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Temple Grad Students Vote To Strike, And Temple’s Bosses Are Afraid

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - The surge of strike energy has reached Philadelphia. Just a few weeks after Philly’s art museum workers struck and won, this past Friday Temple University’s graduate students voted overwhelmingly to strike — by a margin of 99 percent. Contribute to their strike fund here TUGSA — Temple University Graduate Student Association — represents about 750 Teaching Assistants (TAs) and Research Assistants (RAs) across the campus. They’ve been negotiating for 10 months, and working without a contract since February. They’ve been stonewalled by Temple’s bosses. TUGSA is demanding badly needed changes to their pay and working conditions. Looking at Temple’s own math on its new anti-union website, grad student workers and RAs make just $20,000 a year in a city where average rent is around $1,900 a month.

Bike Libraries Are Boosting Access To Bikes Across The US

Madison, Wisconsin - At Madison, Wisconsin’s nine public libraries, residents can check out books of all kinds, from hardbacks and paperbacks to ebooks and audiobooks. They can check out movies as DVDs and Blu-rays. And since last year, library card holders can also check out electric bicycles. Madison’s public libraries are part of a growing number of bike libraries in cities and towns from coast to coast. A list of U.S. bike lending libraries curated by StreetsblogMASS reporter Grecia White documents 35 such programs, from Vermont to Texas. While they all look a little different and work a little differently, they all do the same thing — increase free access to bikes.

General Strike Threat Beats Ontario’s Anti-Worker Law

Ontario, Canada - Ontario workers delivered a spectacular blow to Premier Doug Ford’s government this week. Just four days after ramming through unprecedented anti-worker legislation, Bill 28, Ford appeared in a hastily called press conference on Monday morning to announce its full repeal. Ford claimed this was a good-faith gesture to kickstart negotiations with Ontario’s 55,000 education workers, who had entered their second day of an “illegal” strike. But his actions the previous week had painted a very different picture: of a government hell-bent on stripping workers of their rights to strike and bargain. The reality is that Ford and his government were spooked by the rapid (and unexpected) escalation of Ontario’s unions, including a plan to launch an indefinite general strike on November 14.

Canadian Education Workers Strike Against Anti-Strike Law And Inflation

Ontario, Canada - The Canadian province of Ontario is in the midst of a fierce labor struggle, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in decades. On Thursday, November 3, Ontario Premier Doug Ford signed Bill 28 (the “Keeping Students in Class Act”), which made it illegal for education workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU) to go on strike. The next day, 55,000 education workers walked off the job in defiance of the bill, risking a C$4,000 fine. These workers, mainly janitors, early childhood educators, librarians, and other support staff, are demanding a C$3.25 pay raise, overtime pay, an expansion of benefits, and 30 minutes of daily prep time. The mood at the Friday demonstration was combative.

Colorado: Universal Free Meals To Students Is Close To Reality

Colorado - Colorado voters are largely in favor of Proposition FF, which would provide the state’s students with free school meals — no matter their families’ incomes. With tax deduction limits in place, the price tag would fall on wealthy Coloradans. About 55% of voters backed the measure, with 1,011,114 votes, as of 9:07 a.m. on Wednesday, according to unofficial results on the Colorado Secretary of State Office’s website. That number includes all 64 counties, although post-election reporting is still in progress. The initiative would establish and fund the Healthy School Meals for All Program. It would boost taxes for households with incomes higher than $300,000 by curbing state income tax deductions. The move would impact about 114,000 joint and single-filer tax returns, or about 5% of those filed in Colorado.

Education Workers On ‘Illegal Strike’ Shut Schools Down

Canada - On Friday, 55,000 Ontario education workers with CUPE walked off the job in an “illegal” strike. They were joined by OPSEU education workers, who also “illegally” walked off the job. Over 2.1 million students were out of school as school boards were forced to shut down schools. Pickets lines were up outside Conservative MPP offices and elsewhere in the province. In Toronto, a massive all-day picket line and rally was held at Queen’s Park, which the media estimated reached 10,000 people. But it wasn’t just striking workers; a huge number of parents, students, trade unionists, and other workers showed up. The mood was electric and defiant, and it was clear the fight was much broader than just education workers’ demands. Their strike has turned into a class-wide fight over fundamental workers’ rights and the right to fight for a better life.

Chicago Teachers: Notes From A Fighting Union

When I stepped down as Chicago Teachers Union president earlier this year (the union has a dynamic new officer team led by Stacy Davis Gates), I did it partly because I was ready for a change, partly to make room at the top, and partly because I think we need a reckoning about the direction of the labor movement. Stepping down gives me a chance to write and speak out without the constant and overwhelming work of running a 26,000-person local. This article is the first in what I hope will be a series in which I share some of the insights CTU learned through our struggles. The Chicago Teachers Union gets a lot of attention among the people who make up the fighting wing of the labor movement—for our high-profile strikes over the past decade and our unapologetic, anti-racist critique of what’s wrong with our schools and our society.

The Racism Of The Supreme Court’s Supermajority Was On Full Display

During more than five hours of oral arguments in two cases that will probably spell the death of affirmative action in colleges and universities, the racism of the six right-wingers on the Supreme Court was on full display. It appears the court will overrule existing precedent that permits limited affirmative action. The court ruled in the 2003 case of Grutter v. Bollinger that the 14th Amendment allows public universities to consider race as one factor in a “holistic” admissions process in order to assemble a diverse student body. “Numerous studies show that student body diversity promotes learning outcomes, and ‘better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce and society, and better prepares them as professionals,’” the court explained.

The Teacher Exodus Continues Whether You Care Or Not

Remember when federal, state and local governments actually seemed poised to do something about the great teacher exodus plaguing our schools? With an influx of money earmarked to help schools recover from the pandemic, many expected pay raises and bonuses to keep experienced teachers in the classroom. Ha! That didn’t happen! Not in most places. In fact, the very idea seems ludicrous now – and this was being discussed like it was a foregone conclusion just a few months ago at the beginning of the summer. So what happened? We found a cheaper way. Just cut requirements to become a teacher.

48,000 Unionized Workers Across University Of California Begin Voting On Strike Authorization

California - The three UC unions under the United Auto Workers (UAW) — Student Researchers United (SRU), UAW 5810 representing both postdoctoral and academic student researchers in separate bargaining units and UAW 2865 representing teaching assistants (TA), graduate student instructors, tutors and readers — each Organized strike votes across their four bargaining units from Oct. 26 through Nov. 2. If passed, the votes would give respective unions the power to call a strike should they choose, but would not guarantee they will. UAW 2865’s recording secretary, fourth-year UC Santa Barbara history Ph.D. candidate and TA Janna Haider is one of two representatives from UCSB on the union’s bargaining team.

Anti-Police Activists In Baltimore Protest New University Police Force

Baltimore, Maryland – Students at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and community members in Baltimore protested against the creation of a private university police force by disrupting two town hall meetings on September 22 and September 29, the first of which led to some antagonism with JHU’s VP of public safety, Branville Bard. The creation of a university police force – the Johns Hopkins Police Department (JHPD) – was postponed for two years in response to the anti-police brutality protests of 2020. Now the university is fast-tracking the process with minimal input from students or the community, despite active opposition going back to 2019 when several anti-JHPD activists were arrested for occupying a university building for around a month.

Massachusetts Educators’ Joint Strike Wins Historic Common Good Demands

Members of the Malden Education Association and the Haverhill Education Association have ratified new contracts won through a simultaneous strike last week. After one day on the picket line in Malden and four days in Haverhill, educators secured significant gains including higher wages, increased parental leave and commitments to housing justice. Students, community members, and workers came together in the hundreds to support striking educators across Massachusetts. Although public sector strikes are illegal in 39 states, including Massachusetts, teacher unions have been pushed to risk breaking the law to address the dire issues in public schools that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated. 

Teaching Solidarity: Education In Grassroots US Social Movements

Tenaya Lafore was kind enough to allow us to excerpt this section of her doctoral dissertation, the entirety of which will be of interest to anyone interested in the intersection of education and social movement organizing. This particular section stands out as an example of some issues with non-profit led worker co-op development that we have seen and tried to draw attention to. While the issues faced by the Grassroots Empowerment and Leadership program that Lafore recounts below are different than those at play in non-profits doing worker co-op development, the overall dynamics of the hierarchical "non-profit industrial complex" extend beyond any particular movement or campaign.

Harvard/MIT Students Shut Down Exxon Recruiting Event

Cambridge, Massachusetts - On Wednesday, around 30 members of the Harvard and MIT communities disrupted a recruiting event by ExxonMobil. The presentation, which was held in the offices of the MIT Earth and Planetary Sciences department and advertised to Harvard science students, was intended to convince students to participate in the company’s hiring process. Students at the event, however, sent a message loud and clear: So long as Exxon is undermining young people’s futures, it won’t be welcome on campus. The disruption — and a similar one, also this week at Brown — come in the wake of Exxon’s track record of exploiting vulnerable peoples and environments for its oil and gas development, while lying to the public about its ostensible pivot to greener initiatives.

University Of Minnesota Service Workers Announce Plans To Strike

Minneapolis, Minnesota - Teamsters Local 320, which represents 1,500 service workers at the University of Minnesota, announced Monday during a press conference that the strike vote for higher wages they initiated Oct. 4 and 5 passed by a 93% margin. Teamsters members voted to commence a strike in light of the back and forth contract negotiations with the University, in which the University has refused to meet their requests. Brian Aldes, principal officer and secretary treasurer of Teamsters Local 320, said the date of the strike will not be announced at this time. Workers could strike as early as Oct. 22. “The 1,500 service workers at the University are the people who are responsible for the quality of life of our students who live and attend school at the University,” Aldes said.

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