CWA (Telephone) Union Fights Attacks on Teachers

Telephone Union rallies against CUTS to UC Education.

For the Week of April 11, 2011 Hundreds of thousands of workers demonstrated across the nation last Monday, April 4, on a national day of action called to support the bargaining rights and unions of workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere. For instance, thousands of chanting marchers poured into San Francisco's Financial District at rush hour, shouting "Tax the Rich! Tax the Rich!" – among them UPTE’s Nino Maida (in red t-shirt at far left). Demonstrations also took place on several UC campuses, such as this one at UCSF. From the Bay Area to Southern California, public workers have come out recently to make their voices heard. UPTE members’ photos are included in this gallery from our national union, the Communications Workers of America. Staff and faculty at the California State University system will be taking a class action on April 13 to defend bargaining rights and quality education at their 23 campuses across the state. California Senate Democrats began considering closing some UC campuses as one option if the legislature takes an “all-cuts approach” to dealing with the state’s budget deficit. Although California’s Democrats saw the hearing “as an opportunity to rally public support for raising taxes without GOP backing,” the UC system is considering worst-case scenarios. In a budget update to the UC Santa Cruz community, Provost Alison Galloway said “it will be impossible for managers to scale back their spending without laying off employees.” At UCSD, a plan to create a law school with California Western School of Law has been shelved at least temporarily. Are UC faculty deserting a sinking ship, or are these defections perfectly normal? Last week, UC Berkeley Dean of Biological Sciences Mark S. Schlissel was named the 11th provost of Brown University. And another UCB professor, mathematician Vaughan F. R. Jones, will become a distinguished professor of mathematics at Vanderbilt University beginning in fall 2011. Jeff Colvin, staff physicist and an UPTE member at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, spoke at Los Alamos National Lab last week about the effects of privatization on the labs. ____________________________________________________________________________________ The Monday Memo is edited collectively by a group of UC administrative professionals who are working for union representation with UPTE-CWA. We publish most Mondays, unless it is a university holiday, or we just need a mental health day off. We welcome your submissions, either credited or anonymous, at mondaymemo@upte-cwa.org. Please feel free to forward this memo to your colleagues. Anyone may subscribe to the Monday Memo. If you are a UC administrative professional and haven’t asked your coworkers to sign a commitment card for the union, please do so today. All administrative professionals are also welcome to become members of UPTE, with all the associated rights and benefits. Learn more about UPTE at http://www.upte.org. UPTE-CWA on Facebook

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