#student unions

[jadwiga-abremovic]

"Perhaps almost for the first time in the world, our schools are developing an experiment in the self-organization of deaf children. The children create a student self-government, composed of sanitary, economic, and cultural commissions, etc., which totally envelop the children’s life. Living skills, social behavior, initiative, leadership qualities, collective responsibility grow and strengthen in this system. Lastly, this social educational system is crowned by a children’s communist movement, through which a child learns to see himself as a participant in life on a world scale. In this way, the deaf-mute child lives and breathes with his whole country. His pulse, his efforts, his thoughts beat in unison with the masses. "

Lev Vygotsky on the positive potential of radicalized deaf children in a global communist movement. 1925.

[classicsstudentsunion]

living with classics majors is so great because once I innocuously said "i love soup" expecting nothing in return and without missing a beat my roommate nodded sagely and said "like Dionysus in the Frogs"

[beenasarwar]

A social worker, an economist, and the legacy of Pakistan’s student movement of the 1950s

Something I wrote about my aunt who recently passed away, the economist Eric Rahim, and their decades-old linkages to progressive politics, and the ongoing legacy of the 1950s student movement #DSF my father led

OBITUARY: The legacy of a decades-old connection between social worker Shahida Haroon (1937-2023) and economist Eric Rahim (1928-2023) endures through the ongoing struggle for student rights, economic justice and democracy in Pakistan Demands Day at D.H. Science College, 07 Jan. 1953, Eric Rahim, Shahida Haroon Saad. Collage by Aekta Kapoor/Sapan News PERSONAL POLITICAL By Beena Sarwar / Sapan…

[talesfromthebandgeekmafia]

“This season Kristen is learning that chaos isn’t cute” MY ASS.

SHE IS WINNIE THE POOHING IT IN A SCHOOL HALLWAY.

[archaeologysucks]

My first CRM job in 2006 paid $12.50/hr. I had 2 masters degrees and was hired for my expertise in identifying fragmentary human remains and fetal remains. It was 4 years before I found a CRM job that paid more than $14/hr. I now make a hair over $30/hr, but considering I have been doing this for almost 20 years, that probably still isn’t nearly what I should be making, especially considering irregular hours and last minute cancelations mean I rarely see a full week’s pay.

[kropotkindersurprise]

June 20, 2024 - Members of the University Workers & Students' Unions of Athens Agricultural University blocked a visit by the US ambassador, in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding an end to the USA sponsored Israeli genocide. [source]

[politijohn]

Source

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[fanboy-feminist]

Biden dropping out has been, no joke, the best thing for the Democratic Party in years.

I haven't felt this sort of excitement in electoral politics since Bernie's 2015/2016 campaign. I genuinely do not believe that the Dems have had anything this good happen for them since Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015.

After weeks, months! of Biden fumbling so fucking much (student protests for a ceasefire in Gaza, god-awful debate, etc), to drop out and suddenly . . .

the main Democratic candidate is now a charismatic woman of color who called for a ceasefire in Gaza

a category 5 storm of memes about the biggest album of the year in pop music and pop culture and Kamala Harris

the Republican VP pick generally being an off-putting grifter weirdo

a rumor about aforementioned VP pick having sex with a couch starts to pick up traction

a genuinely exciting search for the Democratic VP slot

Minnesota governor Tim Walz (correctly) calls Trump and Trumpian Republicans “weird”

Harris picks Tim Walz, a middle class, ex-military, former public school teacher who coached his school's football team and sponsored the gay-straight alliance, now a pro-union Democrat attack dog (which I have never seen on a Democratic ticket as long as I have been alive) to be her running mate

he makes a JD Vance couch joke in his first speech as Harris’ VP pick!

How absolutely perfect is this? I have never seen this energy and excitement in electoral politics (save for MAGA-types [but they're a cult]) in my life. This is potentially a godsend for the Democratic party.

Moreover, I genuinely think this could make conditions for pushing for more progressive and left-leaning policies at all levels of government in the U.S. possible.

[xaviers-student-union]

Hey guys it's that time of the month

That's right, the time of the month where I take my dad's credit card and buy you guys whatever you ask for. [ so long as its not illegal.]

As usual:

- The money isn't traceable by my father

- This won't have legal ramifications, it's money he gave to me

- He's an Anti-Mutant Billionare running for a political office or some shit. So every month everyone in the X-mansion, and anyone else who sees this, can place orders from me. I like wasting his money.

- For every dollar I spend, I match it and donate to a Mutant positive charity.

So far:

- Aranza: New paint supplies, an easel, and other tools [ she didn't ask but I'm doing it anyway] and Hedgehog care supplies

- Deanne: New jewellery, medical textbooks, sports equipment, and a new laptop

- Molly: New fairytale books, 150 Jellycats, Club room materials, a megaphone, winter clothes, Halloween decorations, a clipboard, Polaroid camera, and an inflatable hamster ball.

She also requested silly string but I have veto'ed that.

- Megan: new book bag, stationary, sanrio "stuff", wing warmers

- Sativa: Beads, wing warmers, new dresses, accessories

- Reaper- Skateboard and cat toys

- Nod - Office decor, $100 donation

- Pyxis - New mountain bike, New winter coat, $50 donation

- Scott- Wood carving supplies, 50 cases of waterbottles, and top of the line New kitchen utensils.

- Mihai - Ps5, and a new laptop

- Kurt - Repair the trapeze. While I'm at it I'm going to get new equipment for the gymnasium in general.

- Rogue - Cat toys [ according to Google that's the best thing for a gator] and new romance novels.

- Negasonic Teenage Warhead : 2x giant 12 ft tall skeletons, costumes for the skeletons , a giant kuromi plush

- Yukio: several pieces of limitied sanrio merch, giant hello kitty plush.

- Eel: Luxury Yacht + hoverboard wheelchair

- Logan - New motorcycle + a helmet. Get fucked logan.

- Forget-me-not - New baking supplies, and equipment.

Lina- New bass strings, and a donation of 100k [ she didn't ask for this but I decided I wanted to donate extra in her name]

Emma - New lipstick in her favourite shade

- laurya- a bunch of cool rocks [ @goddess-of-birds ]

Phantom - Broadway year pass, compression gloves [ @phantom-x ]

Valentine - Designer outfitt [ @valentine-vuong ]

Vanessa - 50 sets of winter clothes for kids, and a large donation to the chosen charity.

Tagging relevant people [ let me know if you don't want to be tagged]

@jeangrey-xmen

@roguefromthexmen

@remy-lebeau

@wolverineofficial

@deadpoolsmeanestally

@dead-in-the-pool

@professorcharlesx

@scottsummers-xmen

@hankmccoyhere

@reapers-graveyard

@totally-not-a-mutant

@vanessa-howlett

@pyxis-deliveryservices

@a-trip-and-a-fall

@thebesttelepath

@forgotten-x-men

@just-a-mutant

@prettyplasma8

@blue-man-group-reject

@queenofthetempest

There's...so many people to tag so I'm going to stop here. If I missed you it wasn't intentional.. - J.🕯

[ no limit on price as long as its reasonable]

[my-midlife-crisis]

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Dion J. Pierre

The University of Michigan’s Black Student Union (BSU) has resigned from the anti-Zionist student group Tahrir Coalition, citing “pervasive” anti-Black discrimination fostered by its mostly Arab and Middle Eastern leadership.

“Black identities, voices, and bodies are not valued in this coalition, and thus we must remove ourselves,” BSU said in a statement posted on Instagram. “The anti-Blackness within the coalition has been too pervasive to overcome, and we refuse to endure it.”

Proclaiming its continued support for the anti-Zionist movement, the group continued, “The BSU’s solidarity with the Palestinian people is unwavering, but the integrity of the Tahrir Coalition is deeply questionable. We refuse to subject ourselves and our community to the rampant anti-Blackness that festers within it. For this reason, we will no longer be a part of the Tahrir Coalition.”

BSU did not cite specific examples of the racism to which Black students were allegedly subjected, but its public denouncement of a group which has become the face of the pro-Hamas movement at the University of Michigan is significant given the history of cooperation between BSU and anti-Zionist groups on college campuses across the US.

BSU’s Black members are not, however, the first to openly clash with anti-Zionist Arabs.

When Arab and Palestinian anti-Zionist activists launched a barrage of racist attacks against African Americans on social media in August, Black TikTok influencers descended on the platform in droves to denounce the comments, with several announcing that they intended not only to remove Gaza-related content from their profiles but also to cease engaging in anti-Zionist activity entirely. The conversation escalated in subsequent posts, touching on the continuance of Black slavery in the Arab world and what young woman called “voracious racism” against African Americans.

“What’s even crazier is that earlier people were like, oh these are bots, no — this is how people really feel. And she made a video that’s a real human being that feels exactly that way,” one African American woman said. “These are people who feel like they are entitled to the support of Black people no matter what, that they get to push us around and tell us who the hell we get to vote for if we support them … They’ve lost their minds.”

An African American male said, “Why don’t we talk about the Arab slave trade? And keep in mind that the Arabs have enslaved more Black people than the Europeans combined.” Another African American woman accused Arabs of not denouncing slavery in Antebellum America.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[lilithism1848]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Craig Harrington at MMFA:

The economic policy provisions outlined by Project 2025 — the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration — are overwhelmingly catered toward benefiting wealthier Americans and corporate interests at the expense of average workers and taxpayers. Project 2025 prioritizes redoubling Republican efforts to expand “trickle-down” tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation across the economy. The authors of the effort’s policy book, Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise, recommend putting key government agencies responsible for oversight of large sectors of the economy under direct right-wing political control and empowering those agencies to prioritize right-wing agendas in dealing with everything from consumer protections to organized labor activity. [...]

Project 2025 would chill labor unions' abilities to engage in political activity. Project 2025 suggests that the National Labor Relations Board change its enforcement priorities regarding what it describes as unions using “members' resources on left-wing culture-war issues.” The authors encourage allowing employees to accuse union leadership of violating their “duty of fair representation” by having “political conflicts of interest” if the union engages in political activity that the employee disagrees with. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; National Labor Relations Board, accessed 7/8/24]

Project 2025 would make it easier for employers to classify workers as “independent contractors.” The authors recommended reinstating policies governing the classification of independent contractors that the NLRB implemented during the Trump administration. Those Trump-era NLRB regulations were amended in 2023, expanding workplace and labor organizing protections to previously exempt American workers. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; The National Law Review, 6/19/23; National Labor Relations Board, 6/13/23]

Project 2025 would reduce base overtime pay for workers. The authors recommend changing overtime protections to remove nonwage compensatory and other workplace benefits from calculations of their “regular” pay rate, which forms the basis for overtime formulations. If that change is enacted, every worker currently given overtime protections could be subject to a slight reduction in the value of their overtime pay, which the authors claim will encourage employers to provide nonwage benefits but would effectively just amount to a pay cut. The authors also propose other changes to the way overtime is calculated and enforced, which could result in reduced compensation for workers. Overtime protections have long been a focus of right-wing media campaigns to reduce protections afforded to American workers. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023, Media Matters, 7/9/24]

Project 2025 proposes capping and phasing out visa programs for migrant workers. Project 2025’s authors propose capping and eventually eliminating the H-2A and H-2B temporary work visa programs, which are available for seasonal agricultural and nonagricultural workers, respectively. Even the Project 2025 authors admit that these proposals could threaten many businesses that rely on migrant workers and could result in higher prices for consumers. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

Project 2025 recommends institutionalizing the “Judeo-Christian tradition” of the Sabbath. Under the guise of creating a “communal day of rest,” Project 2025 includes a policy proposal amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to require paying workers who currently receive overtime protections “time and a half for hours worked on the Sabbath,” which it said “would default to Sunday.” Ostensibly a policy that increases wages, the proposal is specifically meant to disincentivize employers from providing services on Sundays as an explicitly religious overture. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

[...]

International Trade

Project 2025 contains a lengthy debate between diametrically opposed perspectives on international trade and commerce.Over the course of 31 pages, disgraced former Trump adviser and current federal inmate Peter Navarro outlines various proposals to fundamentally transform American international commercial and domestic industrial policy in opposition to China, primarily by using tariffs. He dedicates well over a dozen pages to obsessing over America’s trade deficit with China, even though Trump’s trade war with China was a failure and as he focused on China, the overall U.S. trade deficit exploded. Much of the rest of Navarro’s section is economic saber-rattling against “Communist China’s economic aggression and quest for world domination.”In response, Kent Lassman of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute promotes a return to free trade orthodoxy that was previously pursued by the Republican Party but has fallen out of favor during the Trump era.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda would be a boon for the wealthy and a disaster for the working class folk.

See Also:

MMFA: Project 2025’s dystopian approach to taxes

[bad-tf-fic-ideas]

(265) University AU, in which the Autobots and Decepticons are opposing parties running for election to the student union/student association.

Megatron believes in the dictatorship of the proletariat, democratising access to military weapons and voluntary collectivism, none of which are as relevant to student life as he thinks they are. As a student politics leader he's mostly famous for the number of arrests he's racked up. Optimus Prime is a moderate left-leaning type hoping that when he puts this experience on his CV the federal centre-left party will let him run, probably in a safe opposition seat. Neither of them is running on a platform that includes frivolities like mandating pre-exam study periods, lighting, or a campus bus, which is par for course.

It is clear to all bystanders during election season that they both desperately want to fuck each other.

[transmutationisms]

(If you're alrght with another poorly articulated question from an obnoxious high schooler) Do you have thoughts on academics and their position in a labor framework? I know some grad students and have never been quite sure where they fit because they don't always work with "capital" in a traditional sense. Professors are odd to me because they are under university contract, but rather than get paid by the university they often get their own funding from the government. Or graduate sudents, who are often unionized, but I know a paleontology student who studies shark fossils who says he doesnt really consider what he does "making surplus value."

ok well that last person is simply confused lol. graduate students exist because the university profits from having us; it is a capitalist institution. most directly we usually work as teaching assistants or research assistants (or else pay tuition) and more indirectly, graduate programs get funding and university support because their existence contributes to a university's rankings, prestige factor, &c, which is to say its (perceived) profitability. plenty of us study things that don't produce much directly lucrative research, but this does not mean the university keeps us around for shits and giggles or some kind of laudatory interest in knowledge for its own sake. it is a capitalist institution and acts in the financial interest of its owners / beneficiaries.

anyway wrt faculty members, they are also employed by the university because it profits from them (or hopes to, anyway). i think many people get confused by tenureship; tenure is indeed fairly cushy as far as employment contracts go, but it is is still an employment contract, and most faculty are not actually tenured anyway. academics are a classic example of the 'professional-managerial class', which is not a marxian term but is a useful one for identifying those 'upper-middle class' members differentiated by their professional qualifications and status; the prestige and perceived utility of academic knowledge production is partially what makes academics an attractive target for a lot of government and NGO funding. state funding of academic research ofc has numerous functions but, and not to put too fine a point on it, a capitalist state also invests money in things because it is hoping for some kind of return on investment, eg in the form of directly profitable inventions, soft power, &c.

there are distinctions here between different academic employment statuses. an adjunct or contingent hire is paid by the university solely to teach, making their labourer status fairly straightforward. with tenured or tenure-track positions, yes there may also be money coming from outside; however, this doesn't negate the fact that the university is trying to profit from its faculty (else it wouldn't hire them). the professional-managerial class has certain characteristics of both proletariat and bourgeoisie, and there is some variation between academics as a very select few do attain the kind of household name status that can turn them into basically a personal brand. again though: the university wants to extract value from the work (both teaching and research) of academics it hires, and so do outside sources of funding for research projects. knowledge production should not be mystified or abstracted in ways that obfuscate the financial interests of involved parties; though it attains a prestige that few other commodities do, this is still a process that is embedded within the overall operating logics of capitalism.

an additional consideration wrt internal academic class politics is that many faculty use graduate students, postdocs, and even undergrads to perform or assist with their research. these arrangements vary in structure (and between disciplines) but in general, this does mean that many academics produce papers, books, &c that depend upon the labour of many people and rarely compensate these people equally to themselves. this can take the form of a more overtly employer-employee relationship between a professor and their underlings (for example, some labs are run this way) or it can be the case that it's another party (a publisher, say) who is reaping most of the surplus value squeezed from grad / undergrad / postdoc labour. in any case it is important to keep in mind that professors can and often do take on employer (ie, small capitalist) roles in relation to other employees of the university, even though the professors themselves are there because the university and other institutions pay them and profit from their labour.

i hope this is a useful start; obviously there is lots else to be said about the economics of the university and knowledge production as a capitalist process. in general when you are trying to think through this my advice would be not to let the presentation of the university as some kind of cerebral place of enlightenment confuse a materialist analysis of the flows of capital. plenty of workers and capitalists deal with commodities that are immaterial in the sense that 'knowledge' is, or are imbued with similar social meaning and value; the university deals with knowledge production but this does not make it any less an employer (ie, a capitalist institution) than any other institution operating in a capitalist context.