The UC Administration Pressures Faculty to Join It In Opposing GSR Unionization (SB 259)

Many of you will be familiar with a bill that recently made it through the California state legislature: SB 259, which would allow graduate student researchers (GSRs) at public universities to unionize. It passed the state senate on August 23 and has been sent to the desk of Governor Jerry Brown for a signature. Living up to all of our expectations, the UC administration -- like many other universities across the country -- has come out in public opposition to the bill, urging Brown not to sign it. A number of predictably managerial arguments have been enlisted, such as the fact that this could cost the UC $10-18 million a year, as UC spokesperson Dianne Klein put it, without yielding "significant benefit." It goes without saying that the university's 14,000 GSRs might see things somewhat differently. Notably, the UC Berkeley Faculty Association has also come out in support of the bill, deftly critiquing the administration's arguments and "affirm[ing] the right of all employees to organize and . . . the importance of Graduate Student Researchers helping to shape the contract stipulating conditions of their work." [Update: the Council of UC Faculty Associations has written a letter as well.]

For obvious reasons, the UC administration doesn't want any push back from its faculty. This is because the faculty play a key role in the administration's media strategy to defeat SB 259, according to which it's not really a question of profitability but rather one of maintaining the pleasant relationship between GSRs and the professors they work for: "extending collective bargaining rights to graduate student researchers would change the relationship between these students and their professors from an academic mentee/mentor relationship to a professional employee/employer relationship."

It appears that the administration is doubling down. What follows is an email sent yesterday by Jeff Gibeling, the Dean of Graduate Studies at UC Davis, to the Academic Senate. In it, he lays out the UC administration's case against SB 259 and "suggests" that faculty members write to the governor to voice their opposition. He also attached a document containing the administration's talking points as well as a letter from UC president Mark Yudof to Brown. Toward the end of the email, almost as an afterthought, comes the following line: "you are, of course free to express that position as well - notwithstanding that it is different from the official UC position." Of course, this brings up a series of questions about whether recommending and facilitating your employees taking a specific position of a piece of public legislation is legal, and what constitutes implicit coercion. At the very least, it reveals just how desperate the administration is.

From: "Gibeling, Jeffery"
Subject: Legislation Affecting Graduate Student Researchers
Date: September 7, 2012 11:05:42 AM PDT
To: "academic-senate@ucdavis.edu"

Dear Academic Senate Colleagues

In the past, the Public Employment Relations Board has interpreted state law in such a way that Graduate Student Researchers were deemed to be students rather than employees, hence ineligible to be represented under a collective bargaining agreement. Recently, legislation that would extend collective bargaining rights to GSRs (SB 259) has moved through the legislative process. It has passed through the State Senate and the State Assembly and has been forwarded to Governor Brown. He has 12 days from last Wednesday to act on the legislation (sign or veto). The text of the bill is available at http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120SB259&search_keywords=).

The University administration has officially taken a stand in opposition to the bill as described in the attached talking points and letter from President Yudof to the Governor. Last year, the systemwide Academic Senate also took a position to oppose this bill (http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/AcademicSenPositiononSB259_REVISED_050411.pdf).

Some of the concerns are that under a collective bargaining agreement, compensation for GSR’s could be forced to be the same across all disciplines and all campuses. This change would impact our ability to offer competitive stipends that vary by discipline. A collective bargaining agreement might potentially result in fewer UC graduate researchers being hired due to the additional requirements that will likely be imposed as part of a union contract. Moreover, a union contract may seek limits on working hours during a given period, preventing well-intentioned graduate students from pursuing their research and degree objectives as they see fit. The costs associated with implementing the collective bargaining process will also draw away from UC campuses some resources that could otherwise be devoted to providing direct services to students. While I agree that the cost and workload issues are important, my greatest concern is the potentially damaging effect that this change in relationship between graduate students and their faculty mentors may have on our graduate students and our programs.

I anticipate that some faculty will have concerns about this legislation. If you wish to express your opposition, you may want to visit the website:
http://www.ucforcalifornia.org/uc4ca/home/opposeSB259 and consider sending an email or making a phone call to Governor Jerry Brown and asking him to veto SB 259. I also recognize that some faculty colleagues may support this legislation, and you are, of course free to express that position as well - notwithstanding that it is different from the official UC position. Following is the contact information for the Governor and key advisors on this matter:

· Governor Brown: (916) 445-2841
· Nancy McFadden: Executive Secretary to the Governor: (916) 445-2841, nancy.mcfadden@gov.ca.gov
· David Lanier, Chief Deputy Legislative Secretary, Office of the Governor: (916) 445-4341, david.lanier@gov.ca.gov
· Marty Morgenstern, Secretary of Labor & Workforce Development: (916) 327-9064, marty.morgenstern@labor.ca.gov

If you have an opinion on this matter, you may wish to make your views known to the Governor.

Sincerely,

Jeff Gibeling


Jeffery C. Gibeling
Dean--Graduate Studies
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
phone: (530) 752-2050
FAX: (530) 752-6222

UAW 2865 Resolution in Support of Occupy Oakland General Strike

Whereas UAW 2865 witnesses firsthand how the 1% (in the form of UC Regents and top UC executives) conspire to steal ever more from students and workers through repeated tuition hikes, reduced services, layoffs, increased workloads, outsourcing and other austerity measures; and

Whereas we stand for the rights of all people to living wage jobs with affordable health care, quality education, a voice on the job, fair housing and a well-funded public sector, and

WHEREAS: Unemployment is the highest it has been since the Great Depression, and people are staying unemployed longer now than in the Great Depression, 1/3 of California homes are underwater, 1/5 of the foreclosures nation-wide are in California, and San Franciscans alone have lost almost $6 billion in home value costing their city over $74 million, and

WHEREAS: Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Manhattan's Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and the Wisconsin protests earlier this year, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future, and

WHEREAS: the Occupy Wall Street has galvanized public sentiment and a broad-based movement protesting the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations, and

WHEREAS: the National AFL-CIO and Change to Win coalitions have endorsed Occupy Wall Street, a growing number of trade union activists have joined this movement, both as individual workers, and as part of an increasing number of International and Local union contingents connecting their own fights to the larger demands of the movement for economic justice and fairness, and

WHEREAS: Union and Community organizations together have been working in coalition since the crash of the economy to force Banks to pay for public services and to renegotiate predatory loans with home owners, governments, and non-profit agencies, and

WHEREAS:  public safety officers have used excessive force against peaceful protesters at Oscar Grant (Frank Ogawa) Plaza and violated their first amendment rights when more than 500 public safety officers with firearms aimed at the occupiers, tore down their tents in a predawn raid on October 25; and

WHEREAS: public safety officers on the evening of Oct. 25 again used excessive force  injuring and endangering the lives of demonstrators when they marched on the evening of October 25th to protest the violence against the occupiers that morning;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that this union will encourage its members and allies to act in support of Nov. 2 actions and honors as a "Sanctioned Union Strike Line" OccupyOakland and Occupy Wall Street, encourages union members and Local unions to participate in the movement, will actively support any unionized or non-unionized worker who refuses to break up, "raid," or confiscate the belongings of protesters, and calls on unions representing DPW workers to not participate in such activity, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this union and its allies stand with our sisters and brothers of Occupy Wall Street, OccupyOakland, and cities and towns across the country who are fed up with an unfair economy that works for 1% of Americans while the vast majority of people struggle to pay the bills, get an education, and raise their families, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that UAW 2865 recognizes that protest movements, like strike lines and organizing campaigns, do not have curfews, are not 9-5 activities, and in doing so UAW 2865  recognizes and will work to protect the right for OccupyOakland to protest 24 hours a day, on-site and with proper protection including food, medical supplies, water, and tents, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that UAW 2865 has endorsed and will continue to endorse and turn-out members to OccupyOakland rallies and events, to provide in-kind donations like tents and food, and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that UAW 2865 joins its sister unions in the UC Berkeley Labor Coalition in forwarding this resolution for adoption to other local unions and central labor bodies.

No Agreement on Multiyear Tuition Hike...

... but that obviously doesn't mean it's not going to happen anyway. The regents didn't want to be forced to discuss, or even voice support for, the proposal to lock the UC into raising fees by 81 percent over the next four years. But it's not because all of a sudden they had a change of heart.

It's because they're terrified. Of us.

The Chronicle today does a great job of revealing what the UC regents really think about public education -- that it should die:

Yudof and his finance team had hoped the regents would discuss their multiyear budget and tuition proposal, then vote in November.

But even though the regents liked the idea of imposing some stability on their wildly fluctuating budget, they stayed away from the hot-button issue of yearly tuition increases.

"It scares the bejesus out of folks," was how Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a regent, summed it up.

The four-year budget plan was intended to tackle a looming gap of $1.5 billion over the next four years, about a third of which UC says is needed for higher pay, and a quarter for retiree health and pension benefits. This year's tuition increase and cutbacks have resolved an additional $1 billion shortfall, officials said.

The idea was that a steady flow of tuition hikes would help pay these costs. Tuition would rise more in years when the state gave less, and vice versa. In the worst-case scenario - if the state provided no increase - basic tuition would rise by 16 percent a year, reaching $22,200 by fall 2015, not including mandatory campus fees, room and board. That's 81 percent higher than the current $12,192.

[...]

Negotiating with Sacramento is "a waste of our time," said Regent Dick Blum.

Instead, the regents should approach people "who actually can write a check," he said. "Chevron, Apple, Cisco and Google - all these companies sitting on money they don't know what to do with."

Regent David Crane picked up on the theme, urging colleagues to "start acting like you're a private university. Get real - and don't fool yourselves and think the Legislature will turn around, or you'll be waiting for Godot," he said, referring to the Samuel Beckett play in which the protagonists wait in vain.

Some regents said corporate money could be used for scholarships. Others said an ad campaign for UC would be better.

Chairwoman Sherry Lansing suggested they form subcommittees to tackle each approach. The bottom line, she said, is, "I don't want to bring this (proposal) forward in November."

[...]

The regents, who have been approving tuition hikes for years, sometimes twice in the same year, actually appear quite comfortable with multiyear fee increases. Since 2006, when tuition was $6,141, the regents have raised it each year by 8, 7, 26, 15 and 18 percent.

Meanwhile, the regents gave raises and incentive pay to some of UC's highest-paid executives, including Chief Investment Officer Marie Berggren, who got a $744,950 award for boosting UC's assets by $661 million beyond what was expected.

Senior Vice President John Stobo, in charge of UC's health system, received a $130,500 award for, among other things, reducing blood infections.

When Stobo's raise was announced and he was praised for his achievements, a health care worker - a member of a union that has been without a contract for months - jumped up from the audience and yelled, "It's sad that you give yourself all these raises. The decrease in infections is because of our work, but you guys get credit for it. Shame on you!"

Guards led her away.

Three News Updates on University Governance

We wanted to note a few important news items that were brought to our attention today, all of which pertain in some way or another to general questions of university governance. First and foremost, as we noted several days ago, today was what the California Professor called "the Ides of May" in that Governor Jerry Brown revealed the revisions to his original budget proposal. There really was no question about whether or not Brown would change his approach and drop the austerity model that has characterized his politics since the 1970s. For Brown, it's all austerity, all the time.

Now, current revenues are unexpectedly high, coming in at $2.8 billion above what was predicted. But Brown, despite some minor changes, is basically sticking to his guns:

I only have a few minutes today to look at the Governor's May budget revision, and here's what I see. Current-year revenues are up $2.8 billion over forecasts, and $6.6 billion over two years. Governor Brown, true to his turnscrew austerity vision of a Hooverite unstimulus for all Californians, increases allocations to no one except K-12 and the community colleges "pursuant to Proposition 98," and, unbelievably, prisons, with a drop for mental health (page 4).

The Regents' strategy of saying that state funding is never coming back has paid off big-time: UC and CSU get exactly zero -- not even a $10 million or $50 million booby prize for not fighting the $500 million cuts. The crappy squeezing of health services is intact (page 3), as is the closing of 70 state parks to save a whopping $11 million this year. There is no wavering of Gov Brown's vision in which the government's one and only priority is reducing the deficit.

Even worse, as Michael Meranze observes, the budget revision still assumes that almost all of the tax extensions proposed by Brown in the original budget will be approved. "In other words, it is still possible that he will end up with an 'all-cuts' budget with even more fierce slashing of the budget for education, health, etc."

Second, as you will no doubt remember, over the last month we've been watching an internal election build up and take place in the UAW local 2865, which represents graduate students in the UC system. Inspired by the generalized protests against budget cuts and the current leadership's absolute failure to provide any sort of resistance to the university administration, the AWDU caucus emerged to challenge the incumbents (calling themselves USEJ, but also known as the Administration Caucus) in the triennial election which took place at the end of April. An attempt at fraud on the part of the incumbents led to a sit-in/occupation of the UAW office in downtown Berkeley; eventually all the votes were counted and AWDU emerged the winners, taking control of every single seat on the Executive Board and almost 60 percent of the positions on the Joint Council. This is a major victory.

USEJ, as you might imagine, is not happy with the results. And now they're trying to challenge them by leveling allegations of fraud against AWDU and demanding what is essentially a do-over! As thosewhouseit points out:

So if you can’t actually win an election with the popular vote, declare it invalid and hope you win the next time around? Look at how ridiculous some of these allegations are.

This is why it is a very serious violation of the Election Committee protocol that one slate’s supporters (AWDU) was left alone with the ballot boxes for 4-5 days, after the elections committee felt compelled to suspend counting on April 30.

The Admin Caucus dominated elections committee suspended the election unilaterally and without quorum. AWDU supporters locked the ballots in a room at UCLA and set up a webcam monitoring the ballots for the duration of the time they were left unattended. There were no AWDU members in there with the ballot boxes. Another crazy allegation:

[A] poll worker at the Sather Gate voting location at UC Berkeley was reaching into a wide-open ballot box during polling hours on April 27

We can’t believe they have the audacity to try to get this photo clearly taken before the polls opened to qualify as an impropriety. Preposterous. The poll worker is setting up the ballot box before the polls opened for the day. As we’ve explained before, this is pretty obvious if you look at the sunlight coming from the east in the picture. There’s no basis for counting this out of context photograph as evidence of anything, tampering or otherwise. If AC/USEJ can point to any more specific evidence of fraud on display in the photograph that we’re just too dense to comprehend, we’d be happy to hear it. We’re waiting.

We can't hope to cover this issue with the same attention to detail as our compañeros at thosewhouseit, so for the continuing struggle in the union we recommend you check out their blog.

Finally, we wanted to bring your attention to one final update: student-regent Jesse Cheng, who was found "responsible" (i.e. guilty) for sexual battery by the Office of Student Conduct at UC Irvine back in March, has officially resigned from the Board of Regents. (Here is the statement he released.) Note that, as far as we can tell, Cheng was not forced out, but rather resigned of his own accord. Now, we have long argued on this blog that the student conduct process is a disciplinary process that, together with UCPD, constitutes the repressive apparatus of the university. We have seen OSC operate in violation of its own rules and protocols, and furthermore have come to realize that even when it acts according to these rules, its actions are governed by what one critic has called "the rule of the arbitrary." But we have also noted OSC's striking lack of follow-through regarding cases of violence against women, rape, and sexual assault. To us, this confirms our suspicion that the student conduct process operates primarily as a machine for suppressing political dissent, and only secondarily (if at all) to uphold some vague standard of student safety. (Indeed, their standard is not safety at all, but the bureaucratic construct of "health-and-safety.") It is in this sense that the official conduct process for Cheng ended, effectively, without sanction. It is only by extra-official means -- that is, by protest action -- that he was pushed out.

[Update Tuesday 9:49am]: Further thoughts on Jesse Cheng's resignation from Angus Johnston, who compares the leniency in his case with the exorbitant sanctions meted out against the "Irvine 11," who were arrested and punished for speaking out during a public lecture given by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren:

That Cheng received probation, and was allowed to keep his seat on the UC Regents until he himself chose to give it up, while the Irvine 11 saw the student organization to which they belong suspended and now each face the possibility of six months in jail? That’s not right. That’s not proportionate. That’s not legitimate.

And that disproportion, that illegitimacy, casts the whole University of California judicial system, as well as the UC’s relationship with law enforcement, into question.

Interview from the UAW Occupation

Update from the UAW Occupation: Votes Will Be Counted!

From AWDU:

We have just learned that the elections committee of our local convened today at 12:30pm and agreed to restart the counting at 9am on Thursday (5/5) -- this is a huge victory for rank-and-file members who joined or supported the sit-in at the statewide offices in Berkeley and LA!! By drawing on the proud tradition of rank-and-file activism and direct action in the US labor movement, the tradition which built the UAW in the first place, members made clear that they would not stand by and allow themselves to be disenfranchised.

AWDU candidates and supporters look forward to the resumption of the count and will be present to help ensure it proceeds without unnecessary delays or suspensions. It has been our position all along that win or lose, AWDU is committed to an elections process that is free and fair, and that allows ordinary members to decide how their union should be run, and by whom. Given the extraordinary and outrageous circumstances in which the count was suspended, we plan to continue the sit-in until the voting process is fully complete and a certified result has been issued.

Open Occupation at UAW Statewide Office [Updated]

There are currently about 15 union members in the UAW statewide office, located at 2070 Allston way, suite 205 in Berkeley. A rally is scheduled for 11:30 on Sproul Plaza, and will turn into a march over to the union office to support and/or join the occupation. We will continue to provide updates as the day goes on.

Here's an email from Mandy Cohen, current head steward for UAW 2865 and running for recording secretary on the AWDU slate, announcing and explaining the action:

This weekend I witnessed one of the craziest things I've ever seen in my life. On Friday the counting of votes in our union leadership election began in LA. I drove down with other Berkeley and Santa Cruz AWDU members when we heard that all of Berkeley's votes had been challenged (meaning they might be invalidated). We arrived in the early hours Saturday morning and were able to help count the votes for Santa Cruz, Davis, Irvine, San Diego, Riverside and Santa Barbara. by 5pm all of those campuses were almost complete--and AWDU actually seemed to be breaking even.

The elections committee called an hour recess--and three hours later came back to say that the count was suspended, the results so far calculated were certified, and the rest of the count (including all 1500+ votes from LA and Berkeley) and all of the challenges were passed on to the Joint Council--which doesn't meet until July! The elections committee then immediately fled the building and abandoned the ballots.

All the members at LA sat down in the union office to make sure the votes were secured and to start lodging our protests with media, union officials, etc.

Late last night we drove back to Berkeley, had a meeting, and are now sitting down (in good UAW fashion) in the statewide union office until the elections committee agrees to resume the vote count. We have one demand: COUNT OUR VOTES.

We cannot let our votes be thrown out! This is exactly why we were forced to form the Academic Workers for a Democratic Union more than a year ago, though these actions are almost incomprehensible in their disregard for union democracy and members rights. Please join us at the office as soon as possible (2070 Allston Way, Suite 205) or come to the rally at Sather Gate at 11:30 and march to the office.

A call is planned at 1pm today between incumbent leadership, AWDU members, the elections committee chair and our international representative from UAW. We need to show that our members will not allow their votes to be thrown out, that the count must be finished and new leadership instated.

For more info, including our responses to the attacks that have been emailed by Daraka Larimore-Hall, see: http://www.awdu.org/ and http://berkeleyuaw.wordpress.com/

[Update Monday 1:49pm]: Occupiers just voted unanimously to remain in the office indefinitely until their demand -- that all the votes be counted -- is met.

Update on the UAW Election: Rally Tomorrow

Here's our take on the whole story with the election fraud perpetrated by the Administration Caucus/USEJ. On one hand, we're so skeptical of these corporate hack careerist bureaucrats that at some level we're really not that surprised by their decision to exclude the ballots from Berkeley and UCLA and "partially certify" the results of the vote. On the other hand, it's so over-the-top, absurd to the point of being a cliche, that it's really difficult to understand how they could do something so obvious. It's like they're following a script written by third-rate union-hating conservative propagandists.

At any rate, we wanted to reference a couple of updates that our compañeros over at thosewhouseit have been posting. First, the hilarious claims made by Daraka Larimore-Hall, the Admin Caucus/USEJ’s candidate for President and the current President of UAW 2865, that in reality it's AWDU that's trying to steal the election. The evidence he presents is the above photo, which supposedly shows a member of AWDU tampering with a ballot box. There's just one small problem -- it was taken before the voting even began. "If it’s the end of the day," writes thosewhouseit, "then why is the sun shining from the east?" He's assembling the box.

Also, we wanted to post some info about the rally tomorrow (Monday) at UC Berkeley to demand that all the votes be counted:

I want to give you all a personal update on what has happened with the UC grad student union elections over the weekend. Most importantly, I am asking for everyone -- students and non-students -- to come out to Sather Gate TOMORROW (Monday) at 11:30am to demand our union count every vote. I know this sounds absurd, especially during finals week when we’re all stressed, but at this point we have to fight for our votes to be counted!

Here’s what happened:

Elections for UAW Local 2865 -- representing 12,000 graduate student workers UC-wide -- ended on Thursday afternoon. All ballot boxes were taken to UCLA to be counted on Friday. There were many challenges concerning the boxes, their seals etc, but on Saturday morning the elections committee decided to go on with the count and then deal with each challenge afterward, as according to our bylaws.

Halfway through the count on Saturday, it became possible that AWDU (the reform slate I’m affiliated with) had won the elections. Rather than continue the count, the chair of the elections committee decided that the elections were “partially certified” and that the more than 1,500 ballots from Berkeley and UCLA (nearly half of all ballots cast) will not counted till the next meeting in July.

To put this in perspective: This is as if, in the 2008 national elections, the Republicans had decided to not count the votes of California and Hawaii, and to let a Republican-controlled congress decide how to deal with those ballots later. Would you find such a process fair? I didn’t think so. Would you do something about it?!? Hell yeah!

We need YOUR help to make sure all votes are counted!

1. Gather for a rally TOMORROW at 11:30 at Sather Gate. Then we will march to the union office in downtown Berkeley to demand that our votes are counted (meet us there at 12:30 if you can’t make it to Sather -- 2070 Allston Way). We really need everyone to come out to put the political pressure on!

2. Email the current UAW President Daraka Larimore-Hall larimorehall@uaw2865.org and demand that all the votes are counted! Please bcc me [awadu@googlegroups.com] so we can keep track of how many emails are getting sent.

3. Tell your friends! Please forward this email far and wide -- we need all the support we can get, from students and non-students alike!

Thank you to those of you who voted in this last election and showed your support in so many tremendous ways. In some terrible twist, if it hadn’t had been for all of your efforts, our current union leadership would not be acting so scared right now. But right now, this isn’t about which side will win or lose the elections -- this is about upholding democracy and our right to vote. Please come out and show your support.

[Update Monday 9:45am]: Here's a statement from the guy in the photo:

I am the person in the picture. I would estimate that it was taken around 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 27. It could be a little before or after; I wasn't keeping track of the exact time. I was setting up the polling place at Sather Gate on Wednesday morning. This is a picture from just before I opened up the poll. I had tested the ballot box, and the way the slot had been cut, you could not get ballots to go in because the second layer of flaps blocked the opening. So I opened the box to tape those flaps down, then closed it again. After doing that, I finished arranging the materials on the table and opened the polling place. My solution to the ballot box design flaw didn't work particularly well, because the flaps inside came un-taped and the ballots got a bit gummed up inside. But I didn't open it again, because by that point voting had started.

Corrupt Administration Caucus Trying to Steal UAW Election [Update: FRAUD]

Again. Thosewhouseit has the press release. Here's the key paragraph:

In the wake of a hotly contested election for leadership UAW local 2865, reports from inside the vote count indicate UAW officials may be trying to steal the election. The count is unfolding currently in Los Angeles, where one member has challenged every box of ballots from UC Berkeley on fabricated grounds. The ballots being challenged represent 25% of all votes cast: about 800 of approximately 3,200 total votes in this election. The challenge threatens to disenfranchise every voter on the campus with the union’s largest membership. UAW local 2865 represents over 12,000 Academic Student Employees across the UC system.

Here's another update from last night:

Des Harmon, someone who is not a graduate student, not a teaching assistant, and not a member in good standing has challenged hundreds of ballots from Berkeley on grounds that are completely fabricated. And the current UAW administration has the votes on the elections committee here to let this farce stand.

Des Harmon is the Los Angeles Recording Secretary for UAW local 2865. Where does he stand on the election, you ask?

Note: Within 10 minutes of campaigning at the polls for AWDU on the first day of the election, I met Des Harmon. He tore the AWDU leaflet in front of my face – I’m sure this gives you a sense of where he stands. – Renee Hudson

Members of AWDU Berkeley left late last night to go down to LA to try to monitor the vote count and prevent this fraud from taking place. It's hard to say with complete accuracy at this point, but the word is that AWDU folks have responded by making some of their own challenges. We'll try to keep the updates coming. Regardless, if fraud were to happen, it would be the second fraudulent vote in the union in the last six months. Last December, you remember, there was a vote about whether to approve the shitty contract that our negotiators were telling us -- falsely -- was actually pure gold. (And look where that got us.) AWDU and others organized a "NO!" campaign, which quickly generated an astonishing amount of support. It's impossible to say for sure, simply because there weren't enough safeguards in place to keep track of what's happening, but it seems likely that the count was fraudulent. And this one is starting to look the same way.

Tragedy, meet farce.

[Update Sunday 9:20am]: Once again, it's fraud:

This just in: After leaving the counting for 3 hours, Admin Caucus members Jorge Cabrera and Travis Knowles, the latter of whom is the chair of the Elections Committee, certified the results without counting ballots from UCLA or Berkeley. We’ll post developments as they come in. As things stand, they are trying to postpone the count for a full two months until the next Joint Council meeting. Why else would they do this unless they were certain they lost?

The following is an open letter that's just come through the email:

May 1, 2011

Open letter from an outraged member of UAW and AWDU supporter.

This message goes out to everyone on the USEJ slate, everyone on the Elections Committee, and everyone who voted in the election.

I am hugely appalled by the incumbent caucus’ decision to prevent the counting of votes at UCLA and UC Berkeley. I have just read the official UAW email claiming that the election has been “partially certified.” AWDU members present at the Los Angeles UAW office have informed me that “At 8 pm after a break begun at 5pm in which election committee chair Travis Knowles was absent with opposition candidate Jorge Cabrera for 3 hours, the election committee returned and certified the election without counting Berkeley or UCLA ballots.” What, I wonder, could “partial certification” mean, and according to what definition of democracy? To be clear about what’s happened: imagine a U.S. Presidential election in which, in the eleventh hour of vote counting, the incumbent party—lets make them Republicans, for the sake of argument—decided not to count the remaining votes from, say, California, New York, Ohio and Tennessee. Let’s say that the incumbent party’s spokesperson went on air with the message, “Because there were challenges from both sides, and because things have been contentious, and because we’ve been counting for so long—48 hours!—we decided to call it a day.” What would you think? Would you believe the principles of democracy were being upheld?

I am even more appalled because today is May 1st, the one day of the year devoted to working men and women, not only in American, but in all nations. This is not the day to trample on the democratic rights of workers, but that is what the power-holders in USEJ have chosen to do. This is not the day to communicate to the honest workers of our local that their votes were not even counted for fear of the results. This is not the day to pretend that the “contentiousness” of an election is grounds for the nullification of the democratic process. On any other day, this behavior would be shameful and intolerable. But today, it is a gross insult and a travesty of the values of “social and economic justice” for which the incumbent caucus claims to stand. It is an insult to all of us, on both sides of the election campaign. This is not the day to defile the honor of public-sector workers; this is a day to stand together, and to cherish one of the few rights afforded us as workers in this country: the right to participate in collective bargaining. Recent events in Michigan, Wisconsin, and elsewhere have shown that this right is under serious threat from the political Right. For too many American workers, May Day has already been tarred by political defeats and betrayals. Still, I did not expect I would be spending my May Day contemplating my own union’s betrayal of my rights as a worker.

Let me pose a question to the supporters of USEJ. When you cast your vote in the election, what image of democracy did you have in mind? Would you have felt comfortable voting for the incumbent caucus knowing that they would try to tilt the election in their favor by whatever means necessary? Are you aware, for instance, that the photograph touted in a recent USEJ email as evidence of voter fraud at Berkeley--it shows a man reaching into the ballot box--was taken prior to voting, while the polling station was still being set up? (Which is precisely what the photograph depicts: a volunteer, not an AWDU member, preparing the polling station for voting.) If you had known to what lengths the incumbents were willing to go to ensure victory, would you have voted for USEJ or for AWDU? As for candidates on the USEJ slate, I cannot understand what you mean by the phrase “social and economic justice.” Is it socially and economically just to shut out voters at UCLA and Berkeley? What should we call justice that exempts itself from judgment? What would you propose? Or are you as appalled as I am? If so, I strongly urge you to condemn your caucus’ leadership for making a mockery of the election, a mockery of union democracy, and a mockery of justice. Moreover, I urge you to join AWDU. The stakes of our caucus are real: union democracy urgently needs defenders. We want to fight with you, not against you, to build a stronger union for all of us.

Make no mistake: infamy is at work in the union. It has draped itself in the costume of “partial certification” and the legitimacy of the Joint Council of the Union, but it is infamy nonetheless. We have all been stained by this insult, and we ought all to fight it—today, tomorrow, and every day until our union is again worthy of that title. Otherwise there will be no union, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a fraud.

If you share this opinion, send a message or email djmarcus@berkeley.edu to have your name added to the list of signatories.

Daniel Marcus
UC Berkeley

Vote AWDU In UAW Elections

From thosewhouseit:

[Today, Tuesday] through Thursday -- April 26, 27, and 28 -- is the election we’ve all been waiting for. Let’s make sure that these Administration Caucus/USEJ bureaucrats -- many of whom aren’t active GSIs, readers, or even students -- are no longer allowed to represent those of use who actually do have interests as workers on UC campuses across the state. We’ve already reported on the way these incumbents pursue a strategy of astroturfing, and nothing has changed since. They haven’t updated their blog in over a week, and the last update was a piddling attack on AWDU for engaging in “dirty tricks” . . . such as questioning the candidacy of a non-member who is not even eligible to run in the first place. If that’s dirty, we no longer know what it means to be clean. Similarly, their Twitter feed has a grand total of 6 followers and hasn’t been updated since “dirty tricks” was released. Same deal for their Facebook page. Then last week, after two different UCLA grad students -- an AWDU member and an independent -- wrote scathing critiques of the AC/USEJ leadership, four of their candidates actually defected from their slate.

So tomorrow is the big day, or at least the first of three. The campus chapters of AWDU at UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, and UC Irvine have made polling times and locations available on their own sites; for a full schedule, check the official UAW 2865 site’s listing here. Let’s get these bureaucrats out of office once and for all and take back our union.  All power to the rank-and-file! Vote AWDU!

"Public" [Updated]

The sit-in at the administration building of CSU Fullerton, which began on Monday evening, continues and is currently in its fourth day. Protesters are demanding that CSUF President Milton Gordon sign a "Declaration to Defend Public Education." Gordon's response: "I won't be able to sign this agreement." According to the CSUF paper, the Daily Titan, CSUF administrators justified their stubborn refusal with reference to the language in the statement relating to fair contracts and union negotiations:

Questions arose over the California Faculty Association’s involvement in the meeting and in the drafting of the declaration. Both President Gordon and acting Vice President for Student Affairs Silas Abrego suggested that the meeting itself was a CFA function.

“The declaration makes reference to the CFA,” said Abrego. “There are ongoing negotiations going on right now. There is representatives for the CFA and the CSU in negotiations, we can’t have anyone else intervene in those negotiations.”

Abrego added that the document was a way to generate support for the CFA and attendees were commingling two issues ­-- for a better contract and better education.

After the issue was discussed, two CFA members who were present removed themselves from the room.

Gordon continued to stress that he would not sign the statement or any agreement at all despite the pleas of students and faculty.

The union issue is clearly an important one. At the UC we've seen administrators literally slam the door in the face of union members. But Gordon's continued rejection to sign anything at all -- he refused to "sign the statement or any agreement at all" -- even after the CFA members had left voluntarily suggests that there's something more at stake in the standoff.

It's the word "public."

First take a look at the Declaration, written by students, faculty and staff from CSUF, CSU Long Beach, CSU Los Angeles, Compton College, Fullerton College, and Mt. San Antonio College. The first part of the statement is a sort of general preamble:

“Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself.” John Dewey

We, the students, staff, and educators of California’s public schools,colleges, and universities, call upon the people of the state to recommit to and reinvest in public education as the principal foundation of a democratic society.

Public education is a sacred trust and needs to be protected from those who would see the state divest even further from its constitutional obligations.

Public education is a public good and needs to be protected from the for profit interests of the private sector.

We call upon the people of California to recognize that, though an educated workforce is essential to our prosperity, education itself has a social value that cannot be reduced to monetary considerations alone.

Public education brings together diverse communities of educators, staff and students in ways that prepare learners for a productive yet socially responsible life.

Public education creates spaces that promote the intellectual and emotional development of tolerant, critically-engaged citizens.

Public education is by definition open to all Californians, regardless of geographic location or socio-economic status, and is thus the very cornerstone of a vibrant, principled, and fundamentally compassionate democracy.

This is not, whatever these administrators might mistakenly think, a particularly radical statement. Even apart from the fact that a statement is all it is -- it's not legislation or a policy decision, it doesn't lock Gordon into doing anything at all -- it amounts to a simple acknowledgment of the value of public education. And its public character is heavily emphasized: every paragraph but one (notably, the one that talks about economics and "monetary considerations") includes the word.

Now compare the Declaration to the statement that President Gordon made in a follow-up letter to the editor that was published yesterday in the Daily Titan:

I commend students for their active engagement in critical issues facing our university and the CSU during these challenging fiscal times. I agree with and support many of the points of the Declaration to Defend Public Education and encourage all students to ensure that their voices are heard.

Your amplified demands for quality education are timely and provide a significant opportunity to maximize the importance of this message to the people and government leaders in the state of California. In your recent call for action through peaceful demonstration April 13 and during our meeting that day, students exemplified the values we embrace at Cal State Fullerton -- civic engagement, positive interaction and dialogue with faculty, staff and administration, as well as civility and respect for those whose opinions differ from your own.

The state budget crisis is at the heart of the fiscal challenges we face. Lessening its effect on the CSU continues to be the highest priority of the CSU chancellor, the CSU presidents and other leaders of our system. Despite this year’s increase in tuition fees, the cost of a CSU education remains the lowest of comparable institutions around the nation. At the same time, one-third of these tuition fees are set aside for the neediest of students, which serves to preserve access to higher education for those who can least afford it.

I am committed to continuing to work toward access to a high quality university education and to keeping the lines of communication open as we work through these difficult times together. Please continue to take an active role in support of providing quality public education for all deserving students.

Dr. Milton A. Gordon
President
California State University, Fullerton

The word "public" appears once, aside from the place where he mentions the name of the document that he's refusing to sign. Just once. And take a careful look at that sentence: "Please continue to take an active role in support of providing quality public education for all deserving students." It is only students who must "continue" to support public education -- he's most definitely not saying anything about himself or his administration. This is an incredibly revealing statement.

In place of "public," Gordon seems very comfortable with the word "quality." Not a public education, but a "quality education" is what he wants his CSU to provide. What comes to our mind is the recent statement by UC President Mark Yudof regarding what he called the UC's "compass points":

Yudof said the university has long operated on three "compass points" -- access, affordability and excellence.

"We are moving dangerously close to having to say: pick two of the three. That’s my view, and the excellence is nonnegotiable," he said. "We are going to have to look at access and affordability."

What Gordon, Yudof, and other administrators are talking about with their vague, bureaucratic language is privatization. Yudof says it outright, marginalizing and putting up for negotiation the categories of access and affordability. Gordon, on the other hand, continues to speak of "access," but does so in the context of a sort of generalized resignation, a complete acceptance of the talking point that this sort of thing is "inevitable." Budget cuts at the state level cannot and will not be fought. He says it outright: the job of the CSU administration is not to combat these cuts but rather to "lessen their effects." University administration has become a task of restructuring, of imposing austerity, of privatizing, of moving the financial burden onto the backs of students and workers. It has become a corporation, with corporate salaries and perks from foundations.

Why doesn't Gordon want to sign the Declaration? Not because of the CFA, or ongoing negotiations. It's because he doesn't want to use the word "public." At best, he believes it's outdated or obsolete; at worst, he thinks it doesn't work, that is, that education shouldn't be public. Regardless, we can now say that it's become official: CSUF President Gordon does not support public education, period. It's that simple.

[Update Thursday 1:34 pm]: This op-ed by Peter Cornett in the Daily Titan is pretty on point and seems to be the source of the data in the above tweets.

[Update Friday 11 am]: The sit-in has finally ended, after President Gordon gave in and agreed to sign a statement. Note that he did not sign the original "Declaration to Defend Public Education" that we looked at above but rather a revised "Statement in Defense of Public Education." At first glance, the changes seem fairly minor. But that doesn't mean they're not significant. Check out, for example, the one part where the text refers to administrators. Here's the original Declaration:

A commitment from administrators, school boards, teachers unions, staff unions, student organizations, parent groups, professional associations, community-based organizations, and postsecondary institutions to work together with the State to provide quality education for all people regardless of gender, economic, social, ethnic, or racial status.

And the revised Statement:

A commitment from administrators, school boards, teachers unions, staff unions, student organizations, parent groups, professional associations, community-based organizations, postsecondary institutions and state leadership to provide quality education for all people regardless of gender, economic, social, ethnic, or racial status.

What strikes us here is the way the revisions enable a shift of responsibility away from administrators et al. While the original Declaration makes it clear that administrators must commit to working "with the State" (e.g. lobbying), in the revised Statement the state is incorporated into those actors that directly "provide quality education" (there's that word again). Administrators are, to some extent, off the hook. The revised statement thus fits with our earlier analysis of Gordon's letter to the editor (which, it should be noted, remains the clearest example of his own position on "public" [read "quality"] education), inasmuch as the responsibility can now be laid at the feet of the "state leadership" and budget cuts remain out of reach, inevitable.

More Union Machinations

We really couldn't hope to clarify things as well as thosewhouseit, so if you're interested in the union check out their post on union machinations and astroturfing in light of the upcoming election in the local. The picture above features Daraka Larimore-Hall, the president of UAW Local 2865, on the far left, campaigning for the asshole who's working overtime to cut $1.4 billion from public higher education -- at a minimum. Thanks, Administration Caucus!

(The Daily Cal also published an article on the contested election today.)

UC Berkeley Administration Cancels Negotiations

Again, thosewhouseit has the goods:

The following email was written by Felicia Lee, Chief of Staff for Vice Chancellor Harry LeGrande. She has been the administration’s pointperson for interfacing with the Wheeler ledge occupiers regarding the “dialogue” to be had this Friday. We write “dialogue” because -- and we can’t say we’re surprised -- the administration is not interested in negotiations with students and workers about campus privatization; they are only “interested in having a serious exchange of ideas through thoughtful dialogue and not a negotiation.” Moreover, Lee explicitly threatens to cancel the meeting if a rally takes place.

In addition, she rejects all but one of the student negotiators who have been preparing for this meeting. Only those who were actually on the ledge are invited. The worker is rejected as well, as apparently AFT doesn’t count as a real union to these people. In short, with 2 days’ notice, everything is up in the air.

These people disgust us. They “welcome a serious exchange of ideas regarding OE and to support that goal, it would be great if the attendees could take a few moments to review the OE website prior to the meeting.” We are welcome to discuss these cuts, but they are a given. Negotiations are off the table. Here’s what the head of OE Andrew Szeri had to say:

This is meant to be a civil, open discussion to see why these students are so adamant about ending [Operational Excellence]. We will not be ending Operational Excellence, it is that simple. But we do want to hear what they have to say.

We can’t say we’re surprised. These are the people who consistently call in riot cops on students with no history of violence, turn a blind eye as they are blasted with pepper spray, and disseminate Mogulof lies to the media. We will not stand idly by as the administration attempts to use this meeting as a shroud of legitimacy for its austerity measures. We are not interested in “exchanging ideas.” This budget-cut fatalism masks the substantive issue on the table: austerity is a done deal for these people. A line is drawn in the sand. We will not decide how and where we would like to be cut; we decide not to be cut.

Dear ✖✖✖,

I recognize that it is difficult to keep having these conversations over email and appreciate the professional nature of our exchange.

As outlined in ✖✖✖’s email on March 4th, the Chancellor agreed to a meeting with “students participating in the ledge sit-in on Wheeler Hall on March 3, 2011” to discuss Operational Excellence. As I have stated before, the Chancellor has asked that the numbers be kept to four students and one worker in order to facilitate a thoughtful conversation. Upon review of your submitted participant list, there is only one student (✖✖✖) from the list who was on the ledge. Please send me the names of four currently enrolled UC Berkeley students from the original list of nine individuals who would attend Friday’s meeting:

[names redacted]

Furthermore, please send me the name of one worker from your submitted list:

[names redacted]

I omitted ✖✖✖ from your original list due to his status as lecturer and not as a staff worker.

I do not want to presume that you are aware of the notices circulating that Friday’s meeting with the Chancellor is a negotiation and additional protests outside California Hall are being planned during the time of the meeting. The Chancellor is interested in having a serious exchange of ideas through thoughtful dialogue and not a negotiation. Presenting demands will not be a fruitful use of time or aligned with the original spirit of this meeting. Furthermore, the Chancellor is concerned this meeting is being utilized as a catalyst for a public rally. He is prepared to postpone the meeting should it escalate as such and/or create disturbances for academic classes, students studying in nearby buildings, or staff working nearby.

We welcome a serious exchange of ideas regarding OE and to support that goal, it would be great if the attendees could take a few moments to review the OE website prior to the meeting (http://oe.berkeley.edu/). We are open to receiving any questions or thoughts you may have that you would like to share in advance of the meeting in order to maximize our meeting time in addressing your concerns.

We cannot agree to your request to record the meeting. Note-taking responsibilities, as with other meetings with students, have been a collaborative process. Typically, an administrator and a student representative take notes and these notes are compared and agreed upon with the entire group before distribution when necessary. As a matter of respect for all attendees, no tweets, texts, or recordings during the meeting are permitted. I trust you and the others will honor this request.

The meeting will begin promptly at 3:30pm so please arrive at Cal Hall by 3:15pm and I will escort the group to the meeting room. As a reminder, the meeting will also conclude promptly at 5:30pm in order for the Chancellor to attend a separate event welcoming parents and students shortly thereafter.

Please remind the attendees to bring a photo ID. I would appreciate receiving the attendee names no later than 5:00pm on Thursday April 7, 2011. I look forward to seeing everyone on Friday.

Sincerely,

Felicia J. Lee, Ph.D.
Chief of Staff
Division of Student Affairs
University of California, Berkeley
130 California Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
510.642-6757 (office)

In light of this bullshit, we recommend our post on "No negotiation, occupation!"

Unlimited Wild General Strike

General Strike, or Unlimited Wild General Strike?

(burnt bookmobile, one and two)

More Fee Hikes, More Administrative Lies

Last Thursday, UC administrators including President Mark Yudof sat down for an interview with reporters for a number of UC newspapers. In between the bullshit and propagandizing, the following exchange took place:

California Aggie, UC Davis: So LAO [Legislative Analyst's Office] also recommended a 7 percent fee hike in the next academic year — what do you think about that?

Yudof: Well, my position right now is, we’ve hit you so hard I’m not planning on recommending a fee hike beyond what is already on the books, which is 8 percent in September.

Today, the UC Regents (among which Yudof counts himself) met at UCSF Mission Bay. Here's what came out of that meeting:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Students are likely to bear the brunt of the University of California's budget crisis for years to come.

UC likely will face a $1.5 billion budget gap in the next few years even under the rosiest scenarios, UC regents were told Wednesday.

As a result, administrators said, the university probably will need to lean on students for annual tuition increases. Among four scenarios discussed Wednesday, only one would come close to bridging the deficit: annual tuition and state funding increases of 8 percent.

But a rebound in flagging state money is unlikely, so the university most likely would rely on a combination of cuts and tuition hikes. If the state contributes no additional money in the next four years and UC does not make additional cuts, for example, tuition would need to rise more than 18 percent per year to make up the difference, the university said.

In other words, 40 percent in the last two years wasn't enough -- despite their "good intentions," despite their sympathetic words, despite their lobbying in Sacramento, despite their bullshit "advocacy," they're still raising our tuition. The decisions apparently won't be finalized until May. But whatever happens, we can say one thing with certainty: the administration lies. Fuck the administration, fuck their cuts, and fuck their fee hikes!

FIGHT BACK - WALKOUT - STRIKE - DISRUPT EVERYTHING - OCCUPY EVERYTHING - TAKE WHAT'S OURS - DO IT NOW

Warts and All: On the Occupation at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

Posted at the Burnt Bookmobile:

The occupation is a feast at which we may satisfy our hunger for beautiful and intense moments.
- Graffiti from the occupied UWM theatre building

The stage is set: years of defeat-induced, pessimistic depression and a more-than-healthy dose of cynicism; cut backs, layoffs, and foreclosures piled on top of already extreme levels of poverty, hopelessness and social disintegration; a context notable for its glaring lack of collective struggle against this misery.

Then suddenly an outburst of activity: the occupation of the State Capitol building in Madison; anti-austerity demonstrations involving tens of thousands of people; massive wildcat sick-ins, student walk-outs and murmurs of a general strike.

Of course this attempt to get back on our feet will include its fair share of missteps and stumbling. All the more so because for many of us, nothing quite like this has yet touched our lives. Even for those of us who desperately track such moments of conflict through the pages of books, across oceans and continents, this is a new and strange place we find ourselves in.

General Strike

From burnt bookmobile:

Senators in favor of stripping unions of their collective bargaining rights figured out a way to split this section from the rest of the budget and pass it without the presence of the runaway Democrats who were stalling the passing of this part of the bill. People in Madison are running angrily to the Capitol and storming the doors, starting shoving matches with the police holding them shut until the police gave up and retreated. Once inside thousands of people filled the building and chanted “general strike” and “occupy”, amongst other things. Strikes seem more imminent than ever. They appear as certain. Thus chanting and marching in circles appear as more than obvious to everyone as finally and obviously inadequate. News sources are describing firetrucks driving around Madison blaring their sirens as sense of a state of emergency prevails across the city. They are joined by an endless stream of cars in traffic honking their horns constantly as well.

March 2 [Updated with images]

(pdf here)

State-wide actions are listed here (via Mobilize Berkeley).

[Updates Wednesday 5:32pm]: Pictures from the rally that's happening now in front of Wheeler Hall.

(via @jpanzar)

... and, as always, the cops are hovering in the background...


Images from UC Davis here. Some details from earlier in the day are here.

Statement on Benefits Decentralization Plan

From the email:

The Berkeley Unit of UAW 2865 has recently learned of a draft, campus-wide Benefits Decentralization plan, which has been presented by the Budget Office as follows:

With this change, the Campus Budget Office will no longer process monthly transactions reimbursing campus departments for the actual cost of academic and staff benefits, including graduate student fee remission expense. Instead, departments will receive an allocation of central funding for this expense. The campus will, simultaneously with the decentralization of expense, establish permanent base budgets for units fully offsetting the initial cost and, assuming incremental funds are available, expects to provide annual budget adjustments to departments in response to changes in benefits costs. [emphasis added]

Among the main reasons for this change, the Budget Office mentions funding reductions from UCOP, and a desire to increase budgetary flexibility at the department level. While certain important details of the Benefits Decentralization plan remain undisclosed, based on the draft proposal circulated by the Budget Office, we feel a need to express strenuous opposition to this plan, and to make plain our intention to block this proposed reform.

Shock Doctrine and Budget Crisis in California and Wisconsin

Only a crisis produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.
--Milton Friedman

Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism lays out an important argument for understanding how neoliberal reforms -- which are often incredibly unpopular -- are implemented. Because these policies generate so much resistance, Klein argues, governments are generally unable to pass them through democratic means. What they do instead is take advantage of moments of crisis -- financial collapse, military coups, even so-called natural disasters -- to push through legislation that fundamentally restructures economies in ways that benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. This is what Milton Friedman is getting at in the infamous quote above.

It's always important to remember, however, that these crises are not natural but actively produced. This is especially the case with economic crises. There is a tendency to talk about the financial crisis, for example, as if it were out of our hands. Even when the banks' illegal, manipulative, and exploitative practices are noticed and criticized, politicians across the political spectrum continue to talk about appropriate responses in terms of inevitability. There is no other choice. Our hands our tied. They love the phrase "difficult choices." In his State of the State address, California Governor Jerry Brown used the expression, and went on: "Do I like the choices we face?" he asked rhetorically. "No. I don't. But after serious study of the options left us by a $25 billion deficit, the budget I have proposed is the best I can devise." In the wake of his recent budget proposal, President Obama did the same and added a little something extra about "sacrifice." These are extremely common references, tropes of our current political discourse.

Obviously this is also the case with the "state of fiscal emergency" declared by UC President Mark Yudof and the UC regents in 2009. It was this crisis that UC officials used to justify the 32 percent tuition increase the forced through in November 2009. Far from natural or unavoidable, however, both the crisis and the tuition hike were planned and produced. Not only did those responsible for the UC's investments lose $23 billion in 2008-2009, but as Bob Meister has demonstrated convincingly the UC committed itself to raising student fees long before the so-called financial crisis hit:

To people in the financial world, it’s already obvious that UC committed itself to raise tuition and cut budgets when it decided in 2004 to secure its bonds. Most of my UC colleagues -- faculty, students and staff -- nevertheless find it unthinkable that UC would actually raise tuition and cut instruction in order to fund construction. People understand that UC wants to build. What’s unthinkable is that UC would still want to build rather than protect its programs and people when other great universities, including Harvard, indefinitely postponed new construction when their endowment income fell.

In fact, it turns out that the UC actually benefits from reductions in state funding, at least as far as its bonds and capital projects agenda are concerned. State funding cannot be used as bond collateral, but student tuition can.

Not only are current reductions in state funding a drop in the bucket of UC’s total endowment -- and nothing compared to the growing revenue of the university’s profit-generating wings -- it is also the case that UC administration has powerful motives to both collaborate with the continuing divestment of state funding and to divert its own resources from spending on instruction. . . . "I’m here today to tell you," said [UC Berkeley graduate student Annie] McClanahan, "that when students and their parents have to borrow at 8 or 10 or 14% interest so that the UC can maintain its credit rating and its ability to borrow at a .2% lower rate of interest, we the students are not only collateral, we are collateral damage."

Something similar is happening right now in Wisconsin at the state level, where the new governor has used the specter of massive deficits to attempt to destroy the state's unions. While his proposal includes some budget cuts,  what is most striking -- and most damaging -- is the attempt to eliminate or at least severely curtail the ability of public employees unions to engage in collective bargaining. Educators are obviously a huge target, and in response teachers and students across the state have staged massive walkouts and work stoppages. Once again, as Brian Beutler has shown, not only the budget crisis story but the budget crisis itself -- the entire basis of the political intervention -- is completely manufactured:

Wisconsin's new Republican governor has framed his assault on public worker's collective bargaining rights as a needed measure of fiscal austerity during tough times.

The reality is radically different. Unlike true austerity measures -- service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money -- rolling back worker's bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker's doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately.

Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.

The point, then, is not that there's no crisis, that there's nothing wrong. Rather, what's important to remember is simply that disaster capitalism and economic austerity are not a inevitable response to disaster, "natural" or otherwise. Indeed, they are not a response at all: the production of crisis is not exterior to, but a necessary component of, economic shock. The shock doctrine actively generates crisis in order to create the appearance of the accident, the natural, the unavoidable.

---

More info on the Wisconsin protests is at The Burnt Bookmobile (we found our way there via occupyca). Among other things they've posted the text of a communiqué that was circulating at the takeover of the capitol building the other day:

Crisis isn’t simply what happens to us. We aren’t victims with no agency who desire a return to a capitalism that works. We understand that capitalism is working. This is what it does. But what do we do? How do we escape the order of established politics and protest and enter into resistance? How do we render the world which alienates us inoperative and become a force capable of being the contradiction that tears it apart? How shall we become the crisis?

We propose: Choose to be partisans in this war which has already started. Block the economy, strike, occupy, and sabotage.

We respond to Scott Walker, his policies, and what he represents, but we must become a force that makes all positions of power obsolete. It will then no longer matter what politicians think or do. It will only matter what we do.

[Update Sunday, 5:19pm]: I missed this yesterday. In this video, Naomi Klein discusses the shock doctrine in the context of what's happening in Wisconsin. Take a look at the video and note the underlying assumption of Klein's formulation here: "Lo and behold you have a budget crisis, you exaggerate the extent of the crisis, and you say, 'We don't have any alternative but to push through these very unpopular measures.'" What she is suggesting, in other words, is that crisis is external to these political games. Crisis just is -- what the politicians do is exaggerate it. But, as the case of Wisconsin demonstrates, crisis is made, at times in carefully calculated ways.

[Update #2, Friday 2/25]: Even Paul Krugman's on board now.