Category Archive

I was on KDVS radio last night, out of UC Davis, for an hour. Host Ed Martin and I talked about the history of student activism, campus radio, the privatization of public higher education, British fee protests, Wisconsin, Egypt, comparisons between Wisconsin and Egypt, the crisis at the University of Puerto Rico, prospects for mobilization on March 2, and a whole lot more.

You can listen to the show here.

As everyone knows by now, the Democrats in the Wisconsin state senate took a powder yesterday, fleeing the state to deny the body a quorum and force a pause in Governor Scott Walker’s plan to eviscerate the state’s public employee unions. Early yesterday evening the senate’s Reupublican leadership bowed to reality and put the senate into recess for the night.

Here’s the latest:

Wisconsin’s Dem state senators are still AWOL in Illinois, but Jesse Jackson made an appearance today in the capitol rotunda, addressing the crowd of activists who have packed the building in recent days. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka also addressed the crowd.

The head of the state’s largest public employees union offered to compromise on benefits if Walker would back down on the union-busting component of the bill. Walker quickly rejected the proposal.

Milwaukee teachers staged a sick-in today, closing the city’s schools for the first time since the current crisis began. Madison’s schools were closed today for the third day in a row.

United Council, the Wisconsin statewide student group, said 11,000 UW students from across the state would be converging on Madison for an afternoon rally.

Update | Wow. Republicans in the state assembly just tried to pass the budget bill while most of the chamber’s Democrats were off the floor — apparently by starting the meeting earlier than scheduled and rushing through the preliminary steps. Democrats stormed into the room moments before passage, and managed to get the clock rolled back to the beginning of the process. The Assembly then abruptly adjourned until next Tuesday.

The Wisconsin budget bill is moving toward a vote in the state senate this afternoon, having passed in a party-line vote in that body’s budget committee late last night.

University of Wisconsin officials are pledging to keep the system’s campuses open today in the face of a planned walkout by faculty and students. Here’s an editorial from the University of Wisconsin Badger Herald supporting the walkout.

Public schools in Madison, Wisconsin’s capital, are closed for the second straight day today as teachers stage an ongoing sick-out. The closure has spread to more than a dozen districts in the capital region since yesterday.

A number of small changes were made to the bill yesterday, but none touched the core complaints that demonstrators have. Republican leaders say they have the votes in hand to pass the legislation in both houses today.

More to come…

Update | Organizers claim thirty thousand people joined yesterday’s protests.

Three days after Friday’s surprise resignation of the president of the University of Puerto Rico, Governor Luis Fortuño finally bowed to a key student demand and pulled police from the university’s campuses.

Students have been protesting fee hikes and other university policies for a year, with the Fortuño administration launching a major crackdown about two months ago. More than two hundred activists have been arrested since, and clashes between cops and demonstrators have grown steadily more violent. In recent weeks, reports of police harassment and molestation of female protesters have also begun to mount.

Last Wednesday, faculty declared a 24-hour strike in support of the students, a strike which was later extended to a second day. On day two of the strike, UPR President Ramón De La Torre resigned, effective immediately, giving no advance notice.

Acting President Miguel Muñoz said yesterday that he may ask the governor to return police to the campus if coming negotiations with protesters break down.

Protests against a proposed Wisconsin state budget that would slash faculty pay, eliminate university unions, and dramatically scale back other state employees’ collective bargaining rights continue to heat up today, as Governor Scott Walker tells the Associated Press that he has the votes to pass his bill.

Highlights of the last 24 hours’ developments:

• As many as ten thousand activists demonstrated against the governor’s plan at the state capitol yesterday.

• A state senate committee hearing on the bill dragged on until the early hours of this morning, with citizen testimony continuing even after Republican members of the committee finally went home at three o’clock.

• Several hundred demonstrators remained in the capitol rotunda all night long — some waiting to speak at the hearing, others just occupying the space. Many brought pillows and blankets with them, and a local pizza place made a late-night contribution of provisions.

• The Madison school district closed all of its schools today after some 40 percent of its teachers failed to show up — union officials had encouraged their membership to call in sick and participate in today’s protests.

• Governor Walker claimed this morning that he has the votes in hand to pass his proposal, though the Washington Post reported that there were signs in his party that support might be softening. A vote could come as soon as tomorrow.