student strike

NPR recently aired a program on All Things Considered that looked back, 40 years later, at the massacre of countless students in Mexico City:

Greek youth and students, already facing budget cuts for youth programs, a repressive conservative government pushing the privatization of the university system, and a slowing economy where their degrees mean less and less, are now apparently fed up. The spark? The police killing of a 15-year-old boy. Reuters:

The Chilean student movement, which recently has been no stranger to fighting the government (and winning), has over the past month been organizing and demonstrating against the proposed General Education Law (LGE), a sweeping piece of legislation that will fundamentally change the way education is structured in Chile.

In the town of Garfield, NJ, where teachers have been working without a contract for months now, hundreds of teachers called in sick to work on the same day, effectively taking part in a wildcat strike. The Record:

Hundreds of students stormed out of Garfield High School Friday chanting, cheering and holding signs in support of their teachers, who have been working without a contract since the end of the last school year.

The brief rally, triggered by a fire alarm around 9 a.m., came a day after 350 teachers called out sick in an apparent protest over the contract negotiations. The district closed schools Thursday.

Students held signs that read, "No Contracts! No Teachers! No Students!" and "Settle Contracts."

"They don’t have any contracts, that's crazy," said one student, standing on Outwater Lane outside the high school.

The fates of students and educators are inextricably linked, and when they act in solidarity with each other against a common threat, wonderful things can happen.

This is Legba Carrefour's first post on For Student Power. Welcome Legba! -- Patrick

As part of the increased labor tension in France, mostly in response to Sarkozy, a large percentage of French universities are on strike at the moment, with occupations and barricades going up. Once again, it looks like (from my reading of the French press) that Lyceens (roughly analagous to high school students) were the lead in this, although the strikes are in immediate response to the introduction of the LRU (a law moving towards the privatization of the university system).

Not much available in English yet but I'd expect more to come--France is blowing the fuck up again. 77 cops were seriously injured in a new round of intense rioting in the mostly poor and mostly black suburbs, a transit employee strike is still going with a full-scale civil employee strike in the wings. Here's what I have translated for you now off of the various French indymedia sites:

In France, a new law has been voted this summer when the university community was in vacation. This law, in relation to freedoms and responsibilities of universities is in fact a way to privatize them, to change their functioning and therefore disengaged the state.

Since few weeks already, general assemblies for informing and mobilizing students have been formed, gathering more than 2000 students sometime. Strikes, freeze and occupations are present in around 30 universities (~40% of French universities).

National coordinations have gathered several dozens of students coming from all over France. (Toulouse 27-28 of October, Rennes 10-11 of November and Tours, November 7-18). These national coordinations appeal to cancel the law, to defend pensions and to amnesty convicts from the past social movements.

This actual social movement is a test for the new president (Sarkozy) recently elected. If he wins, France will fast become a leader in the wild capitalist system; BUT if ground people resist and win, France will go on with its tradition of social movements and ground resistance.

If the convergence of struggles (pensions, students, lawyers, state employed people) is created that can lead to calling into question the entire system!

http://libcom.org/blogs - they always have phenomenal coverage of French radical politics, all in English. They did AMAAAAAZING coverage of the 2006 general strike.

They also have a wonderful guide to the history behind what's going on in France right now: http://libcom.org/library/introduction-unrest-france-2007

For those of you who speak French:
The Lille and Nantes indymedia sites have great coverage and there are a few blogs by Nanterre students out there as well.

This week will see students in France, Canada, and even here in the United States (gasp!) go on strike. The student union model is probably our best hope for organizing the campus around student power.

France

Courtesy LibCom: