At the U of M this fall, the best classes on economics and public policy won’t be taught in classrooms by accredited professors; they will be taught on picket lines by 3500 low-paid workers on campus, who are set to strike on Sept. 5th.

These workers are taking a courageous stand against the growing corporatization of our university that is hurting us all through huge tuition hikes, warped educational priorities and a race to the bottom for workers. We as students and fellow workers need to stand in solidarity, helping to build a huge strike support campaign!

Why a Strike?
While top U of M administrators give themselves fat pay increases, they are hypocritically demanding clerical, health-care and technical workers at the U accept a meager 2.25% wage increase. With the cost of living estimated to increase by 3.5% annually (i.e. inflation), a 2.25% raise amounts to a pay cut!

This new pay cut is just the latest attack. Wages and health benefits for U workers have been under systematic assault by the administration for years, forcing many to take second jobs, apply for food stamps, and other desperate measures to keep their kids fed and their bills paid.

“It stinks,” says Linda Kingman, 59, a secretary in the oral surgery department. “With that contract, I’ll retire when I’m 72. Shoot me now.” (City Pages, 8/29/07) Striking workers are demanding a 12% pay raise over the next two years, to keep up with future inflation and to make up for years of puny wage increases which were far outstripped by the rising cost of living.

U of M president Bob Bruininks, who makes $450,000 annually (and gets a free mansion too!) just gave himself a 17.5% raise the next two years, on top of the $100,000 increase awarded him since 2003. Patti Dion, a university spokeswoman, justifies this, explaining “employees and the University president compete in different markets.”

This mentality reveals the real problem. The University is a public land-grant institution, established to serve the people of our state, but it’s being run like a profit-hungry corporation. “The money is there, and the University has made a conscious choice,” says Phyllis Walker, president of the clerical union. “The administration chose to reward themselves with huge windfalls while keeping the frontline staff struggling to make ends meet.” (City Pages, 8/29/07)

“Strategic Positioning” or Corporate Takeover?
But rapidly rising salaries for top administrators is just a symptom of a much deeper problem. The U of M is undergoing a massive restructuring process championed by the administration as “Strategic Positioning.” Their goal: “Become one of the Top Three Public Research Universities in the World” (umn.edu/systemwide/strategic_positioning).

Behind this noble-sounding initiative, however, is one of the largest tax-payer-funded corporate welfare projects in the history of our state. For years, big corporations, particularly in agribusiness, bio-engineering, and the medical industry have been lobbying to off-load their expensive, profit-driven research needs onto the public sector; onto the U of M.

These corporate lobbying efforts have paid off big-time. Hundreds of millions of our tax money has been diverted from keeping tuition affordable, from paying workers living wages, and from developing the core educational mission of the U, into massive corporate welfare schemes aimed solely at boosting the profitability (“competitiveness”) of Corporate Minnesota.

In 2001, the Cargill Microbial and Plant Genomics Building was built largely to develop genetically modified foods. GMO’s face widespread criticism from both health and environmental experts (they are banned throughout Europe), but Cargill and other big agribusinesses stand to profit enormously from them.
The McGuire Translational Research Facility was built in 2005 in partnership with the now disgraced William McGuire, former CEO of Minnetonka-based United Health. The entire purpose of the facility is to redirect, or “translate,” primary medical research toward developing marketable products – toward the profit needs of the medical industry.

While U officials like Frank Cerra portrayed their partnership with McGuire as philanthropic, in reality this is legalized corruption. McGuire’s “generous donation” was actually an investment to ensure medical research priorities at the U were being made not by assessments of the public good, but rather by the profit needs of companies like United Health.

Shortly after the U named its building after him, it was revealed that McGuire had presided over a massive defrauding of United Health investors by back-dating hundreds of millions in stock options for his personal gain. Still, McGuire was handed $1.1 billion to resign, the largest golden parachute in corporate history!

It is fine upstanding citizens like William W. McGuire who are behind “Strategic Positioning” at the U of M. These business elites want to turn our public university into a massive corporate welfare project, while working class students, U employees, and everyone else who isn’t part of their corrupt vision, suffer the consequences.

Support the Strike!
Minnesota big business has bought and paid for the politicians of both parties who control state government, and who appoint the University Board of Regents. The Regents then hire pro-corporate administrators like Bob Bruininks to carry out their agenda.

The 3,500 striking campus workers, organized in four AFSCME unions, are on the frontlines of this corporate attack – and on the frontlines of the fight-back. Students facing tuition hikes, other public sector workers, and everyone who believes in public education must see that their fight is our fight. If Bruininks and friends defeat the strike, their confidence to press forward with tuition rises, attacks on other U workers, and bigger corporate welfare schemes will only grow.

If the strike movement wins, however, the wider struggle for living wages for all workers, alongside the struggle to keep education affordable and in the public interest, will receive a big boost. Let’s make this strike a turning point for our University. Join the strike solidarity effort, and get active in the wider struggle for a University that serves the needs of working class Minnesotans.

Socialist Alternative stands for:

• A living wage for all U of M workers. Meet AFSCME demands for a 12% pay increase over two years. Hands off AFSCME step increases.
• Permanent, automatic “Cost of Living Adjustments” which fix wage increases to inflation rates.
• Stop tuition hikes, as a first step toward free quality higher education for all who want it.
• Reverse the corporate tax cuts. Make Minnesota big business pay for living wages for all U of M employees, affordable tuition, and quality education.
• Reverse the corporate takeover. Take the U of M out of the control of the big business politicians by replacing the appointed Board of Regents with a council democratically elected from the students, faculty, and workers at the University.

Top 5 ways YOU can support the strike

• 1) Join strikers on their picket lines whenever you can
• 2) Distribute strike support fliers and petitions in your class, dorm, or workplace (get fliers at: uworkers.org)
• 3) Write a letter of support to the Daily
• 4) Ask your professors to move their classes off campus (more info: uworkers.org)
• 5) Join the solidarity email list to stay updated on rallies and other forms of support (join list at: uworkers.org)

Join the Student Strike Solidarity Committee
First public meeting
Wednesday, Sept. 5th, 7:00pm
Strike Headquarters, University Baptist Church, 1219 University Ave SE, Minneapolis

“Take back the U!”
A Peoples’ Conference: Rethinking the University of Minnesota within
the Moment of Crisis
Saturday, September 8th, 12-6pm
Strike Headquarters, University Baptist Church, 1219 University Ave SE, Mpls

Organized by a group of concerned students, this public conference in solidarity with the AFSCME strike will take the form of a series of panels in which faculty, workers, and students will discuss lessons from past struggles at the university, lessons from scholarship, and how to both rethink and remake our U of M.
More info: http://peoplesconference.googlepages.com/