Feature Archives

The Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival takes place each year in California's central coast communities in and around Santa Cruz. Reel Work presents cultural events, bringing together award-winning documentary film producers, workers, activists, students, and the public with the goal of increasing community awareness of the central role of work in our lives, to discuss economic and global justice issues, and to bring alive the history and culture of the labor movement in the US and abroad.

Mike Eli writes about the mine blast at Massey’s Upper Big Branch: "I have (as you can imagine) watched the coverage of Upper Big Branch closely... But if you had sat alongside me listening to those news report, you would not have known what every single miner in southern West Virginia knows: Massey was the national flagship of union breaking."

On April 7th, UC Santa Cruz issued a statement that the undergraduate Community Studies major has been suspended. The suspension restricts new admission to the major for at least two years. Professor and Department Chair B. Ruby Rich notes that, "Community Studies has roots back to the early days of [UC Santa Cruz] and a devoted following among students, alumni, and community organizations." In an interview with campus radio station KZSC, Community Studies Lecturer & Field Study Coordinator Mike Rotkin stated, "I don't want to be cynical, but there's been a number of programs that have been put on suspension in the past, none of them have ever come back."

On March 29th, Teachers for Class War interviewed students and teachers marching up the Central Valley from Bakersfield to Sacramento. They are making their voices heard to protect funding for public education in California, from kindergarten through university. The Teachers spoke with Jenn, Manny, Clay, Naomi, and Jose about why they're marching.

On March 9th at Golden Gate National Recreational Area's Fort Baker in Marin County, nearly one hundred UC service workers, students and supporters from UCB, UCSF, UCSC, and UC Davis entered the hired meeting space of Blum Capital Partnership, the Cavallo Point Lodge, and picketed the street in front. Richard Blum is a UC regent and the husband of California Senator Diane Feinstein.

On March 1st, hundreds of MUNI workers from TWU Local 250-A, riders, and community organizations rallied and marched in downtown San Francisco to oppose the MTA's proposed budget cuts and threatened layoffs. The march began at Powell and Market and went to the MTA offices, and then to City Hall for a forum led by union organizer Eric Williams, who called for unity between MUNI workers and riders.

On Monday through Thursday, February 8-11, UCSC staff and students will hold demonstrations at a different dinning hall for each of the four days, from 11:30am-1:30pm to protest the rising cost of student fees while student services are being slashed; major cuts to labor time while forcing workers to perform more labor; and workers, being rushed through their shifts, aren’t able to thoroughly clean dining halls, resulting in unsanitary eating commons and an unsafe working environment.