A sizeable crowd made up of labor organizations, students, faculty and political figures gathered at the main entrance to the University of California-Santa Cruz campus on the first day of classes to vent their frustrations on a number of issues plaguing the UC system, waving signs that read “Cut from the Top” and “Keep UC Affordable.” The messages heard from the bicycle-powered microphone concerned everything from President Mark Yudof’s cost-saving plan—which would enact 4-10 percent salary reductions for staff, layoffs and a 32 percent increase in tuition fees to over $10,000 in 2010—to the state fiscal crisis causing the school’s $800 million deficit. “The UC can no longer call itself affordable,” said UC student association president Victor Sanchez to the cheering crowd, estimated by some attendees to be about 300 strong. “We can’t afford this privatization – this is our university.” (story continues below slideshow)
photos by Jessica Lussenhop
Workers, faculty and students throughout the UC system walked out of work and class at noon, and locally, members from many organizations crowded the lawn on High and Bay streets, including University Professional and Technical Employees; University Council – American Federation of Teachers; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers; United Auto Workers (representing teaching assistants) and the Santa Cruz Faculty Association. “Two of the three of us have been laid off,” said a recently laid-off arboretum worker who attended the rally with former colleagues and gave his name only as Francis. “Layoffs are their answer to everything. [We want] fair bargaining.” At the microphone, librarian Ken Lyons, a UC-AFT member, showed the crowd a pie chart of UC’s $20 billion budget, a blue circle with a tiny wedge in yellow. “The problem is your education and my pay comes out of that yellow part,” he said. “Students are increasingly over time paying for their own education. You were supposed to have free tuition.”
27th District Assemblyman Bill Monning sought to put the issue in a slightly larger framework by discussing the two-thirds majority vote that has resulted in the stalled California budget. “Our state is in crisis,” he said. “It’s the tyranny of the minority in Sacramento that is blocking investment in higher education. It is appropriate to focus our rage on President Yudof. But we need to take a broad look at the reforms needed statewide.”
Brian Malone, a teacher’s assistant and a member of the UAW, said that he was supposed to be at the first meeting of his detective fiction class. “My professor was really understanding. He was going to talk a lot about the budget in his presentation,” he said, adding that most professors seem not to mind their students skipping the first day of class for the rally. “A lot of professors I know of sent out emails [saying it’s OK] to the whole enrollment.”
