The barricades

[ritaxis]

So there's been pickets at the two entrances to the University since before six in the morning. About one o'clock in the afternoon the number of pickets reached critical mass and the kids took the intersection and the cops, bless their hearts, set up barricades on the roads leading to the main entrance. They don't seem to have done this primarily to keep the picket from growing any more, but to keep automobiles away from the pickets. While I was there there was an incident of an angry driver cutting too close to the crowds who at that time were barely overflowing from the curb (and dirt. Not all of the intersection has curbs). He had a really scary expression on his face, but I don't think that particular guy would have run over a pedestrian as happened in the UPS strike. The pickets aren't all students, and the strike isn't primarily about student issues, at least not directly. The issue is that the university doesn't pay its staff well, doesn't bargain in good faith, and doesn't have fair policies in place for hiring and promotion. We're talking about the clerical staff, the food service, the maintenance workers, the technical staff (lab techs, electricians, etc), the teaching and research assistants (grad students mainly though I've held those jobs when I wasn't a student, because I am the lumpen intelligentsia). The nice fellow has been working at the University for thirty years, and while there are some very nice aspects to his work, a decent contract and all that goes with it would make a big difference. Food service workers don't even get all the "staff" benefits, though they get more now that they are working directly for the University instead for a contractor.

Some of this is a University-wide issue, and some is special to the Santa Cruz campus. Last year the University of California put away a surplus of I think 786 million dollars. This year the Santa Cruz campus hired a new chancellor at $275000, and invented a brand new job for her partner at another huge salary -- I mean a truly invented toy job, not a new program she seemed to fit in (she the partner, not she the chancellor). The job comes with free rent in a beautiful house at the edge of campus -- sweeping views of the Great Meadow, the forest and the bay, a public face and a secluded area -- but the new chancellor was also given six-figure moving stipend and other benefits I do not remember.

You will recall that this is in a period where the governor, who was elected on the platform of preserving education funding no matter what, has been systematically robbing both higher and lower education budgets, and student fees have been raised 25% the last couple of years, and financial aid programs, affirmative action programs (largely outreach, college prep programs in the middle and high schools, and retention programs), and even the curriculum have been cut repeatedly. All the support staff have been shafted for years, and this last round of insults was too much . . . plus they've been organizing the last few years and now they have AFSCME, UAW, UTPE and I forget who represents the clerical workers (I would guess SEIU but I didn't see their logo today), but these three are strong, aggressive, coalition-building unions. The United Auto Workers, by the way, represent the grad students.

Okay, that's the background. Here's what it was like today:

You really wouldn't bother going on campus unless you were management or you had to save a life. The road was blocked, tghe air was full of voices doing all the demonstration things -- chanting, shouting, singing, generally keeping their spirits up. There were lovely young people with red duct tape crosses on their shirts, mostly handing out water. UTPE (technical staff) had blue t-shirts: AFSCME (food service, maintenance, I think the shuttle drivers too) had green t shirts: CUE (Coalition of University Employees) had red ones. There was an old-fashioned folky string band which I thought was a little disappointing -- I mean I enjoyed them, but when the classic union songs were made up by Woody Guthrie and Joe HIll and all that crew they were working in the medium that was modern and popular at the time. Why not make something new, fresh, indigenous to the people on the line? Where's the ranchera, the hiphop, indie, punk, metal union songs? There was a bassoon, which I appreciated and photographed. There was a rally which I could not understand much of because I never can, but the speakers took their cue from television standup comedy which is appropriate enough but it took the audience a while to catch on to "Is AFSCME in the house?" stuff -- no, the students got it right away, but the staff didn't know they were supposed to scream. There was the obligatory guy with a megaphone who kept the chanting and slogans going all day -- he knew a lot of chants including several I have never heard before.

There's more, but this is probably too long to post already. There's more pictures here.

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

More. . .

There were a couple of incidents worth remembering. In the morning someone somehow got twigged that somebody was an undercover cop, asked him, and as the law requires when they are asked point-blank, he admitted it, and a bunch of people surrounded him and hassled him till he left in disgust. Not that there were any secrets -- it was all quite open. But nobody likes being spied on. I figured the cops could find out all they needed to know by sending a guy in uniform to chat in a friendly way. And I do believe there were questions that they legitimately could desire an answer to: how many do you think are coming? How long? Will anybody be moving? Is this an informational picket line or one you are expecting to be honored? Are there a lot of people here who are not aligned with your program and don't know the drill? -- since the primary job of the traffic cop, and that's who we had, is to insure traffic safety, these are legitimate questions.

Some time after the students took the intersection and the cops barricaded Empire Grade, Bay Avenue, and High Street (the three streets that meet at the main entrance), some of the students went on a walk up Empire Grade to the other entrance, and along the way they picked up the police barricade and carried it with them to the other entrance. Then they decided to walk back, still carrying the police barricade, and when they came back they found another, bigger barricade, which they also picked up and carried back to the main entrance with them. I heard about this during my second trip to the picket line.

While I was standing there, I saw the AFSCME professional organizers returning the barricades to the cops.

I don't know what's next. Talks are stalled, but this was only a warning shot and they're going back to work tomorrow. I think the nice fellow, who was out there for six hours, may have a touch of too much sun: he's exhausted and warm to the touch.

The students are organizing "tent classes" for a week, where they will have their classes down at the entrance (how can they? There are fifteen thousand of them, and the vacant lot at the entrance is not nearly that big!). I don't know how that's going to play out.

Anyway, it's the most interesting thing that's happened around here in a long time. The University is the single biggest employer in the county(or second biggest after the county, I forget). So it's kind of a big deal.

[diminishedsheep.livejournal.com]

No! On the way to the west entrance, they found a one-unit barricade, which they deposited at the west entrance. On the way back a few hours later, they discovered it had been replaced with a two-unit barricade, which they hauled to the main entrance. The first barricade they left at the west entrance, presumably blocking the way in.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Well, that's what I thought he said at first, but when I asked, he told it the way I wrote it, and Max and the other guys were handing off multiple barricades when I saw them.

[diminishedsheep.livejournal.com]

Yes. Barricades come in units - they had two of them. The first barricade was a one-unit deal. The replacement was a two-unit deal - twice as wide.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Well, having talked to Max, the red haired very young union guy who returned the barricades, I have to say I misunderstood Matt's story and you were right. More: Max did not know that the barricades had been appropriated by the students until much later. He thought the police had put the barricades where they were, and were being very discrete in asking him to get them out of the crowd instead of weighing in with all their policeman gear. Other things he learned later: the way the undercover cop was discovered was that he was carrying around a hidden camera and asking strange questions and making people uncomfortable, so Julián, the union guy who works with the maintenance crews, asked him what his connection was.
"Uh . . . I work here."
"Oh, where do you work? What department?"
"Uh . . . I work in maintenance."
"Oh, wow, I've never met you before. What building do you work in?"
"Uh. . . I'm on disability right now."
"Look, just give it to me straight: are you a cop?"

The only act of violence Max had heard of was this: A policeman grabbed somebody's arm (I'm assuming he thought the person was too far into the intersection). This caused a cook named Josefina to stumble a little and her sign brushed the head of a cop who hit her in the face. But there was no escalation, and Josefina is all right.

Estimates are running from 600 to 2000. There were fifty people still there at 10:00, and Max left at 10:45. My own estimate is a thousand or more at the peak, and probably well over two thousand individuals over the course of the day and night.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Yay for solidarity!
So what color is your tshirt?

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't know about tshirts, so I showed up in a denim campshirt. The nice fellow is in AFSCME, and the orange guy is about to graduate, so I guess he's a student.