From the Academic Student Employee union (UAW #2865) at UC Davis:

As an important step toward winning our bargaining demands for improved workload protections, UAW 2865 members around the state are having a grade-in/tutor-in during finals week.  Our action will demonstrate to the University of California just how much work it takes to ensure the students at UC Davis get the quality education they deserve. Come out and show your support for increased workload protections while you get your work done.

WHO: All TAs, Graders, Tutors and Grad Students
WHAT: Grade-in/Tutor-In
WHERE: Memorial Union Patio
WHEN: Tuesday, June 12, 11:30am – 1pm

As contract negotiations have progressed, the administration has stalled having any serious discussion over workload.  As enrollment has steadily increased statewide, class and section sizes have ballooned, creating more work for Teaching Assistants, Tutors, and Readers. When we are overworked we cannot provide quality education to our students and we are slower to advance in our academic careers.  We are faced with pressure to speed up our work and do more with less. Employees want increased workload protections that would give the union a say over class and section size.

The Union has made several proposals to proactively prevent overworking that have not been addressed by the administration.  In addition to negotiating with UC administration over class and section sizes, TAs Tutors, and Readers also want to win the right to arbitrate over workload.  With the current contract, academic student employees cannot take workload grievances to arbitration, which means any workload disputes are settled by an internal university board rather than a neutral arbitrator.

We need to show the administration that the issue of workload is important to us and remind them how crucial our work is for the quality of education at the University of California.  Bring any exams or papers you need to grade or hold outdoor office hours/tutoring sessions and help send a strong message to the administration that they must address this key issue.

Grading makes finals week a crazy time of year for grad students who tutor or TA undergraduate classes, but most of the time the time that we put into that work is invisible to both the undergraduate students and the univeristy administration. The larger the section and the greater the workload, the harder it gets to do that grading to the best of one’s ability, and everyone on campus ends up losing as a result. As a way of raising the visibility of this critical work, and demonstrating to the administration that we are not just going to be pushovers in the rest of our contract negotiations this summer and into next fall quarter, please show up and get some grading done out on the MU patio. Similar events will be scheduled at the other quarter-based UC campuses, please feel free to post info in the comments.

This looks like a lot of fun, and a creative sort of protest to boot. See you all there!

originally at surf putah

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UPDATE The grade-in/tutor-in had a pretty good turnout for a finals week at noon (several TAs were busy proctoring final exams, and couldn’t make it), between 20 and 30 from my count, grading together on tables in the shade. The Enterprise had a reporter and photographer there interviewing some of the workers, and a fair number of curious undergraduates stopped by and wanted to know what was going on. All in all, a good way to get some visibility, and it beat grading in the office!

Here are a couple of pictures of the grade-in:

Sign 1: “Our Working Conditions =Student Learning Conditions”

Sign 2: “Education Without Exploitation”

A Teaching Moment:

ASE Graders At Work:

Today is May 1st, otherwise known as May Day, known both for the Pagan spring festival involving flowery doorbell ditching and dancing merrily around ribboned maypoles, and the International Labor Day that was spawned by America’s own Haymarket Riot which began as a strike in support of the right to an 8 hour workday (and which was subsequently crushed by Chicago police) on May 1, 1886.

Last year, the widespread Immigrant Rights marches and boycotts on May 1st added another layer to this holiday palimpsest, and they’re going for a repeat this year. The agenda of the marchers is based around ten points:

1) No to anti-immigrant legislation, and the criminalization of the immigrant communities.

2) No to militarization of the border.

3) No to the immigrant detention and deportation.

4) No to the guest worker program.

5) No to employer sanction and “no match” letters.

6) Yes to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

7) Yes to speedy family reunification.

8) Yes to civil rights and humane immigration law.

9) Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers.

10) Yes to the education and LGBT immigrant legislation.

Students will be walking out of classes and marching at high schools and colleges across the country. Duke1676 over at Migra Matters has a list of all national May 1st events. The Yolo County contingent will be rallying on UCD campus, at the MU flagpole. From Davis wiki’s May 1st page:

UC Davis Campus, Memorial Union Patio
11-12:00 – Rally at MU patio with musicians and performers
11:30 am – Solidarity Walk Out. Congregate at MU patio
12:00 pm – March

Elsewhere in the Central Valley, there are events in Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, and Chico, and probably more that I’m missing. To show solidarity, wear white or green (why those colors? beats me).

Predictably, the UCD Campus Republicans will be up to their usual xenophobic race baiting by playing “INS and illegals capture the flag” on the quad at the same time.

And if all this wasn’t enough excitement in town, the Department of Homeland Security is holding a town hall meeting on UC Davis campus, in Freeborn Hall from 10am to 2pm, about provisions in the Real ID Act. If that’s not convenient for you, I suspect that’s intentional; the announcement just went out last week. From the announcement in the Enterprise (whose website has been down all day, or I’d link it), this is the only  public hearing in the country on this provision. Why they held it in Davis is a mystery to me, but go out there and give ’em a peice of your mind. If you can’t get there in person, it will be streaming video at this site. The Washington State and Montana legislatures have opted out of the ID program, citing serious privacy issues. The ACLU has a whole list of good questions to ask:

1. What privacy protections, if any, are in place for all the documentation the DMV has to scan to verify our identity in order to receive a REAL ID card?

2. Who is going to pay for REAL ID implementation? How much do you think the citizen’s of this country are going to have to pay to get a REAL ID?

3. What will you do to help protect the identity of victims of domestic violence who do not want to use their street address on their Identification card for safety purposes?

4. In the Regulations that were published on REAL ID, it states that “third-parties” will be in charge of scanning driver’s data for verification purposes.  Why have you not articulated the privacy protections needed to make sure the scanned data is safe from identity thieves within the third parties?

5. Will wait times at DMV’s decrease with the implementation of REAL ID?  Will I be able to walk out of the DMV with my REAL ID on the same day I apply for it and if not, how do you suppose I get to work?  Is the federal government going to reimburse me for cab rides to work and back?

6. Why is DHS not requiring the data on REAL ID to be encrypted so that Americans are protected from our data being stolen and sold to the private sector?

7. Isn’t the likelihood of identity theft exponentially increased when DMV employees will have access to the records of all REAL ID holders throughout the country?

8. The regulations state that securing private databases must be part of state physical security measures, so why hasn’t the DHS articulated specifically how states will secure this information?

9. How will state laws be affected by REAL ID implementation? For example in CA, DMV’s are supposed to destroy all records no longer needed to issue a license.  Will the state of California have to amend this important law in order to be in compliance with REAL ID?

10.  Is there an appeals process if there are mistakes made on my REAL ID? 

11. How is requiring my full legal name on all the documents I need to get a REAL ID going to prevent another 9/11?  What if my birth certificate has my middle name, but my passport, marriage license, and social security card has only my middle initial; will I be denied a REAL ID?

12. Why is the DHS moving forward with requiring verification of all these different forms of data when there are no reliable verification databases in place now?

13. How does storing all the scanned data forever help fight terrorism? (DMV’s will be required to scan and save all birth certificates, naturalization papers, Social Security cards and other forms of ID in order to issue a driver’s license.)

14. How will REAL ID respect on people’s 1st Amendment rights when it requires everyone getting a REAL ID to take a picture?  There are many religions that are practiced by Americans and Legal Permanent residents that prohibit their picture being taken.

15. If someone doesn’t have a REAL ID and must access a courthouse, how will that person be able to get in and exercise his or her due process rights?

16. Montana and Washington states have opted out of REAL ID.  Doesn’t this cast doubt on the entire REAL ID law?  Why should California pay so much money for a program whose future is in serious doubt?

To which I would add, after all the abuses of power using National Security excuses as carte blanche to rifle through the American people’s private records, why the hell should we trust you now with a national ID card and a unified federal database of our information? Or as Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer put it:

“No. Nope. No way and hell no.”

originally at surf putah