davis police pepper sprayed peacefully sitting students.

Videos and images went around the world and there was a huge political fall out for the UC because of this disgusting police brutality.

Since then the administration has payed a lot of lip service to making our campus a safer space for free speech for students and workers. However things have only gotten worse. This is the direction our university is going:

• Tuition continues to rise, keeping our university inaccessible to many. The rise in UCSHIP (Student Health Insurance Plan) fees are do to gross mismanagement by UCOP (Office of the President) to the tune of about $57 million in debt over just 3 years. It was their mismanagement but they wanted students to pay for it!

• From 1993 to 2007 here at UC Davis, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students jumped 318%, while the university actually reduced its full-time instructional, research, and service staff by 4.5%. 

• Between 2007-2012, the number of UC employees making more than a quarter million dollars a year grew from 1,538 to 3,094.

• Class size is on the rise. TAs are teaching and grading for more students for less pay. Quality education is declining. Undergrads are paying more for a worse education.

• Campus workers (AFSCME 3299, UPTE, and CNA) are facing pension and wage cuts. UC has forced these cuts on workers without consent, making a mockery of their right to collective bargaining. most of these workers make very little money and are eligible for some kind of public assistance.

• We have a brand new "welcome center" on campus. This interactive touch screen wall cost $311,000 and the cost of installation and related work was $125,000. But I have to ask, who are they welcoming? I have read numerous reports in the media lately about who the UC is welcoming and who it isn't. 
• For instance nearly 60% of African-American students accepted at UCB are choosing to attend other colleges - often because they don't feel welcome.
• And it was just announced that UCLA has more NCAA championships than black male freshmen

• The University has a $78 Billion endowment and other funds that it invests. Does it choose to invest in helping students and workers here and off campus? No. the only affordable family housing on campus, Orchard and Solano Park, are facing demolition in the next couple of years, to be replaced by privatized housing with much higher rent.

• But it does invest in:
• Private prisons: The UC is financially supporting these corporations by investing in companies that invest in them, such as Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Lazard, Blackrock Inc, and Morgan Stanley, all of which own over 2/3 of the Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group.
• The occupation of Palestine: The UC is financially supporting the occupation and colonization of Palestine by investing in companies that profit off of the occupation, such as Caterpiller, Cement Roadstone Holdings, and Hewlett Packard. These companies have assisted the Israeli military in the illegal demolition of Palestinian homes and the creation of an illegal separation wall.
• Fossil Fuels: The UC is invested in coal, oil, and natural gas and is effectively subsidizing the destruction of the environment.

• The new "free speech rules" officially codify our lack of free speech and assembly. the Davis Faculty Association has raised numerous concerns with its focus on restrictions of supposedly free speech then on its commitment to maintaining this right.

• The Regents chose top cop Janet Napolitano, who set records for overseeing most deportations in US history, as the new UC president. This also signifies the continuing militarization of the campus.

These aren't all just mistakes or bad choices. The university is being run this way because the people running it benefit from selling off pieces of our university to their own companies or their buddies companies. They aren't interested in free public education because they won't get rich off of that.

The University is run by a board of Regents, who are members of the business class - 

Monica Lozano sits on the board of Bank of America, so she benefits from increased student loans when she hikes our tuition.

Richard Blum owns a private education company, and construction companies that are building student housing in Irvine.

We see their vision, and it isn't working for us. Its time to fight for our vision of an accessible and welcoming university that takes care of the community instead of investing in oppression and destruction.

But the only way to do that is to exercise control over both the budget and the daily running of the university. A democratic UC is our only hope for turning this into a place of justice.

Speech - UAW 2865 Contract Negotiations 2013 Opening Remarks

This was originally read at the first UAW/UC bargaining session at UC Berkeley in July 2013.
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My name is Duane Wright. I am entering my third year in the PhD program in the Sociology Department at UC Davis. I did my undergraduate work in Sociology at UMass Boston. My research focuses on teachers work and teacher and community movements for more control over schools.

Before coming to Davis I spent 8 years working in the Brockton Public School System in various capacities, as a substitute teacher, a paraprofessional in special education, and in an after school and summer program.
Neither of my parents has a college degree, and the only reason I can even be here right now working on my PhD is because of all the amazing work over many decades by UC TAs to establish our local union. Before the union was established in-state fee-remissions weren't fully covered. Had TAs not realized how central their labor was to the university and the strength had through collective bargaining I would not be here before you today.

As it was it took me until I was 27 to complete my Bachelor’s degree. I took out as much in loans as I could, but still I had to keep withdrawing from school so that I could save up in order to return. One time my family was facing some financial difficulties and my father dropped the family health insurance to decrease the monthly bills. He didn't know that my status as a student was dependent upon having that health care and because I couldn't afford the campus healthcare in such short notice I had to withdraw from the university. However this was 3 weeks into the semester so I was still charged 60% of tuition. This set me back a year and a half, paying this back and saving up once again.

I tell you all this so that you can understand how important accessibility and affordability are to me. According to the Department of Education, California has had the highest rate of growth in tuition in the country for years now. If it was difficult for me to afford UMass Boston, the cheapest state university in my home state, all those years ago; can you imagine how inaccessible this university is to all the potential undergraduate and graduate students now?

You and I will agree that there has been a serious lack of funding, however that is also a convenient argument and justification for the rising cost of attendance. The other important reason for skyrocketing tuition is that there has been a dramatic restructuring of the university - a shift in the budget which reflects a shift in the priorities of the university. Teaching and research are no longer the top priorities of this university. Nationally “From 1993 to 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students . . . increased by 39.3 percent" at the average college while in contrast here at “UC-Davis the number of full-time administrators jumped 318 percent, while the university actually reduced its full-time instructional, research, and service staff by 4.5 percent” in that same time period. We are teaching more students for less money, our pay hasn't kept up with the rate of inflation yet top administrators like Chancellor Katehi and President Yudof received 7% pay increases from 2010-2011. Instead of spending money on those who directly educate, and do the research which makes this the great university it is, money is now being used to line the pockets of already overpaid and out of touch bureaucrats. Graduate students with families are eligible for food stamps while administrators are buying summer homes. And when we say enough is enough you call out the dogs to pepper spray us.

My first year here was 2011, and I was on the UC Davis quad on Nov 18th and saw my friends get pepper sprayed for sitting peacefully in opposition to this restructuring of the university that many call austerity. My son, 8 years old at the time, was also with me that day, and watched as students covered in a thick layer of orange pepper spray cried and threw up. In this moment he was literally confronting his future. He watched the brute force of this restructuring ensure that public higher education- for if it isn't affordable or accessible than it isn't public- will not be there for him when he gets older. My generation is the first in a long time that will not have better life outcomes than the previous generation, and the future looks bleak for his generation, unless we can drastically alter the course of austerity that UCOP and the members of the 1% who are on the Board of Regents have set for public higher education.

I have been too poor to leave the state since I moved here two years ago, but I would like to go back to MASS and visit sometime; and when I do I will undoubtedly go back and visit the schools I used to work in, and when I look upon the faces of all those bright, funny, and amazing children I used to work with I want to let them know that I am doing all I can to fight for their future. I want them to want to learn and go to college, instead of stop caring because they know that they have no future in this world of the neoliberal university.

This contract negotiation isn't just about TAs. It is about the direction and the vision we have for higher education, it is about social justice. That is why you will see some very strong demands, demands we are ready to fight tooth and nail for, because the situation we are facing -for us, for our students, and for our children- is dire.

Why Calculus Won't Bring Social Justice: The false consciousness of the intellectual class

Background on the AFSCME 3299 ULP strike and UAW 2865 sympathy strike

On November 20, 2013 my union, UC Student Worker Union UAW 2865, went on strike for the first time in nearly ten years in sympathy of AFSCME 3299, UC service workers, who were illegally intimidated. AFSCME 3299 represents over 22,000 campus cooks, janitors, and gardeners, and medical center patient care workers. They are among the lowest paid workers in the university and are mainly people of color. They went on a one day ULP strike to protest a pattern of harassment and intimidation that appears to be very systematic in nature - in others words a calculated attempt at shutting down worker self-agency and resistance to pay and pension cuts that was unilaterally imposed on them. AFSCME workers in the UC Med Centers are also fighting for safe staffing levels, which the university has taken a hard line against despite the Med Centers making more than $400 million in yearly profits and patient deaths as a direct result of lack of safe staffing levels.

My union was only able to strike in support of AFSCME (and workers rights more generally) because of a successful bid for leadership by a reform caucus called AWDU, which grew out of the student movement at the UC in 2009. AWDU took control of the local in 2011. We entered contract negotiations in the summer of 2013. The AWDU dominated bargaining team let our contract expire on November 5, 2013, despite protestations from the more conservative members in the union and on the bargaining team who were aligned under the caucus USEJ (pejoratively called "the admin caucus" due to their history of conciliation toward administration and their paternalistic relationship with the UAW international - which is a perfect example of business unionism.) 

Letting the contract expire was a strategic decision. Under the contract the union was subject to a "No Strikes" clause, that had prevented us from going out in sympathy for AFSCME 3299 in their strike in May 2013. As such, the union was hamstrung in its ability to stand by service workers in solidarity. Six months later and the UC hadn't budged on safe staffing, wages, or pension issues. Fighting along, service workers were subject to illegal intimidation and threats. 

It is our hope that standing together we are stronger, and that by going out in sympathy and shutting down some of the academic work that the university relies on to function that the university might think twice about violating basic rights of workers again. AFSCME 3299 has been an ally of the student movement and we want to stand with them. 

The letter

The day before the strike a UC Berkeley lecturer in the Math department sent a letter to his students that has since become very popular in the internet. In this letter the lecturer not only says that he will be crossing the picket line that day, but that he will be teaching the discussion sections that his striking grad student workers canceled. 

The e-mail reads a bit like stream of consciousness at parts, and actually contradicts itself at times. But style and structure aside for now, the piece engages in an oversimplification of the educational process while simultaneously obfuscating the strike and its context. 

He actually says, "the reason for me taking this decision is extremely simple", the decision being to cross the picket and to scab on his grad student workers, and the simple reason: education is the most important thing in life and furthering your education isn't selfish, on the contrary it is a way of "helping people with the age old search for human happiness and meaning."

Politics, and specifically the social context of the strike, is "very big, very complicated." 

By overly complicating and refusing to actually engage with the reasons for the strike (these were never mentioned, UC service workers were never mentioned) while over simplifying and actually misrepresenting education he manages to make an already marginalized group totally invisible in his argument while framing the argument in such a way as to make the next day's class infinitely more important than the cause of the workers who don't even exist in his narrative. It is little surprise then that those unfamiliar with the struggle of the UC service workers and the context of the strike read this e-mail and came to agreement with the lecturer. His framing allows for no other option.