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The Fiscal Crisis Of The Campus: The View From California, R. Jeffrey Lustig

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

The significance of the disinvestment in American baccalaureate, Ph.D. and community college institutions in recent years can hardly be exaggerated. The quandary posed by the attendant reduced funding goes beyond issues of crowded classrooms and dilapidated facilities; ultimately it questions whether our higher education will continue to be a gateway to equality and guarantor of opportunity, a path to broader horizons for citizens—or if it will be transformed into a bulwark of social inequality and vehicle for narrow vocational instruction.

Determining how to successfully grapple with this decline in funding is hindered, however, by the ways in which policy-makers and …

The Fiscal Crisis Of The Campus: The View From California, R. Jeffrey Lustig

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Over the last generation, state governments have undertaken a major disinvestment in higher education. The questions raised by these funding reductions go beyond matters of crowded classrooms, dilapidated facilities, and altered pedagogies to challenge the basic function of college and university education in the United States. Will higher education continue to be the gateway to equality and provider of broad horizons for citizens, or will it be transformed into a bulwark of social privilege and narrow conveyor of vocational skills for private consumers? These are the ultimate questions posed by the funding priorities of the state legislatures in America today.

California Farmworkers’ Strikes Of 1933, Kate Bronfenbrenner

Kate Bronfenbrenner

[Excerpt] The spring of 1933 ushered in a wave of labor unrest unparalleled in the history of California agriculture. Starting in April with the Santa Clara pea harvest, strikes erupted throughout the summer and fall as each crop ripened for harvest. The strike wave culminated with the San Joaquin Valley strike, the largest and most important strike in the history of American agriculture. All told, more than 47,500 farmworkers participated in the 1933 strikes. Twenty-four of these strikes, involving approximately 37,500 workers, were under the leadership of the Communist-led Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU). In a dramatic reversal …

Imperial Valley, California, Farmworkers’ Strike Of 1934, Kate Bronfenbrenner

Kate Bronfenbrenner

[Excerpt] In early November 1933, organizers from the Communist-led Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU) returned to the Imperial Valley, where just four years before their first strike among California's agricultural workers had ended in a swift and inglorious defeat. Now they returned to the valley, fresh from their strike victories in the fall fruit harvest campaign, confident that the time was now ripe to bring unionization to the Imperial Valley lettuce fields. Conditions in the valley in November 1933 certainly appeared more conducive to the CAWIU's success. Wages for lettuce workers were as low as ten cents an …

Imperial Valley, California, Farmworkers’ Strike Of 1930, Kate Bronfenbrenner

Kate Bronfenbrenner

[Excerpt] On January 1, 1930, several hundred Mexican and Filipino lettuce workers in Brawley, California, walked off their jobs in a spontaneous protest against declining wages and intolerable working conditions. In less than a week they were joined by 5,000 other field workers, and the impromptu walkout of Imperial Valley lettuce workers turned into a serious strike, ushering in a decade of farmworker militancy that sent tremors throughout California's powerful agricultural establishment.

Vacaville, California, Tree Pruners’ Strike Of 1932, Kate Bronfenbrenner

Kate Bronfenbrenner

[Excerpt] Two days after the November 1932 elections, newly elected California congressman Frank H. Buck provoked a massive tree pruners' strike when he announced a wage cut for pruners on his ranch from $1.40 for an eight-hour day to $1.25 for a nine-hour day. Buck, one the largest growers in the Vacaville fruit growing region, had raised wages to $1.40 during his congressional campaign, promising farmworkers even higher wages if he won the election. Running under the campaign slogan "Give Government Back to the People," Buck garnered nearly unanimous support from farmworkers in the Vacaville area. Within days of his …

California Pea Pickers’ Strike Of 1932, Kate Bronfenbrenner

Kate Bronfenbrenner

[Excerpt] Just before the start of the May 1932 harvest season, growers in the Half Moon Bay area of San Mateo, California, provoked a spontaneous strike among pea pickers when they reduced piece rates from seventy-five to fifty cents a pack. Although the workers were unorganized, the large pay cut represented the breaking point for families just coming out of the slow winter season. The previous year's rate of seventy-five cents a pack had not been enough to tide them over through the winter, especially given the four dollars a month rent they were required to pay the growers for …