What Next After September 24?

The September 24 University of California walkout to save public education — the biggest coordinated protest in UC history — could be a historic turning point not just for California, but for the country as a whole.

Over 5,000 students, workers, and faculty paralyzed UC Berkeley — other UC campuses held inspired walkouts and rallies with close to a thousand participants each, an impressive feat given that the 24^th was the first day of class for these schools. Excitement filled the air. A new movement was born — with momentum to spare.

But this is only the beginning of the struggle. And in order to move forward, it is first necessary to draw some lessons from what was learned on this historic day, particularly at UC Berkeley.

Lesson One: Masses of People Are Ready to Struggle

Nobody expected to see such huge numbers turn out. For many years, the cuts, fee hikes, and layoffs have been getting worse and worse, with very little resistance on campuses. The media and politicians cynically proclaimed the “death of campus activism.”

But appearances can be deceiving — anger has been building up under the surface and it exploded onto the streets on 9/24. People finally said, “Enough is Enough!” Overnight, the situation has been transformed. Now it is necessary to channel this energy and momentum into an organized mass movement capable of winning this historic struggle — and inspiring other sectors to fight back and win.

Lesson Two: Unity is Key

The power of the protests stemmed from the unprecedented unity forged between students, workers, and faculty against the UC administration and against the politicians in Sacramento. Teachers brought their classes to the rally; students stood on the picket line; workers denounced the tuition hikes.

If this struggle is to succeed, the movement will have to broaden from the UC to the CSUs, CCs, and K-12. This is the importance of the Statewide Mobilizing Conference that will take place on October 24 in Berkeley. Likewise, activists must be prepared for the attempts by the state to pit the UC (which has sufficient reserve funds to immediately stop the cuts) against other educational sectors; just as they will seek to pit some unions against other unions, workers against students, etc. “United we stand, divided we fall.”

Lesson Three: Mass Action Works

Progressive change happens when masses of people mobilize and organize independently for their demands. Indeed, the 9/24 protests did more to advance the struggle to save public education than years and years of letter writing and lobbying. Many previously apolitical students began as passive observers of the rally — but by the end of the day they were participating in a mass sit-in at the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph and chanting at the top of their lungs “Whose University? Our University!” Students and workers got a sense of their real power as the cops and administrators could literally do nothing to break up the sea of protestors.

In the face of this rally and tons of bad publicity in the media, the UC bureaucrats were put on the defensive. (Chancellor Birgeneau’s post-walkout press release sought to save face by — falsely — claiming that the protest was solely directed at Sacramento, while in reality one of the most popular chants was “Lay off (UC President) Yudof!”)

Lesson Four: Liberalism and Ultraleftism are Dead Ends

Clearly, mass action works and needs to be deepened — yet there are already forces trying to push the movement in a different direction. The liberals and administrators are (yet again) pushing for more letter-writing and lobbying. Gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsome came out in support of the walkout, cynically aiming to channel this energy into the Democratic Party.

But the Democrats are just as responsible as the Republicans for the cuts, as Professor Mike Davis recently noted: “Here you have the governor and his gang of Republicans, and they're holding the people captive and threatening to shoot them one by one unless their demands for budget cuts and a new stage of Republican fiscal revolution occurs. And on the other hand, you have the leadership of the Democratic Party in Sacramento saying, ‘Oh no, don't shoot all the passengers, just shoot half the passengers.’”

On the other hand, some impatient ultra-left students are already arguing that the movement has to move on to “more militant tactics” such as occupations (by small groups of radicals). While the tactic of a mass occupation could be useful in the future, minority “direct actions” at this early point are at best a distraction and, at worst, a pretext for the administrators and police to repress the movement and scare people off from getting involved.

The bizarre politics of the ultra-left forces was best summed up by the following statement that came out of the UCSC occupation: “We do not seek structural reforms. We demand not a free university but a free society. A free university in the midst of a capitalist society is like a reading room in a prison.” But all activists with at least one foot in reality know that the path to a “free society” passes through building a grassroots resistance movement today to defend public education.

Lesson Five: A Mass Democratic Movement is Needed

The most important political development at UC Berkeley is the creation of a space for students, workers, and faculty to democratically and directly control their movement: the mass General Assemblies. At these huge open meetings every person has the right to vote and voice, enabling unity to be forged between different sectors and allowing more and more individuals to be drawn into the movement. Proposals for how to move the struggle forward are debated passionately and openly — and then voted on.

It is crucial that other campuses organize General Assemblies ASAP — and that the General Assembly process at UCB be defended against the attacks of the ultra-lefts (who effectively broke up the end of the 9/24 assembly by trying to impose an occupation on it without allowing for a vote by the body) and against the forces tied to the administration, who will do everything to sabotage this emerging power of direct democracy, which challenges the legitimacy of our supposed representatives in the administration and state government.

What Next?

The crucial next step is to build and ensure the success of the October 24^th Mobilizing Conference at UC Berkeley.  As the call for the conference states, “We have the power to stop the catastrophic budget cuts, fee hikes, and layoffs — but to save public education in California requires coordinating our actions on a state-wide level.”

Socialist Organizer believes the October 24^th Conference should call for a education strike in the Spring because, as we put in the flier S.O. distributed by the thousands on 9.24:

“Nothing short of a state-wide strike and walkout of students, workers, and faculty at all UC’s, CSU’s, and Community Colleges, will be enough to force the corrupt bureaucrats and corporate politicians to retreat from their drive to destroy public education. No university can function without the teachers, students, and workers. We make these institutions run — and we can shut them down until our just demands are met. Organizing such a strike will not be easy — but it is necessary.

Our message is simple: No Cuts or Fee Hikes! Education is a Human Right! We demand quality education not just for the wealthy and privileged, but for working-class students, students of color, and AB540 students, who are the first to be affected by these budget cuts. The money exists to save education: the “budget crisis” is, in reality, a priorities crisis of the powers-that-be in this state.

There are many alternatives to the cuts: UC Regent and CSU Trustee executive salaries could be slashed immediately; new building construction and other non-essential projects could be put on hold; reserve funds could be used; the rich could be taxed their fair share; Obama’s bailout money and/or war spending could go to saving state services; Proposition 13 could be reformed; oil corporations could be taxed for oil drilling; prison funding could be reallocated to schools; etc.”

We encourage all students and workers who agree with this perspective to contact us to join Socialist Organizer in pushing forward this historic struggle.