All workers in educational institutions.
Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 04/23/2006 - 11:55am
By Rick Harrison - Home News Tribune staff writer, April 22, 2006.
RUTGERS — Twenty-one students marched, cheered and chanted on the College Avenue Campus yesterday to protest Gov. Jon S. Corzine's proposed $169 million higher education budget cuts.
Organized in part by the Student and Education Workers Union, the protesters first camped out behind, then in front of and inside the entrance of the Old Queens administrative building. At one point, they marched around a parked UPS delivery truck.
Shaking plastic bottles partially filled with dried beans, protesters chanted, "Student freedom, workers rights, one struggle, one fight."
"This is a direct action," said Mike Mangarelli, a 20-year-old Livingston College sophomore. "We want to unite the faculty and students. The budget cuts connect us all. We want to send a message to the governor and the people in Trenton that they are not going to be able to do this without us putting up a fight."
Kaylin Padovano, a 19-year-old Rutgers College sophomore, said she was concerned about potential tuition hikes if Rutgers loses an estimated $114 million in state aid.
"I went here because it was a reasonable price," Padovano said, endorsing the protest as a way of reaching decision-makers in Trenton. "I think we should be the one's they listen to. The country is going to be in our hands."
Another student-led protest is scheduled Thursday outside the Statehouse in Trenton. The Legislature must adopt a final budget by July 1.
The protesters also targeted university President Richard L. McCormick, who arrived on the driveway to his office building appearing perplexed by Industrial Workers of the World flags and signs that read "Higher Education is Under Attack" and "Staff, Faculty, Students Unite!!!"
Submitted by x344543 on Mon, 03/20/2006 - 3:39am
Disclaimer - The following article is reposted here because it is an issue with some relevance to the IWW. The views of the author do not necessarily agree with those of the IWW and vice versa.
Reposted from www.libcom.org - March 20, 2006
A fresh wave of protests has hit France as students, school pupils and workers continue the occupations, blockades and rioting against the first employment contract (CPE).
This is just a short summary of the events being updated regularly on http://libcom.org/blog - the most comprehensive and up-to-date English coverage of the struggle against the CPE anywhere on the web.
Scores of high schools and around 70% of universities are occupied today.
In many areas teachers have been joining their pupils in the protests, with several thousands demonstrating in Limoges, Boulougne, Le Havre and many other towns and cities across France.
The Monteil school in Rodez, the largest school in Aveyron with 1,600 pupils, was occupied and shut down with barricades. Fifteen schools in Seine-Saint-Denis, the scene of last years riots by suburban youths, are occupied. Many young people from the banlieus are preparing to join in the demonstration in Paris later today. Around 1,000 high school pupils have blocked a motorway in Nice whilst 200 pupils did the same in Vitry-on-Seine.
This is a strong sign that the struggle is circulating and extending outside the universities to France's disaffected working class youth - the focus of mass civil unrest in November last year. The increasing numbers of lecturers and teachers on strike and supporting the protests, and the railway and motorway blockades, along with support from France's major unions, all point to a struggle which is encompassing an ever wider section of France's society.
To keep up-to-date on the events in France, look at http://libcom.org/blog
Submitted by x344543 on Thu, 03/09/2006 - 12:39pm
New York, NY, 07 March 2006 - From Next Left Notes
Two members of the PACE University SDS chapter were detained for an extended period by Secret Service agents on March 5th. Lauren Giaccone and Brian Kelly, members of the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), were detained for heckling former president Bill Clinton, calling him a "war criminal" for his ad hoc bombing-for-peace initiatives in Yugoslavia, the Sudan, Iraq and elsewhere. Clinton was speaking at the Pleasantville campus of PACE University in Westchester, NY.
Lauren Giaccone and Brian Kelly are both students at the Pace University Downtown campus. The students had formed a peaceful picket outside of the Westchester campus event on Sunday but had their banners confiscated for no apparent reason by Pace security. Giaccone and Kelly were issued valid tickets to the Clinton speech after their anti-war banners were seized and given to the Secret Service. The banners have not been returned although the students were released after Pace indicated no charges would be filed. Giaccone, a junior and political science major, reports that she was told "the Secret Service needs the banners for their investigation" which includes a "background check" and other forms of what Giaccone describes as harassment. Giaccone feels her membership in SDS is a key factor in the continued interest on the part of the university president, David A. Caputo, and the various security services which appear largely unaccountable for their actions.
Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 03/05/2006 - 10:14pm
Industrial Worker - March 2006
Albuquerque Wobblies are assisting a member fired by the University of New Mexico despite ten years of dedicated, accident-free work for insisting on a safe workplace.
Feydoun “Fred” Mahinfarahmand’s job as woodshop supervisor was eliminated Dec. 2 by the School of Architecture and Planning, citing the unsafe conditions he had been protesting. The woodshop is now closed.
Fred was hired as woodshop supervisor in early 1996, helping students and teachers with their projects and teaching them how to use the shop safely. In 1998, UNM’s safety inspectors found that the shop’s dust collection system was far below OSHA standards. Dust inhalation is a major occupational hazard for woodworkers. The report estimated that the problem could be fixed for $8,000. The school promised to fix the dust collector in 1999, but nothing happened.
Submitted by x344543 on Thu, 01/19/2006 - 6:14am
New York, NY. - Several chapters of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) announced today, Monday, January 16, 2006, their intent to form a national organization and hold the first SDS national convention since 1969. "It seemed appropriate to make this announcement today, on the observed Martin Luther King day", said SDS regional organizer Thomas Good. "We have an anti-war movement that is addressing the issue of stopping the bloodletting in Iraq but the civil rights issue remains unaddressed", he added. The national convention is scheduled for Summer 2006 and will be preceded by a series of regional conferences occurring on the Memorial Day weekend.
The newly formed SDS national organization was the idea of a student anti-war activist who contacted other student and veteran organizers. Good joined the new SDS when Stonington High School (Connecticut) senior Pat Korte contacted him with the idea of linking nascent SDS chapters into a national structure.
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