California Students Union

[Geiseric]

I'm not sure if you've heard yet, but I and about 100 other activists just had the 2nd California Students Union conference in Berkeley. Things in the next few years are going to get rough, at least if we have anything to say about it. We had a profoundly productive meeting from 9-6, and decided on some basic things such as the structure, and some other fundamental questions. However most of the organization will be figured out as we put the plan into action. If anybody is in California, I beseech you to take part! It isn't just a bunch of white marxist nerds involved, this has huge real life potential. My prediction is a quebec size strike in the next two years. It's either that or the end of public education as we know it.

[Rusty Shackleford]

i wanted to go to it but i went to the MEChA statewide for a bit instead since its closer and had things going on in sac in the morning. how was it?

[Prometeo liberado]

I know a few people involved at Santa Monica City College and Cal State Northridge and have heard the rumblings for the past few months. It's good to see that there is such a preemptive attitude within the SU. Y'all are doing some very good and important agitating, hats off to you. :thumbup1:

[Ostrinski]

As MRN would say quite awkwardly, "mad props bro."

[Geiseric]

Well yeah, we're totally fucked in the long run if we don't get off our red asses and start using our noggins and loud mouths.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I went to the one in Santa Monica last academic year but not the recent one (i had another event to go to on that day), and I'm completely supportive of this effort. I'm sure good things will come of it as long as the people at a sufficient number of universities in the state remain supportive. We have a long road ahead to build anything like the Quebec-style student movement, but it's necessary to save one of the few public assets in the state which remains intact - the public university system (which has been getting increasingly corporate/neoliberal, expensive and conservative over the years as the state government has been forcing "reforms" on the universities).

[Comrade Jandar]

I'm not sure if you've heard yet, but I and about 100 other activists just had the 2nd California Students Union conference in Berkeley. Things in the next few years are going to get rough, at least if we have anything to say about it. We had a profoundly productive meeting from 9-6, and decided on some basic things such as the structure, and some other fundamental questions. However most of the organization will be figured out as we put the plan into action. If anybody is in California, I beseech you to take part! It isn't just a bunch of white marxist nerds involved, this has huge real life potential. My prediction is a quebec size strike in the next two years. It's either that or the end of public education as we know it.


If that's the case then I have no interest.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

How is everyone in your group on direct actions and the mechanics of protest and propaganda? If you believe any are "less than knowledgeable" I would initiate a series of tutorials on the basics of such activities once you have the group structure in place.

[KurtFF8]

The student union in California was brought up at least once or twice at this fantastic panel on student activism at CUNY last week:

http://pcp.gc.cuny.edu/2012/10/video-student-leaders-speak-out-with-camila-vallejo-and-noam-titelman/

[Le Socialiste]

I had to leave the conference early, but there were 65-75 attendees max. That's still a good number though, considering the lull we're currently in. Our main priorities, as I see it, are: 1) to link up the southern and northern student bodies so that we're coordinating and communicating over actions, proposals, and events, and 2) making the case as to the centrality of anti-racism organizing. That last point was acknowledged, thankfully, and passed as a proposed mandate. But folks should be clear - there is no union just yet. Everything's in a relatively crude and formative phase of transition, and we have a long way to go. As one comrade noted: "this'll probably take longer than we acknowledge, maybe 3, 5, even 7 years." We should be prepared for that, as there isn't a culture of student unionism in the U.S. We're essentially starting from scratch, and we should approach everything related to this project accordingly.

[Geiseric]

This can't take 3-5 years. Damian went over a great point, that we need to do this, now, not later. We need to make this thing and organize a fightback before jerry brown and those dirtbags completely gut the education system. it's already happening at CCSF, and there is no movement against it.

We can't be pessimistic if we want to inspire people to get into this union, we need to have an attitude that pushes the entire thing forward.

I was very happy though that we had the discussion about including fighting racism in the mandate, that was a very important vote. It was nearly unanimous as well, so I was happy about that. The issue about dues however, I wasn't so happy about. We need to abide by majority rule. We voted on not discussing it, a majority passed it, so we should move on. I could of interjected when everybody voted on giving non students voting rights, and talked for an hour how that was a dumb decision, but I didn't.

[Le Socialiste]

We can't control the time and happening of events; at best we can only strive to shape them. We can't adequately predict how and when things will turn to our advantage, but in the meantime we must begin laying a base that is capable of responding to and building off of future struggles and movements. As for the "it'll take years" thing, let's be realistic. We might need a union now, but realistically it just can't happen. You can't will something of that importance and magnitude into existence - it's going to take some time. I agree that we need to do this now; that's why we're trying to build a student union that is able to strike and bargain over student's needs and demands. But it's going to be over a lengthy period of time. It's certainly not going to happen in a year, much less two (unless something like Occupy or something similar happens, propelling the student population toward student unionism).

[barbelo]

That feel when I sadly don't live in sunny and beautiful California :'(
I envy all you american guys.