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On April 14, 2005 thousands of students and workers at UC Santa Cruz shut down the campus in a coordinated statewide strike by low-paid service workers in AFSCME 3299. The strike, organized by AFSCME, clerical workers in the Coalition of University Employees (CUE), T.A.s in the United Auto Workers (UAW), students in the Student and Worker Coalition for Justice (SWCJ) and others, was one of the biggest actions UCSC has seen in recent years and led to a new, better contract for AFSCME workers within two weeks.

April 14 should be remembered as the day the university ground to a halt. It shows the power that students and workers have if they have concrete demands, solid strategies and a long-term vision for a united university run from the bottom up. April 14 was the result of years of organizing by the unions (particularly AFSCME), as well as students and a few profs engaged in labor solidarity. It shouldn't be seen as some spontaneous event, but as the product of the anger, empowerment, and hope that many in the community felt. Read More and View Photos

bigmammoth writes: The University has required all of its employes to participate in an Online Ethics Briefing. Unfortunately several of the ethics pages went missing from the official distribution. Fortunately some pages have been recovered and posted here. It would be ideal if people could email the missing ethics pages to ethics@ucsc.edu as well as share them online to ensure that future ethical briefings do not accidentally misplace these critical pages again. Read More Satire About UCSC's Online Ethics Briefing

With hundreds of students expected to protest, U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps recruiters announced on April 17th their withdrawal from the Last Chance Job Fair being held at UC Santa Cruz on April 24th. Although the law prevents schools from banning recruiters outright, UCSC students, through massive protests, have effectively prevented recruiters from operating on campus for nearly three years.

The IRS has issued a notice requiring the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz to turn over staff member Scott Kennedy's salary. Kennedy said, "The timing is auspicious during the last two weeks before Federal income taxes are due. The House of Representatives has just recommended another $100 billion for our brutal, immoral, and unwinnable war in Iraq. I won't in good conscience voluntarily pay for such madness."

Tomás writes: In the influential and time-honored book The Art of War, Sun Tzu instructs that one of the most effective methods used to defeat an enemy is to “cause division among them.” The book further instructs, “Seduce them with the prospects of gain, send interlopers in among them, have rhetoricians use fast talk to ingratiate themselves with their leaders and followers, and divide up their organization and power.” It is when the enemy is divided that it is at its weakest and susceptible to attack and defeat.

Cafeteria workers at Cal State University Monterey Bay, employees of Sodexho USA, have joined the local hotel and restaurant workers' union, UNITEHERE! Local 483. The 40-worker unit chose Local 483 through a “card check” process, similar to that outlined in the Employee Free Choice Act approved by the US House of Representatives last month. Maryland-based Sodexho USA has recognized the union and has agreed to contract bargaining at the beginning of May.

Tim Rumford writes: "It has been a sad and difficult time for me. During possibly the most important time in the war on poverty, I have had to stop the feeding program due to health reasons. I simply cannot do the physical part any longer. I am searching for help. Help comes easy, volunteers have come and gone who want to serve food, but volunteers who will really step up and pick up the food weekly and serve it is a different story.