Report from Sacramento: Refund California and Support Peaceful Protests

The state hearing on student protests in the UC and UCSC system produced one tangible result: the promise of a follow-up hearing. Legislato...

Progressives Take on The Governor over Taxes

While Governor Jerry Brown’s recently proposed tax initiative does seek to provide $6 billion in new revenue for the state, it is being ch...

Open Letter to President Yudof

Dear President Yudof, A year ago, I told the regents that they needed to investigate recent incidents of police pepper spraying , tasering ,...

Police Violence: The New Normal in America

Recent actions by police at Occupy encampments and student protests shows what happens when state violence goes unpunished. The new normal i...

Occupy California, Refund Higher Education, and the Question of Violence (Plus Schedule of Events)

On November 15th, faculty and students at UC Berkeley will hold a one-day strike and will attempt to re-establish an Occupy Cal encampment. ...

The Master Plan In Reverse

Bob Meister from UCSC has written an excellent article on the financialization of the university and the death of the Master Plan. Meister...

UC and the 99%

My last few posts have documented the growing wage inequality in the UC system. Like the rest of America, the university is structured by a...

Wage Disparities in the Professorial Ranks

In a previous post , I presented data on wage inequality in the UC system amongst different types of high-earning employees; what I would li...

New UC Salary Data: 2010 was a Good Year for Higher Earners

New UC salary data is now available at Jeffrey Bergamini’s compensation database , and it reveals that in 2010, there were 4,237 UC employ...

Yudof’s Salary Plan: What does it Really Mean?

In August, President Yudof announced a plan for merit increases for non-represented staff making less than $200,000 and for faculty who hav...

UC Announces New Pension Rates

At the next UC Regents meeting, the Office of the President will ask the Regents to endorse new pension contribution rates. According to th...

UC-AFT Goes to Wall Street: OCCUPY and Demand

I am going to the Occupy Wall Street protests this weekend, and I hope to circulate a list of demands that a wide variety of groups and indi...

From Obama to Vanity Fair: Telling the Wrong Story

A recent Vanity Fair article , “ California and Bust,” by Michael Lewis attempts to blame the difficult financial status of many states and ...

OccupyLA Update

On October 2, 2011, John Bruning the UC-AFT Field Representative for UCLA, filed the following report: I went to the OccupyLA march to City ...

A Report from Congress and the White House

I spent September 22nd and 23rd in D.C., and I got a full dose of a city under attack from the Right and high humidity. On Thursday evening...

UC-AFT Going to the White House

I have been invited to attend a day-long meeting at the White House on September 23rd as a community leader, and while the main topic will b...

UC Might Increase Tuition 81% Over the Next Four Years

When the Regents meet September 14th, they will discuss a multiyear funding proposal that will likely result in a series of large tuition i...

The State Response to the State Audit and the Future of UC Funding

I have met recently with several legislators, the Legislative Analyst, a member of the state auditor’s team, and people from the Brown admin...

The Market and You

Since we are now all invested in the stock market, even if it is indirectly, it is important to understand certain key aspects of how Wall S...

UC Crushed by Debt Deal

The University of California will certainly be a big loser in the debt deal recently signed by President Obama. In fact, what most commenta...

The Big Audit Question

While the UC administration has tried to portray the state audit as a wasteful use of taxpayer dollars that came up with nothing important, ...

State Releases Audit of UC System

After more than a year of research and investigation, the state auditor has released her audit of the UC system. The major findings can b...

Our Irrational Higher Ed Economy

David Segal's New York Times article on the economics of law schools highlights many of the same factors that we presently see facing ...

A Tale of Two UCs

As we get ready for another large tuition increase, and we read about the elimination of several UC degree programs , the bond rating agency...

UC’s Steady Move to Privatization

At the next UC regents meeting, a proposal will be presented to increase tuition by 9.6%, which will be added to the previously accepted 8% ...

Brown Delivers a Republican Budget without Republicans

In any other year, the new budget plan supported by Governor Brown and the Democrats in the legislature would have been considered a major ...

The State of the State: A Progressive Solution

The current California budget conflict is unlike any other; not only has the governor vetoed an entire state budget for the first time in hi...

Jerry Brown’s Bad Budget Deal

It looks very possible that Governor Brown will get enough Republican votes next week to pass a state budget and put tax extensions on a spe...

More Questions and Answers Regarding the UC Budget

One of the most surprising facts that have come out of my exchanges with the budget office of UCOP is that only 38% of the cost of instructi...