Students and Workers Unite!

April and May have been amazing months of organizing! From coast-to-coast, students have not been taking attacks on students and workers laying down; rather, we’ve all been standing up and asking legislators “Where’s the Funding?!” Here’s just a quick snapshot of the amazing work happening on campuses nationwide:

UMass-Amherst: UMass Amherst SLAP recently won a campaign with AFSCME to unionize over 300 campus workers! The SLAP chapter at UMass worked with AFSCME to organize the rally and reach out to “03 workers” and the larger campus community at UMass, hoping to educate and garner support for the campaign. On May 3rd and 4th the 03 workers voted on whether or not they would like to unionize and gained the right to negotiate for deserved benefits with a vote of 114 to 10!

Oregon: Over 300 students with the Oregon Student Association rallied at the state capitol and met with legislators about increasing funding for higher education. Read more and watch video coverage of the rally here.

Ithaca, NY: The Tompkins County Workers’ Center/Jobs with Justice is very pleased to report the success of the student-community campaign to win a living wage for over 100 food service workers at Ithaca College. Beginning in September, according to an announcement by Ithaca College and the Sodexo Corporation, these workers will be paid at least the Tompkins County Living Wage, currently $11.11/hour. Those IC dining workers paid presently above the Living Wage, will see a commensurate increase as well. Workers currently are paid as little as $8.19/hour, so the increase will total over 35 percent!

California: Students from UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, and others shut down the streets in front of Governor Brown’s LA office on April 12th while hosting a free concert, Can You Hear us Now? to demand that state and federal leaders prioritize higher education. Additionally, from the April 4th “We Are One” rally to April 27th “Briefcase Brigades,” UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara students held days of action and weeks of action that included call-ins, fax-ins, and sit-ins.

These actions are occurring as the Senate begins crafting its federal budget. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a budget that devastates the Pell Grant, TRIO, and other critical higher education programs. USSA and SLAP have come out swinging, urging the Senate to pass a budget that actually invests in students- read about it here.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 16th, 2011 at 3:00 pm. It is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.