Feature Archives

June 19th Update: Treesitter and Indybay reporter Cricket, came down Thursday night after 3 days of fighting. He made a deal that resulted in his pictures being handed off to others who could post them to Indybay.

On Tuesday, June 17th, at least five hired contract workers arrived at 6:30am and climbed into the branches of the oak trees to take down tree-sit platforms. Around 5pm, one woman tree-sitter was taken down from a tree and arrested. Contract workers continued to take down parts of the tree-sit Wednesday and 3 protesters were arrested.

On June 2nd, the Education for Sustainable Living Program (ESLP) class at UC Santa Cruz hosted an evening entitled "The University is Unsustainable: militarism, nuclearism, corporatism and the UC." Student researchers Jono and Leah presented on UCSC's Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) while UCSC alumni Will Parrish and Darwin BondGraham focused on the University of California from 1868 to 2008, from the genocide of Indigenous Nations, the Spanish American War and the Manhattan Project, through to the present: a time of renewed nuclear-militarism and increasing corporatization and privatization of the University.

The UC Santa Cruz administration officially accepted a joint proposal of the Graduate Student Association, UAW and STIHC (Students for Trans-Inclusive Healthcare) for GSHIP (Graduate Student Health Insurance Plan) and USHIP (Undergraduate Student Health Insurance Plan) benefits. Effective this fall, GSHIP and USHIP will include a $75,000 lifetime benefit for transgender healthcare.

On June 6th, George Blumenthal was inaugurated as the 10th Chancellor of UC Santa Cruz during a ceremony on the East Field overlooking the Monterey Bay. Students and workers, organized through the Student and Worker Coalition for Justice (SWCJ) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), rallied at UCSC, marched to the Chancellor's Inauguration and blocked California Highway One during a 10-hour day of action to end poverty wages at the University of California.

UC Santa Cruz Athletic Director Linda Spradley has been faced with budget cuts and has made an executive decision to cut both men's and women's water polo. The players have been given one chance to argue against the cut and they are asking for "all of our athletic programs, friends, families, just about anybody to come rally with us." A meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday, June 4th at 5pm in Social Sciences 1, room #110.

AFSCME Local 3299's strike, planned for June 4 - 5, has been postponed indefinitely. UC hired the infamous anti-union law firm Littler Mendelson, a firm that boasts on their website about their expertise in avoiding unionization and busting unions. Suddenly, UC Executives claimed to have new proposals for AFSCME and asked for negotiations to resume -- even though they already gave AFSCME their "last, best, and final proposal." In the eyes of a Republican-dominated state labor board, these alleged new proposals were enough to overturn AFSCME's right to strike.

anarchists write, "Over the last week, we took out six surveillance cameras from the exteriors of four different buildings on the University of California in Santa Cruz campus. This was an act of rebellion to the social control in our daily lives. These cameras are the eyes of the police. This task was easy to accomplish, and would be easy for anyone to reproduce."