UCSC Rallies for 'Wages Not War!'

On Thursday, February 15, hundreds of students and workers at UC Santa Cruz joined more than two dozen schools across the nation in taking action against war. Locally, this meant calling for a reprioritization of resources to focus on the needs of low-paid service workers rather than on weapons development and war. Poverty-struck workers in the UC system have been promised and allocated money by both the CA state legislature and the UC system itself, yet UC President Robert Dynes has refused to release this money as a way of forcing worker concessions on pensions and other benefits. Meanwhile, Dynes and the UC Regents have not hesitated to bloat their own salaries and push for continued UC management of the nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore.

On the same day, hundreds rallied while 60 students and workers from all over the UC system joined AFSCME 3299 in being arrested in an act of civil disobedience outside the UC Office of the President (UCOP) in Oakland. With increased pressure, workers hope to force Dynes to release the money their families need to survive.