Feature Archives

A hunger strike initiated by 44 UC students, several alumni and a professor has passed its 1-week mark. The hunger strikers are demanding that the UC Board of Regents withdraw from their contracts to operate Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories based on, “the grounds that the Reliable Replacement Warhead program and Los Alamos Labs’ ongoing preparations to conduct plutonium pit manufacturing both clearly violate Article VI of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.” The UC has been identified by the hunger strikers as a site of strategic importance in the campaign against new nuclear weapons.

The Student/Farmworker Alliance announced that May 11th and 12th would be Days of Action vs. Burger King calling on the world's #2 burger chain to take responsibility for the conditions of farmworkers in the fields. On May 11th, four students from the University of California at Santa Cruz and one loyal Burger King customer went to the Burger King on Mission Street / Highway 1 in Santa Cruz to drop off a letter to the manager calling attention to the human rights crisis in Florida's tomato fields.

On Tuesday, May 8, students from UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley occupied the UC "Anti-Poverty" Center protesting poverty wages by demanding that the UC release $8.5 million earmarked for custodians by the State Legislature. The UC administration has been holding up the money - meant for low-paid workers on 4 campuses - in an attempt to force concessions in contract negotiations. Meanwhile, The Coup's Boots Riley joined Danny Glover in boycotting UC Berkeley's graduation speech in support of the custodians' wage-parity campaign.

Palestine Awareness Week is taking place at UC Santa Cruz from May 7th through May 10th and began with a Check Point established in the Baytree Plaza. At that check point, five Palestinians were being detained for no apparent reason while two Israeli soldiers mentally and physically abused the detainees and prevented them from leaving the prison cell. One Palestinian women plead over and over to be released because she was pregnant and worried should would lose her baby.

On April 26, 2007, Danny Glover announced that he is joining with Congresswoman Barbara Lee in supporting the ongoing boycott by UC workers against UC Berkeley due to the unsolved issue of pay equity for custodians. Before the boycott began last year, custodians who clean the dorms and classrooms at UC Berkeley have been urging the Chancellor to end poverty wages. According to the Economic Policy Institute 100% of the custodians at UC Berkeley earn a wage that is below the $19.78 per hour needed to support a one parent and one child household in the East Bay.

On April 26th, students from San Francisco State walked out of classrooms to protest higher fees in education and the privatization of public education. Students first met at Malcolm X plaza and then marched towards the center of campus. More students began to file out of class and join the crowd. Later, the students went inside different buildings to encourage even more students to walk out. At the highest point of the protest there were about a thousand students marching.

On April 26th, the Stop BP-Berkeley student group opposing the $500 million dollar contract between oil giant British Petroleum and the University of California Berkeley held its first teach-in on the issues surrounding the agreement. Meanwhile, the newly-formed Phoenix coalition, which emphasizes direct action to "free the University of California," occupied a redwood tree in the heart of campus to raise awareness of the issue.