March 4th Student Strike Against Budget Cuts
Part of the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education
The University of Washington is facing massive budget cuts which means tuition hikes, cuts to financial aid, and overcrowded classrooms for students.
It means layoffs, overwork, dangerous working conditions, furloughs, health care cuts, and union busting for workers.
On March 4th we will fight back to defend our education and our jobs! Students and workers across the country and around the world will be striking on that day, responding to a call emerging from the mass movement against budget cuts in California. Activists in some California cities are
even organizing to build for city-wide strikes and actions on the 4th!
Here at UW we have tried rallying several times and it hasn't been enough to stop the cuts. It's time we up the ante by showing the legislators in Olympia that there will be no more business as usual on our campus as long as they try to balance the budget at our expense!
It's also time we show Mark Emmert and the Board of Regents that UW is not for sale to corporations. The budget cuts are no excuse for targeting cuts towards custodians and other immigrant workers, working class students, students of color, women, and queer folks. We need to fight to make sure
that UW is open and accessible for ALL people regardless of income!
Strikes are an effective form of struggle and have won concrete victories in California. By walking out of a class students show that this school cannot run without our daily cooperation. We feel our collective power. By setting up picket lines we will try to convince other students to skip class once so
that our classes and our classmates will even be here next year! We hope this will inspire more people to join the struggle and will be one step among many toward building the kind of mass movement we need to actually stop these cuts.
Workers at UW, community members, and high school students are invited to come join the picket lines with us. If you cannot walk out or strike, try to take an hour or two of vacation time so you can attend. Students will be striking not only for our own demands but for those of workers, high schoolstudents, and anyone else affected by budget cuts!
Washington Federation of State Employees Local 1488 voted to support this strike. WFSE Local 1488 is the union that represents thousands of workers and staff members at UW and Harborview. Rank and File WFSE members, especially custodians, have been at the forefront of the struggle against budget cuts and many will be standing in solidarity with students on the picket lines. We hope that other workers on campus will also attend.
This action is called by the UW Student - Worker Coalition, an alliance of undergrad, worker, and grad student organizations, of which the ISO is a part, that has come together to fight the cuts.
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Student-Worker Coalition's demands:
1) Transparent and democratic budget allocation
2) Cut from the top administrators; cap all salaries at $150000 per year
3) No layoffs
4) No speed ups (extra work) for workers
5) Accessible public education for all
6) Freeze tuition (no tuition hikes)
7) Replace loans with grants
http://nobudgetcutsuw.blogspot.com/
NOTE: If there isn't a critical mass of people the strike will only go on for an hour and we'll go back and organize to make sure the next strike is bigger. But if a lot of people show up with energy we'll take a vote at two to see if people want to keep it going longer. So if you want to make this big, invite all your friends, make announcements in your classes, and let's make this happen!
If you want to help organize to make this big, come out to the Student Worker Coalition meeting at 6 PM on Thursday in Suzzallo Cafe and be a partof the action!
In Depth: Fighting for our Schools
Five San Francisco State University students talk about the fight for public education and their building occupation last month.
Barack Obama’s Race to the Top program offers cash-strapped state governments federal money--as long as they agree to attack teachers’ unions.
The bipartisan support for the savage budget cuts in California highlights the need for radicalism, struggle and organization.
and much more here...
