GEO stands with Graduate Students United at the University of Chicago! See how they’re planning to win a fair contract for graduate workers: https://uchicagogsu.org/2018/…/14/how-well-win-our-contract/
Our full statement is also at http://www.geo3550.org/2018/03/05/geo-stands-with-gsu/
I stand with the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) in their current struggle to win a fair contract and formally demand that the University of Illinois Administration immediately sign GEO’s contract proposals for wages, tuition waivers, fees, healthcare, and access and equality to uphold the rights of graduate employees at UIUC.
At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduate employees perform essential work and are the backbone of the University, since every undergraduate student is taught by graduate teaching assistants at some point during the course of their study. The Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) represents a majority of graduate workers who stand together and negotiate their wages and working conditions with the University of Illinois Administration. The GEO has been in contract negotiations with the University Administration since March and began federal mediation in October. GEO’s current contract with the University of Illinois expired on August 15th without a new contract being signed, yet graduate employees have continued to perform their job duties.
The Administration has proposed that graduate employee compensation, which in most cases is currently far less than the University’s own published cost of living, remain stagnant or worse, by offering no wage increases and no guarantee that graduate employee pay won’t be reduced. They also proposed to give themselves the power to make graduate employees pay a portion or all of their tuition, which is waived under the previous contract. This tuition waiver represents the bulk of graduate employee compensation. Furthermore, they proposed capping the portion of graduate employee health care costs they pay at a time when premium costs are set to increase by hundreds of dollars.
We, the undersigned, formally ask that the Administration commit to providing better working and living conditions to its graduate employees by signing the GEO’s contract proposals. We collectively urge the University of Illinois to agree to GEO’s proposals in the name of improving higher education in Illinois. GEO has proposed the following for a fair contract:
Without a new and better fair contract, graduate employees will increasingly suffer from being overworked, underpaid, and never be prioritized as valuable workers. Since the living and working conditions of graduate employees affect the learning conditions of undergraduate students, this University would not be esteemed institution of higher education that it is without the work of graduate employees.
CALL TO ACTION!: CALL IN TODAY TO THE OFFICE OF JOE PLATANIA, CHARLOTTESVILLE COMMONWEALTH ATTORNEY, TO URGE HIM TO DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST DEANDRE HARRIS, COREY LONG AND DONALD BLAKNEY. These three Black community members who showed up in the face of white supremacist terror on August 12th are still being criminally prosecuted for their resistance. DeAndre, Corey and Donald face criminal charges for protecting themselves and their community against the horrific violence of the Unite the Right Rally. Now it’s time for the Charlottesville community to protect them and tell the Commonwealth’s Attorney to Drop the Charges against them immediately!
CALL the Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office TODAY to speak to or leave a message for Joe Platania (434) 970-3176. SAMPLE PHONE CALL SCRIPT: “I’m calling to urge you to drop all charges against Donald Blakney, DeAndre Harris, and Corey Long. Prosecuting these men for showing up for their community in the face of white supremacist terror on August 12th is unjust and unacceptable.”
#DropEmCville #DropTheCharges #CvilleShowsUp#DoItLikeDurham #Charlottesville #DefendCville
Hosted by Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association
901 N 9th Street, 9:30 A.M. – 3 P.M.
Join other Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association educators as we support our students organizing the March For Our Lives – Milwaukee day of action.
Hosted by Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES)and Voces de la Frontera
Espanol abajo
March 5th marked the Trump government’s deadline for congress to pass legislation on DACA. 25 brave Voces leaders risked arrest by blocking the intersection in front of Paul Ryan’s Racine office. The action lifted up our demand that Paul Ryan stop blocking the Dream Act from a vote in congress. YES leaders organized hundreds of students to walk out of school and join in a mass picket to support those risking arrest. Join us to review what went well and discuss how we can improve our organizing.
El 5 de marzo marcó la fecha límite para que el Congreso aprobara legislación sobre DACA. 25 valientes líderes de Voces se arriesgaron a ser arrestados al bloquear el cruce de las calles 6 y Main frente a la oficina de Paul Ryan en Racine, Wisconsin. La acción elevó nuestra demanda de que Paul Ryan use su poder para permitir que el Dream Act obtenga un voto en el Congreso. Los líderes de Youth Empowered in the Struggle organizaron a cientos de estudiantes para que abandonaran la escuela y se unieran a una manifestacion para apoyar a aquellos que se arriesgaban a ser arrestados. Únase a nosotros para revisar lo que salió bien y discutir cómo podemos mejorar nuestra organización.
Hosted by Chicago Workers World Party
ML STUDY GROUP: RODNEY EDITION!
**Invite Friends and Comrades**
Marxist-Leninist Study Group is a discussion series for people hoping to learn more about socialism.
It is held the first Monday and third Wednesday of every month, light snacks and beverages provided.
If you are not available in person, tune in using Facebook Live to participate!
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NOTE: If you are uncomfortable being filmed on the live stream, please let us know! You do not have to be filmed if you come to the event in person. Also, do not feel like you have to come to the event knowing everything – it is okay to sit, listen, and learn. ♥
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“For the only great men among the unfree and the oppressed are those who struggle to destroy the oppressor.”
― Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
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For the 13th Marxist-Leninist Study Group, we will be reading the chapter entitled “Some Questions on Development” from Walter Rodneys’s “How Europe Under Developed Africa”
~Total: 43 pages
A PDF of the reading can be found for free at this link below:
http://abahlali.org/files/3295358-walter-rodney.pdf
https://www.workers.org/2018/03/05/west-virginia-education-workers-teaching-how-to-fight/
State Capitol building, Charleston, W.Va., March 2, 2018
When people familiar with U.S. labor history hear about a strike in West Virginia, what is their first thought? It’s about armed miners battling mercenaries, about open class warfare, about the Matewan Massacre in 1920 and the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. They think about how physically courageous the miners were. They think about how the women and men in miners’ families picked up arms. They remember how important it was to build unity in struggle among African-American miners, Italian-immigrant miners and others who had been born in the region.
It was vital for each section of workers to have leadership in the union. It was vital for the leadership to reflect the militancy of the union rank and file. Or to step aside.
Only by battles to the end could unions grow and strikes win a living wage for the miners and other union workers of mountainous West Virginia.
Fast forward 97 years since the Battle of Blair Mountain. There have been ups and some very big downs for union workers in the United States, including West Virginia. That state is now the site of another historic confrontation.
It involves not just miners — whose work force has shrunk due to changes in technology like “mountaintop removal” — but education workers. Many of these teachers and other school staff, mostly women, are children and grandchildren of the miners who built the United Mine Workers union. They learned early in life that unity and militancy were needed in any strike. That only by fighting and fighting could they win.
Teachers’ pay in West Virginia is 22 percent lower than the national average. They have inadequate medical coverage — and even that is under attack. Like all teachers, they have been the target of the bosses’ lies, blamed for all the failures of an underfunded school system and the crisis of the economic system.
They have little to lose, many say. They know they need unity to win and the support of their students and communities. They have made sure to provide food for their students, a majority of whom depend on school breakfasts and lunches. When the leaders of their unions agreed to a deal they found wanting, they rejected it and have tenaciously continued the strike.
As of Monday, March 5, they have built unity among themselves. They carry placards citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They have shown the courage to confront the repressive state apparatus — headed by a right-wing billionaire governor named Jim Justice who dishes out injustice. They are facing down the oil and gas bosses and their legislative lackeys in the state’s House and Senate.
The workers are facing down anyone trying to sell them a bad contract. They are setting an example for workers around the country, who are inspired to see the West Virginia struggle unfold.
In nearby Pittsburgh, the threat of a teachers’ strike brought an immediate better offer. In West Virginia and Virginia, Communications Workers members at Frontier Communications are beginning a strike with many of the same issues as the teachers and other education workers. Oklahoma teachers are organizing to strike.
The bosses fear that the West Virginia mood might “go viral.” Yes! Bring it on!
What those on strike need is the active solidarity of all other unions and workers around the country. Speak up and express your solidarity with and admiration for their struggle. Ask them what they need — people, funds, local actions — and come through.
The outcome of this struggle in West Virginia is vital to building the strength of workers and the labor movement throughout the country.
State Capitol building, Charleston, W.Va., March 2, 2018
Hosted by Milwaukee IWW
5190 N 35th Street, Milwaukee, 12 NOON – 1:30 P.M.
Two IWW members will be at Villard Square Library, small meeting room, 5190 N 35th St, Milwaukee, WI 53209 on Thursday, March 8, 12:00-1:30 PM. They will be working on some of the activity they regularly do for the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, supporting the campaign against arbitrary regulations at Columbia Correctional, coalition efforts to shutdown the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility, and connecting different networks inside prison walls. Our work includes research, writing letters, data entry, and developing ideas for disrupting the horror that is the Wisconsin prison system. Come by if you want to see what’s involved with this organizing, ask questions, and maybe get involved in this. Free coffee and snacks are provided.
If you are interested in these event and can’t make this time or location, please post in this event, message us or send an email at iww.milwaukee@gmail.com We will schedule the next event to work for your schedule, or followup one-on-one. Also contact us if you would need childcare, translation or other accomodations to be able to attend this event.
