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On February 20th, the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers (PVFT) Negotiating Team met with the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD). Later that day, teachers and students rallied at the plaza in Watsonville in support of a fair and honest contract and to educate parents and the community about potential cuts to classroom services.
After a year and a half of bargaining, custodians, gardeners, food service workers and drivers organized through the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299 voted to accept a historic agreement with the University of California (UC). This new agreement includes wages increases over five years of 4%, 3%, 3%, 3%, and 3%. UC service workers will have a state wide minimum wage that reaches $14.00/hour by the end of the contract.
On Thursday, February 12th, scientists, educators and students will observe a worldwide celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Robert Darwin. Darwin's insight that all biological species have evolved from common ancestors through natural selection, which he first discussed in his monumental book On the Origin of Species in 1859, and then expanded upon 12 years later in The Descent of Man, has become a cornerstone of modern biology.
The small town of Carpinteria, California is the latest battleground in Native Americans’ fight against racism. The controversy over a supposedly “harmless” high school sports mascot has alienated the Native American population of Carpinteria, who have come to fear violent reprisals from the non-Native community.
Teachers for Class War is back on the air at 101.1 FM, and have uploaded their most recent two shows. On January 26th the Maestr@s, hosts of 'Teachers For Class War,' interviewed Genevieve Siegel-Hawley of the Civil Rights Project about school segregation in the 21st Century. On February 2nd they spoke with George Ciccariello-Maher about the police murders of Gary King Jr. and Oscar Grant, and the community response in the East Bay.
On January 16th, 60 University of California (UC) service workers and at least ten UC student supporters from at least five UC campuses stormed the San Francisco offices of UC Board of Regents Chairman Richard Blum at his company, Blum Capital, on Montgomery St. Chanting, singing and posting images and words of impoverished UC service workers on the walls, they occupied Blum's office to ask that he and UC President Mark Yudof "agree to end poverty wages at UC."
From the open publishing newswire: "That's how the corporate university works. It's because of the licensing of bovine growth hormone (rBGH) by the UC system (human growth hormone is also a UC patent). In the past (before Bayh-Dole in 1980), any company that wanted to use the results of academic research for their business could - but with Bayh-Dole came the exclusive licensing of patents to private industry, for which the UC gets a little cut, as do the professors who created the patent - at taxpayer expense."