The following is the formal press release from graduate students at the University of Arizona. There will be a rally today at 2pm at the Old Main Fountain in protest of the budget cuts. Considering the 6% tuition increase, the absurd "Economic Recovery Surcharge" that all students have to pay, and the new House Bill 2013 (more information here), it is time that students and workers take action.
UA Job-Loss/Unionizing Campus-wide assembly 9/18, 2pm
BUDGET CUTS AFFECT US ALL!
600 UA JOBS LOST ALREADY!
Join a group of concerned faculty, students and staff to learn about how budget
cuts will affect us and help plan a university-wide day of action to let state
law makers and university administration know we won?t stand by as higher
education is dismantled.
When: Friday, Sept 18 @ 2:00pm
Where: Old Main Fountain
Goals: (1) Establish a unified voice amongst those concerned about budget cuts
to higher education at the UofA. (2) Plan a university-wide day of action in
solidarity with the faculty, staff and students of the UC system, who are
staging a walkout on September 24th.
...
more info:
At the University of Arizona we are facing the most dramatic budget cuts
and restructuring of the University in a generation. These cuts will
affect every aspect of the University system – from the quality of
education available to students, to the conditions of our labor as
researchers, teachers, administrators and staff.
The administration is pursuing a strategy designed to weaken our capacity
for collective action, our ability to protect our interests and
participate in the budget and restructuring process.
In some departments, Graduate Teaching Assistants, already working for
poverty wages, have seen their salaries slashed. In others, course loads
have been expanded overnight, with little explanation and no
accountability. Faculty have been furloughed in a way that minimizes
disruption to teaching, and maximizes the possibility that they will
continue working without pay. Hiring freezes and layoffs are undermining
the integrity and functioning of departments and spreading work around to
already over-burdened faculty and staff. And the decisions about whose
budget is cut, by how much and why have been anything but transparent and
accountable, let alone "participatory". All of this while new fees and
"tuition surcharges" reduce access to and affordability of higher
education, redistributing the burden of budget shortfalls onto the backs
of students.
The UA budget has been cut as much as possible under the current
stimulus
package. If it is cut any more, we will lose our stimulus
funding. The 2010 state budget will not include any stimulus money, and
state
revenues are already coming in under projection. We will have
no protection from further dramatic cuts after this fiscal year.
By subjecting the budgetary restructuring to an arbitrary and subjective
process whose impact is felt differentially, we remain divided and pitted
against each other, rather than capable of uniting around our common
interests. As long as we remain divided in our individual colleges and
departments we will have no power or voice as our colleagues lose their
jobs, as the conditions of our labor and the quality of our institution
deteriorates, and as the legislature and administration continue to pull
the rug out from under our feet.
For these reasons, we invite graduate assistants, faculty and staff to a
meeting on Friday September 18 at 2pm on the fountain in front of Old Main
organize an action in solidarity with the faculty, staff and students of
the UC system.
