What's going on in the political arena
Petition to "Defend California's Community Colleges"
Target: California Governor Jerry Brown and California Community Colleges Board of Governors
Sponsored by: Nancy Reiko Kato, Save CCSF coalition
California’s once-great community college system, which has played a key role in providing higher education to working class communities, is being dismantled by a national corporate-funded agenda to reduce public education to mere work-force training for the sons and daughters of the 99%. The fight to preserve California Community Colleges is in solidarity with students, parents, teachers, and communities throughout the nation who are likewise fighting corporate-driven attempts to dismantle public education, including massive public school closings in Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities.
Say NO to Kaiser's price gouging!
While City Employees are using fewer medical services, Kaiser is demanding more money to protect profits!
While union members have made sacrifices to get through the Great Recession, Kaiser banked over $2 billion in profits every year from 2009 through 2012. That’s $8 billion in profits while union members, taxpayers, and residents suffer cuts in wages, benefits, and city services. The City, its employees, and taxpayers paid $87 million more than it cost Kaiser to deliver health care to members from 2010 through 2012. Now, Kaiser wants more from City of San Francisco Employees and Taxpayers!
City employee unions and the Public Employees Committee are united in opposition to Kaiser’s proposed rate hike, as well as the Mayor’s office and members of the Board of Supervisors. The City’s healthcare bill is nearly half a billion dollars annually. We can’t afford their price gouging anymore. Sign the petition and let Kaiser CEO, Bernard Tyson know that we will not let their out of control profiteering and greed continue at the expense of our health and livelihoods!
Last month, our Health Service System issued a scathing analysis that asked Kaiser to justify the proposed increase. Kaiser executives didn’t provide a single concrete answer, but are coming back to us on June 13 for more money for the 2014 plan year.
2 Ways You Can Help: Tell them to Rescind the Rate Increase!
Sign on to support the Homeowner Bill of Rights
Bank lobbyists are trying to gut the Homeowner Bill of Rights, but there's one last chance to make Democrats stand up for homeowners instead of banks. Watch the Courage Campaign video, take action, and post it on Facebook and Twitter. Then call Democratic leaders and tell them to stand with HOMEOWNERS not BANKS and support a strong Homeowner Bill of Rights.
Sign on with AFT to stop the attack on ethnic studies
In Arizona, the attacks on anything to do with immigrant rights are escalating.
First it was the “papers please” law, which allowed law enforcement agents to demand proof of immigration status from anyone they felt might be undocumented. That law drew strong condemnation from the AFT Executive Council.
Then it was State Superintendent John Huppenthal and his predecessor, state attorney general Tom Horne going after the widely admired Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Unified School district. Citing a law he was instrumental in getting passed, Huppenthal has banned MAS in the schools.
Now, Huppenthal is trying to censure the University of Arizona faculty who helped design the innovative MAS program.
An independent evaluation published by the Annenberg Institute shows the MAS program’s student-centered approach is working. Students in the MAS program far outperformed their peers on Arizona’s state standardized tests in reading (by 45 percentage points), writing (by 59 percentage points), and math (by 33 percentage points), and they enroll in post-secondary institutions at a rate of 67 percent, well above the national average.
Yet Huppenthal says such study promotes racial resentment.
Arizona faculty and professional staff are circulating a petition that calls on Huppenthal and the Arizona state legislature to cease and desist with their attacks on university faculty and to reinstate the Mexican American studies curriculum in the Tucson schools. They will deliver it June 14th.
Please join the AFT in its support of Arizona colleagues and sign on to the petition.
Support U.S. Labor Against the War
Join USLAW for a reception fundraiser at the Westin St. Francis Hotel on Union Square, San Francisco on the eve of the California Federation of Labor's Biennial Convention Monday, July 23, 2012 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The event will honor Michael Eisenscher, National Coordinator of USLAW. Michael has spent a half century fighting for workers, for peace, and for social justice. He has worked tirelessly for USLAW since its inception without recognition and with scant compensation. Without his dedication, USLAW would not exist.
Guest Speaker: Tom Ammiano, the strongest progressive voice for labor in the CA State Assembly
Register/ RSVP (use the link below) and then you will be taken to a secure payment page to make a contribution with a credit card and will find instructions for paying by check. Suggested minimum donation is $25. RSVP here and/or donate here.
Support California Higher Education -- sign on!
If our new ballot initiative passes in November, California will have $9 billion in new revenue. That's $2.1 billion more than the governor said would balance his proposed budget! But here's the problem: despite exponential increases in fees and tuition over the last 10 years, we still have no commitment from the Governor or the Legislature to reverse tuition hikes and invest in the restoration of University of California, California State University, and community colleges.
It now costs a middle-class family more to send a child to a UC or CSU than Harvard or Yale¹, and student protests against exorbitant tuition increases have been front page news for months. On March 5th, more than 10,000 students from all over the state descended on Sacramento and rallied for more funding.
How has Sacramento's responded? Published reports indicate Gov. Brown and UC officials are considering a secret deal that could raise tuition another 15% over the next four years.² In response, student organizations, labor unions, and grassroots organizers from all over the state have come together and signed an open letter demanding that Sacramento decrease tuition in the May budget.
The letter is being signed by concerned Californians all across the state, but it will be much more powerful if we can add faculty and union members like you to the list of signatories. Please join us.
What does Sacramento think is more important than lowering student tuition or restoring classes and educational services? Paying back Wall Street bondholders on an accelerated payment schedule, that's what. California's politicians have presided over an unconscionable dis-investment in public higher education. The Master Plan for Higher Education, enacted by Gov. Brown's father in 1960, launched an unprecedented economic boom in California and made it the envy of the world. Now that dream is in shambles.
Make Sacramento prioritize higher education funding.
In solidarity,
Alisa Messer
President, AFT 2121
1. http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_20101265/believe-it-harvard-cheaper-than-cal-state
March 2012 actions to defend public education and social services
Click here for links and news artcles on the March 1, March 5 and March 22 actions.
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Day of Action in SF to Stop the Federal Cuts
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Expand Social Security! No Cuts to Medicaid! Medicare for All! Hundreds of San Francisco unionists and community activists rallied and marched through the financial district on Friday, December 2nd, 2011. Check out video and AFT 2121 photos.
"State of Emergency" rally a powerful event
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Protesters converged at San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza on May 13, 2011 for the "State of Emergency" rally to protect education and public services. Thank you to all AFT 2121 members who came to support the finale to the May 9-13 "Week of Action".
Hands Across California a fun event
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Thank you to all the faculty and students who participated in this exciting event.
New Priorities Campaign
Please sign on to the New Priorities Campaign to end the wars and convert military spending to funding for human needs and the saving the environment (endorsed by AFT 2121 Delegate Assembly):
We Are One rally a success
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Thank you to all those faculty and students who turned out for the “We Are One” march and rally on April 4, 2011. Click here to check out this moving statement by Tim Paulson of the San Francisco Labor Council.
Members at simultaneous rallies in solidarity for Wisconsin
AFT 2121 members and CCSF ESL instructor Kim Lee attended the February 26, 2011 rally in Sacramento in support of Wisconsin public employees. Below are pictures taken by Kim.
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On the same day, thousands gathered in San Francisco, including AFT 2121 member Allan Fisher and AFT 2121 President Alisa Messer:
Look up California Legislation
Need help finding information on a particular bill? leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html is a website that allows access to legislation past and present.