Campus protests unite students, instructors
By
Bryan G. Pfeifer
Amherst, Mass.
Published Apr 27, 2005 4:35 PM
Although carefully
concealed or downplayed by the big-business media, burgeoning campus rebellions
and related struggles are rising to a fever pitch across the United States,
Canada, Puerto Rico and elsewhere.
UMass-Amherst grad student protests.
|
Throughout the spring 2005 semester
hundreds of campus community actions including boycotts, counter-recruitment
protests, hunger strikes, tent cities and walkouts have taken place with the
peak of activity thus far happening the week of April 18-22.
Many of these
actions are in response to budget cuts in relation to the U.S. war on Iraq,
union contract struggles, education and fee hikes, fighting racism, military
recruitment, living wages and union recognition for campus workers.
In the
Northeast one of these actions took place April 21 at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst where students demanded: “No contract? No
peace” and “Hands off student organizations!”
“If
we’re going to fight against oppression we have to fight all oppressions.
Everything is connected. We have to unite. If we don’t unite the students,
faculty and community, nothing is going to happen,” said a Venezuelan
graduate student and teaching assistant while picketing on April 21.
This
international graduate student, a member of the Graduate Employee
Organization-UAW Local 2322, who requested anonymity due to the increasing
repression of the Department of Homeland Security, walked out with her union
sisters and brothers and thousands of undergraduate students boycotting classes
in solidarity. (http://www.geouaw.org)
GEO, with a membership of 2,400, has been
working without a contract since last July 1, and has been bargaining with the
administration for over a year. Other campus unions are in similar
circumstances. About 18,000 undergraduate students and 6,000 graduate students
attend UMass-Amherst.
The union called the one-day walkout in response to
the administration’s proposals of real wage and health-care cuts, an end
to health benefits for currently covered same-sex couples, and drastic increases
in childcare costs. Escalating protest actions beyond A21 will increase if the
administration continues to bargain in bad faith, says GEO.
The graduate
students and their allies in the Take Back UMass Coalition, the student- worker
coalition representing undergraduates, the faculty union, the Massa chusetts
Society of Professors-National Education Association (MSP) and many others came
out en masse on A21 in solidarity with GEO.
They were also pro testing the
admin i stration’s proposal to strip undergraduate student organizations
of their independence and power by placing undergraduate student organizations
under administration control. (http://www.takebackumass.com)
An injury to one
is an injury to all
The MSP supported A21 by issuing a petition
solidarity statement with the boycott and walkout. Over 200 faculty members
signed this statement in a few days and it was published as an ad in The Daily
Collegian, the undergraduate student newspaper.
The MSP, GEO and Take
Back UMass have jointly advanced five key demands: Support the Community Action
Plan, not Chancellor John Lombardi’s student “reorganization”
plan; increase the number of faculty in classrooms and labs; no cuts to real
wages or benefits, including same-sex domestic partner benefits; student control
of student organizations; and fair contracts for all campus unions.
To
build for A21, GEO, Take Back UMass, the MSP and their allies held 50 teach-ins
informing over 9,000 graduate students about issues related to the current
struggles.
Chants from bullhorns such as “No contract, no
peace,” “What do we want? Contract: When do we want it? Now,”
and “Racism? No Way” could be heard all over campus, and also by
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney when he tried to sneak into a Massachusetts Board
of Higher Education meeting on campus.
Pavel Payano, newly-elected Student
Government Association president and Take Back UMass member, summed up the
day’s mood among participants: The day was “very successful. We shut
down campus. It shows how much this community supports us.”
For
more information on upcoming actions and how to support this struggle, visit
http://www.geouaw.org or http://www.takebackumass.com.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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