For additional background information

BFA faculty caught up with the marchers while they were stopped for lunch in Pinole and marched with them for a couple hours.

The Daily Cal has coverage of the second day of the 99 mile march and the faculty participation in it: “Day 2 of the ’99 Mile March for Education and Social Justice.’”

Approximately two dozen UC Berkeley faculty will join the “99 Mile March for Education and Social Justice” on Friday, March 2^nd.   The march departs Oakland on Thursday, March 1^st, and will arrive inSacramento on Monday March 5th for a rally on behalf of public education at theStateCapitolBuilding.

UC Berkeley faculty will join the march on Friday afternoon to walk the stretch fromRichmondtoVallejo.    “We are marching to draw attention to the plight of public education inCaliforniaand to implore Californians to re-invest in it,” said Berkeley Faculty Association Co-Chair and Professor of Political Science Wendy Brown.  “For all its resources, innovation and wealth,Californiahas sunk to nearly the bottom of the nation in per student spending, and our public higher education system, once the envy of the world, is in real peril.”

On Monday, March 5^th, UC faculty from several northernCalifornia campuses will join students, parents, workers, teachers and administrators from all sectors ofCalifornia public education for a rally at theCapitolBuilding inSacramento.   According to Richard Walker, Professor of Geography and Co-Chair of the Berkeley Faculty Association, “we are going to the Capitol because re-funding public education is urgent, not only for reasons of equal opportunity and human development but because universal access to high quality education reduces the need for prisons, policing, welfare, and a range of other expensive social services.”

Brown agreed, “first-rate and widely accessible public education was the engine of this state for half a century….cutting that engine now is pure folly.”

The March 1^st-5^th “Days of Action on Behalf of Public Education” are endorsed by the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA), the umbrella body for Faculty Associations on individual UC campuses.

For information about UC faculty participation in the 99 Mile March or the Rally at the Capitol, contact:

Eric Hays (staff): 916-502-6804; info@cucfa.org

Richard Walker (faculty):   510 295-3108; walker@berkeley.edu

Wendy Brown (faculty):   510 703-6513;  wlbrown@berkeley.edu

We call on all students, teachers, workers, and parents from all levels of education —pre-K-12 through higher education in public and private institutions— and all Occupy assemblies, labor unions, and organizations of oppressed communities, to mobilize on March 1st, 2012 across the country to tell those in power: The resources exist for high-quality education for all. If we make the rich and the corporations pay we can reverse the budget cuts, tuition hikes, and attacks on job security, and fully fund public education and social services.

We have the momentum, the numbers, and the determination to win. Education is not for sale. Let’s take back our schools. Let’s make history.

For more information click here to go to Occupy Education California web page or you can find out more on the facebook page here.

For reportage on the meeting and the vote, see:
Daily Cal
Contra Costa Times
The Nation

The Council of UC Faculty Associations, on behalf of all UC faculty, is making a petition supporting OWS available for UC faculty to sign.

We urge you to read the petition and support it by clicking here.

This petition was originally developed by faculty at Columbia and Barnard. For an excellent short article on this growing movement and how it relates to higher education, read Prof. Jonathan Cole’s post about OWS on the Huffington Post, which is linked here.

WBrown-UC Cybercampus Loan.4-18-11

Crane is outspoken opponent of public sector unions. He recently published an inflammatory editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle attacking collective bargaining rights for public employee unions, couching these rights as threats to public higher education and good governance.

You can read and sign the petition here

Please sign and distribute widely.

Chris Rosen, co-Chair of BFA

P.S. Senator Ted Lieu’s excellent rebuttal of David Crane

Senator Ted W. Lieu (D-Torrance), Chair of the Labor and Industrial
Relations Committee, released the following statement regarding the
confirmation of University of California Regent David Crane:

I actively oppose the confirmation of David Crane as a UC Regent. I
read Mr. Crane’s Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle in which he argues
for the elimination of collective bargaining for public sector
employees. I cannot support someone for the powerful post of UC Regent
who continues to perpetuate the myth that collective bargaining caused
our state economic crisis and has a fundamental misunderstanding of how
our state budget operates.

In his Op-Ed, titled “Should Public Employees Have Collective
Bargaining”, Mr. Crane argues that because of collective bargaining,
“general fund spending on higher education, parks and environmental
protection was flat or lower.” As a matter of historical fact, that is
false. Our general fund spending generally declined because of a
national economic recession. The recession was not caused by collective
bargaining or public sector unions, but by private sector, out of
control Wall Street firms at the time.

The specific reason our general fund spending sharply declined was
because the person Mr. Crane advised, former Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger, reduced the Vehicle License Fee and replaced it with . .
. nothing. As a result, the state general fund lost over $5 to $6
billion in revenues per year for every year Mr. Schwarzenegger was in
office. The VLF reduction has resulted in a total loss of over $30
billion to the state, an amount in excess of the current California
budgetary shortfall. How conveniently Mr. Crane forgot to mention that
critical fact when it doesn’t suit his ideological assault on public
sector unions.

Now that Mr. Crane senses his confirmation may be in jeopardy, he
attempts to marginalize his own Op-Ed by releasing a new statement
saying he really didn’t mean to attack all public sector unions, just
those who happen to have statutory civil service protections. For those
in Ivory Towers that distinction may have some academic meaning, but for
everyone else in the real world that is a distinction without a
difference. Civil Service protections do not prevent employees from
being terminated or laid off, they provide standards for government to
follow when firing or disciplining employees. Such protections do not
guarantee appropriate wages or benefits, nor address a plethora of other
issues, such as workforce safety issues.

Mr. Crane’s Op-Ed also discusses political spending by public sector
unions. In his world view, political spending by the California
Teachers Association is inappropriate, but the massive political
spending by the Koch Brothers would presumably be acceptable.
I cannot, and will not, support someone for the post of UC Regent who
blames public sector employees, such as teachers, for somehow being
responsible for our economic crisis or the resulting decline in general
fund spending. We need UC Regents who are interested in solving
problems, not those who twist historical facts to suit an ideological
agenda.

Originally posted at http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&aid=4613&ptid=9