N.J. Students Defeat Tuition Hike, Ally with Campus Workers
by Etta Martin, Rutgers student-activist
The cost of college has risen sharply in recent years, making it much harder for young people to get access to education after high school, and making many fall back on low-level, dead-end jobs. But it wasn’t always this way. Not all that long ago, in 1996, a year at Rutgers cost only four thousand dollars, as opposed to the $12,755 it costs now.
The biggest difference is that the federal and state governments used to subsidize colleges much more, which allowed them to provide students with quality education under much less financial pressure. N.J., for instance, used to give public universities about two thirds of the cost of each student’s tuition. But from 1990 to 2009 the situation reversed: now, the state government covers only one-third of the costs, meaning that each student has to come up with the remaining two- thirds by themselves. Now, the average four-year student in America graduates $24,000 in debt.
Social programs can make higher education much cheaper, something we can access without going into debt, but an active, united student movement is the only thing that will make government officials take measures that help us, rather than helping the banks and financial institutions that profit from our debt.
To see how this can be done, let’s look at Rutgers, where a student movement recently won a major victory: a cut of hundreds of dollars from a proposed tuition hike.
Verizon Strikers Battle Phone Company and Union
New York City – After two weeks on the picket lines, the Communication Workers of America (CWA) ordered their striking members back to work at Verizon on Aug. 20—without a contract. Three members of CWA Local 1101, which covers Manhattan and the Bronx, talked about the strike at a supporters’ meeting held the same day that the union agreed for them to return to work while bargaining continued.
Discussion at the well-attended supporters’ meeting, which included workers from other New York and New Jersey unions, ranged over many issues: whether public sentiment is for or against so-called middle-class workers (those with relatively decent wages and benefits), the long-lost concept of “no contract, no work,” and whether, as a result of the massive demonstrations in Wisconsin at the beginning of this year, there is now a new dimension to “class warfare” in which private and public sector unions are linked. Private and public workers’ mutual support appears key to reversing the push to break unions and lower workers’ standard of living.
Audio: Kliman on “The ‘Stagnant Pay’ Myth & Capitalist Production”
May 12, 2011 by
MHI
Filed under
Economic Crisis
Geoffrey McDonald and Andrew Kliman gave presentations during the “Dimensions of the Crisis and Labor” panel that took place on May 8 at the Historical Materialism NYC conference. This audio recording includes their presentations as well as the stimulating and spirited discussion that followed.
Since only two papers were presented, the discussion period lasted more than an hour. The bulk of it concerned Kliman’s presentation. During his replies to questions and comments, he displayed a quotation, several graphs, and a table from his forthcoming book. The discussion period begins approximately fifty minutes after the start of the recording.
Click here to listen to the audio recording.
McDonald’s presentation was entitled “The Cry for Jobs: An Absurd and Brutal Affirmation of Labor’s Subordination to Capital.” Kliman’s presentation was entitled “The ‘Stagnant Pay’ Myth and the Persistent Frailty of Capitalist Production.” For video recordings of similar presentations by Kliman, click here or here.
Next Page »
