A coalition of UC students, staff, and faculty are gearing up to converge on the next regents’ meeting at UCLA on November 17-19 to oppose student fee increases, staff pay cuts, and the continued destruction of public higher education in California. A schedule of transportation to the meeting will be posted here.

For those in northern California who can’t make the trek south, UC Berkeley’s Solidarity Alliance has issued an open invitation to join a three-day solidarity strike, which all staff systemwide are invited to endorse. The call to action notes that “one month after declaring an ‘extreme financial emergency,’ and ‘saving’ $170 million by furloughing employees, UC chose to take on $1.35 billion in new debt for 70 construction projects.”

Details of how UC is using student fee hikes as bond collateral were uncovered recently by Robert Meister, chair of the Council of UC Faculty Associations, who has also formally requested that the regents conduct an audit of the matter. Berkeley’s Faculty Association has also made the case for an audit.
 
UC Santa Cruz’s Divisional Academic Senate has passed a resolution for UC fiscal transparency, and against fee hikes and furloughs for employees making under $40,000. It also urges UC to engage in good faith bargaining with the Santa Cruz Faculty Association, which bargains collectively for that campus’s Senate faculty. UC San Diego’s Divisional Academic Senate has gone on record opposing the fee hikes.

A fightback against another library closure is in the works at UC Berkeley.
In a lengthy interview with student journalists recent, UC President Mark Yudof gave his spin on fee hikes, furloughs and educational cuts. But Yudof’s claims are factually off the mark, according to a Daily Bruin article by lecturers’ union president Bob Samuels. One student journalist was disappointed in Yudof’s seeming inability to creatively tackle funding cuts from Sacramento. _____________________________________________________________________________________

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