Another Happy Hour!

Join FaDU for another happy hour! Still at Solstice Cafe on the Ave, this time at 5:30 on Wednesday, October 20. We'll be talking more about how to fight against privatization of UW and for an anti-racist, anti-sexist university.

FaDU Happy Hour

Join members of FaDU for an all ages happy hour at Cafe Solstice -- serving beer, wine, coffee, tea, and some of the best pastries on the Ave. Learn more about FaDU and talk with us about how we can work to make UW a truly public, anti -racist, anti-sexist university.

Thursday, Sept 30, 4:30 PM
Cafe Solstice
4116 University Way

FaDU summer reading!

Dear FaDU Friends and Supporters--
Over the summer, FaDU is having an open reading group on the university, race, and labor. We are very excited about these readings, and would like to invite anyone to come and participate in the discussions! The first meeting will be next Tuesday at 4 PM at Allegro Cafe. This is our planned time, but if people who really want to come cannot make it there's a possibility for change. We hope to see you there, and please e-mail FaDU if you have any questions! Feel free to invite any interested friends.

Act I: critiques of the university
June 29: "Like Being Mugged by a Metaphor," a feminist/woman of color critique of university (e-mail faduni@gmail.com if you need this)
July 6: another university critique? (still working on this one!!)

Act II: effective organizations for movement building
July 13: The Tyranny of Structurelessness http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/structurelessness.html (along with a summary of it, perhaps?)
July 20: two chapters from Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement

Act III: workplace organizing
July 27: Don Hamerquist Workplace Papers http://www.sojournertruth.net/unionsorganizations.html
August 3: Punching Out - Martin Glaberman
August 10: Soldiers of Solidarity: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1967324,00.html

Members of FaDU Vote No on "Temporary Agreement"

As of June 1st, after at least 4 extensions, there has been a "temporary" 1 year agreement with management. Members of UAW 4121 have yet to see this agreement. Members of FaDU, as well as many other rank and file ASE's have decided to vote NO on this temporary agreement. See statement by FaDU below and distribute widely!
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Members of the rank and file labor organization, For a Democratic University, vote NO on the proposed contract between our union, UAW 4121, and University of Washington. We vote no because:
- We feel this contract does not reflect the desires of members
- No substantial gains have been made, especially in terms of childcare
- This contract contains no wage increases or protections against fee increases
- A weak contract will set a precedent that will weaken the positions of other campus workers
- We feel contract negotiations lacked democracy and transparency
- We have not been given adequate time to read, analyze, and debate the proposed settlement
- A one-year contract gives UW a year to prepare to weaken our contract next year, when the state of funding for public education may be even worse

While we acknowledge the intensive work put forth by the bargaining team, we feel an important opportunity has been lost that reflects the state of labor at large in the United States. These contract negotiations show the inherent problems in business unionism, and the belief that change happens behind closed doors. Furthermore, we disagree with belief of the bargaining team that the power of the strike lies in the threat. FADU believes the power of a strike lies in an actual work stoppage.

On March 4th and May 3rd, the university was scared not just because Academic Student Employees took action, but because of cross-workplace organizing with custodians, construction workers, and trades workers. Our biggest (and only) gains came in the days before the contract was over, and were likely due in no small part to the mobilization of workers across campus. FADU believes we lost a great opportunity when UAW leadership decided not to strike on May 3 because the contract extensions marked the end of progress (as far as we can tell without direct access to meetings) in negotiations.

FADU does not take issue with individual members of the bargaining team but rather with the structure of top-down unions that can be undemocratic and tend to serve the interests of management more than workers. However, we do have critiques of the ways in which the bargaining team has acted during these negotiations, in particular not offering open meetings or full disclosure of bargaining sessions, and the series of unsupported ultimatums offered to the university. We demand access for rank-and-file to union resources. We will continue to fight for a democratic union and a democratic university. We will continue to build rank-and-file power to mobilize for a strong contract in the coming year.

In Solidarity,
For a Democratic University

Open Letter to UC Berkeley Hunger Strikers

Last Friday, members of MeCHA, RAZA, and other groups at UC Berkeley began a hunger strike with demands that included open access for all students and amnesty for international students, for their chancellor to denounce SB 1070, rehiring of all fired janitors, and amnesty for Wheeler Hall protesters, who were largely women and people of color. They have called on activists and communities of color for support. FaDU, Democracy Insurgent, and International Workers and Students for Justice responded with a letter of support. You can sign their petition and find out more details of their demands here: http://www.change.org/petitions/view/make_chancellor_birgeneau_stand_up_against_sb_1070. We do not have a good resource for updates right now, but you can check out edu-factory.org for new messages, or join that listserv. Updates also coming out over March 4th listserv.
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**Text of letter--Forward widely**

Dear hunger strikers at UC Berkeley and supporters,

As members of Democracy Insurgent, International Workers and Students for Justice, and For a Democratic University--multi-racial worker/student groups dedicated to anti-imperialism, worker rights, and immigrant rights based in the University of Washington as well as the broader Seattle community--we are heartened by your struggles of people of color, women, workers, and students at Berkeley, at the same time as we are disgusted by the manipulation of the deepening crisis by the rulers at Berkeley and beyond. At the University of Washington, we have also been fighting back, across race and gender, and as workers and working class students against cuts that gentrify the University and against police abuse of workers and activists. We denounce the white supremacist, anti-immigrant regime, and those of us who are immigrants fight despite the threat of deportation.

Like you, we see the immigrants rights and anti-budget cuts struggles as one, as a shared struggle against neoliberal policies that aim to privatize our universities, split our communities apart, and imprison our youth in jails and ICE detention centers.

On May Day this year we marched with 10,000 others in support of workers rights and against an increasingly repressive and violent anti-immigrant regime. We chanted "Boycott Arizona" and "No borders, no state/no bosses, no hate", in opposition to the racist SB-1070 and the white supremacist, anti-immigrant practices within the state of Washington, including the expanding Tacoma Detention Center, run by the Geo Group, and the newly proposed detention center in downtown Tacoma which would hold up to 1500 prisoners.


On May 3rd, students, workers, teachers, and community members formed picket lines from 4:30 AM to 2:30 PM at UW to protest budget cuts that have resulted in the loss of at least 850 jobs and have precipitated ever worsening abuse of immigrant workers, in addition to 29% tuition hikes and cuts to essential student services.

In denouncing SB-1070, we must also recognize that it codifies practices already occurring in Arizona and across the U.S. This law is a continuation of the ongoing attack in this country on immigrant families and workers and other people of color, in the middle east through both direct military occupation and financial support, and around the world in neo-colonial practices.

Ahead of May 1st, Democracy Insurgent, with the support of FaDU and other groups, released a statement linking the struggle against budget cuts to immigrant struggles. This document is available at www.democracyinsurgent.org.

Our groups support all of your demands and deeply respect your efforts. Please keep us updated and let us know what support we can give.

In struggle,
Democracy Insurgent
International Workers and Students for Justice
For a Democratic University

UAW Resolution to support strike!

At tonight's UAW membership meeting, membership passed a resolution calling on the bargaining team to call a strike. In February, membership overwhelmingly approved a strike, but the bargaining team still has to call it for it to be official. So, the resolution below does not mean there will definitely BE a UAW endorsed strike, but it does mean that there is a strong mandate from rank and file! I am sure regardless there will be many ASE's on the picket lines Monday! Also, if you are an undergrad, ASE, or other worker, we encourage you to call the UAW office and tell them you want them to call a strike May 3rd for smaller class sizes, wage increases for TAs and RAs, re-hiring of lay-ed off tutors and writing center employees, and childcare for ASE's. Their number is (206) 633-6080 and you can also e-mail the bargaining team at uaw4121@uaw4121.org. See resolution below:

Resolution of UAW local 4121 membership calling on the bargaining committee to call a strike.
04.28.10

Whereas UAW Local 4121 and the University of Washington have been in bargaining for two months without reaching a new collective bargaining agreement;

Whereas the University of Washington has the financial resources to resolve this labor dispute while making improvements to the benefits and compensation of UAW 4121 members;

Whereas the University of Washington’s corporate benefits administrators have made profits off of UAW 4121 members by agreeing to inflated health insurance premiums in order to receive kickbacks from the health insurance carrier;

Whereas the University of Washington’s top administration payroll has only increased as vulnerable workers, such as UAW 4121 members, have been forced to shoulder the burden of budget cuts;

Whereas the Student Worker Coalition at the University of Washington has called on a strike on May 3 after the expiation of the current UAW 4121 collective bargaining agreement with the University of Washington;

Whereas the lead bargainer for the University of Washington, Lou Pisano, circulated an email calling on management to retaliate against employees participating in job actions; thereby directly attempting to silence the membership;

Whereas other campus unions, including SEIU 925 and WFSE 1488, have already passed resolutions in support of a UAW 4121 strike.

Be it resolved that the membership of UAW 4121 calls on the bargaining committee to exercise the authority granted by the membership by a vote of 90% on February 26th, 2010 to call a strike if an agreement cannot be reached with the University of Washington;

Further, the membership urges the bargaining committee to seek strike sanctions from the Martin Luther King, Jr. County Labor Council, increase grassroots efforts to organize for a strike, and continue to reach out to other local unions for support.

Letter of Support from rank and file in UAW 2865!

April 27 2010

Open Letter To the Leadership of UAW 4121:
We the members of Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (AWDU) are writing to express our wholehearted endorsement of the recent letter you received from For a Democratic University (FaDU), and to encourage you to immediately begin grassroots mobilization for a strike beginning on May 3rd. We believe that without a credible threat of a strike, the administration of the University of Washington will not agree to a fair contract.

AWDU is a recently founded organization which consists of rank and file members of UAW 2865 from the University of California. We here in California have experienced the most severe budget cuts anywhere in the country, and the damage to our university had already been considerable. As you are surely aware, students and some campus unions here at UC have been in full revolt for the entire academic year as the lowest paid employees have been laid off, classes have grown in size and been cut, and ASEs are asked to take on more work responsibilities for no additional pay. We have been following the evolving situation at UW, and understand that conditions are very similar. Indeed, the crisis of public education is a national and international phenomenon. We believe that students, workers, and especially student-workers need to be on the front lines in the struggle against the continual privatization of education. The managers of public universities around the country are increasingly swayed by the logic of the free market and wish to run education like a business. We must be unequivocal in our position that we will not accept this, and that we will fight to defend public education.

Many unions around the world have been complacent for too long, and incorrectly believed that they could merely service their membership by providing regular, if modest, increases in wages and benefits. What this crisis reveals is that if unions do not involve themselves in political fights, even the modest economic gains members have enjoyed for the past couple generations will evaporate. University administrators have been attempting to use the difficult economic situation as a scapegoat for their crisis of priorities and mismanagement of the public good of higher education. Changing this situation requires that students and workers must insist on exercising collective power in determining the structure and content of the university. We already know that the autocratic managers of the university will not listen to us unless we force them to. Since we are left with no choice, then we must use force: we must strike to make our demands heard.

We would like to second what the members of FaDU said to you in their letter. The power of the strike does not end once you go on strike. Strike mobilization does indeed build power, because when it is done in a democratic manner it empowers people to feel that they can have a say in their own lives. If grassroots mobilization is done effectively, then the actual strike can be an incredibly powerful weapon against privatization and autocratic decision making by management. Each day that we refuse to teach classes, each day that undergraduates, professors, staff and other university workers stand shoulder to shoulder with us on the picket line, our strength builds and we exact a greater symbolic and material toll on the administration.

The strike not only can help us win a better contract, but it is a method for reconfiguring power relations and therefore for democratizing the university. Democratization is the only means by which we can reconstitute the public character of the university, as management has already shown that they will push ahead with full privatization if left to their own devices.
We are in this fight together. When the call for a day of action to defend public education on March 4th grew out of a mass democratic conference here at Berkeley, we were excited to see that students and workers in Washington and around the country took it as an opportunity to take action. This of course is not a coincidence as the crisis of capitalism has affected all of us, albeit in different ways. We need to maintain our common commitment to resisting privatization and ensuring that all people in this country, regardless of race, class, or nation of origin have access to free quality public education, and that the people who make the university work have good, secure jobs and benefits. Now, the call to action has come from the students at UW, who will go on strike on May 3rd in solidarity with ASEs represented by UAW 4121. Therefore we endorse the call for immediate grassroots strike mobilization of the members of UAW 4121, and we stand in solidarity with all students and workers at UW.

In Struggle,
Academic Workers for a Democratic Union