University of California Lecturers and Librarians (UC-AFT) Endorses Bernie Sanders
The Lecturers and Librarians of the University of California system took time away from a difficult contract campaign (for the Lecturers, now out-of-contract) and on-going Librarian organizing to resist deprofessionalization, to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Presidential nomination. This was a unanimous vote of representatives from all nine main campuses, from UC San Diego to UC Merced.
Our national union, The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), endorsed Hillary Clinton early in the primary campaigns, with some controversy and a significant amount of unhappiness among our members. Our state union, the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) has yet to endorse anyone. When the AFT voted to endorse Clinton, CFT was one of three (out of 45) voted not to endorse at that time.
UC-AFT’s support for Bernie Sanders in the primaries is not an endorsement “against” anyone. After the primaries, UC-AFT will certainly consider endorsing (or re-endorsing) someone for the General Election. But for now the decision was clear. As a large group (over 5,000) of overly opinionated and deeply read people, you can imagine there were many reasons behind the decision to endorse Sanders. Among the most important, his positions on high education. UC-AFT President Bob Samuels, a lecturer at UCSB, writes in his blog:
“Sanders’ is the only candidate who has tied the rising cost of higher education and student debt to Wall Street. His plan pushes to increase the number of full-time faculty, reduce administrative costs, and increase spending on instruction.”
Why Wall Street? Samuels explains, “For one, they make a great deal of risk-free money from driving students into debt and have plans to increase that yield with Student Asset-Backed Securities (SLABs).” Samuels is the author of Why Public Higher Education Should Be Free from Rutgers Press. Unsurprisingly, accessible, democratic education is the mission of both UC-AFT, and the University of California (as is expressed in the California Constitution), no matter how far the current corporate leadership of the UC has drifted from the goal of a “people’s university.”
Bernie Sanders also seems most in line with UC-AFT membership on a number of other issues, such as union rights, environmental action, corporate economic instruments such as trade deals, universal healthcare and campaign reform. As Samuels says, Sanders represents “a rare chance to push for a truly progressive agenda.”
Many members of our union are especially drawn to Sanders’ campaign because it has important aspects of a social movement. We (for I am among them) believe that at this point in our history we need much more fundamental change than any elected official can deliver. Our union has been very proactive on the environment through our Green Caucus, on social justice through supporting more diversity in the UC and movements such as Black Lives Matter, and on the need for more democracy in our work lives, with our UC Democracy campaign. The best resistance to the persistent legalistic attempts to eviscerate unions and weaken democracy in the U.S. in general is for us to become stronger, more relevant, and even more involved in growing American democracy. At this juncture, the endorsement of Bernie Sanders seemed the right step to take. We will be helping his campaign organize rallies at University of California campuses and adding our voice to the call for a progressive rethinking of economic and political power in the United States of America.
Chris Hables Gray, lecturer at UCSC, Vice-President for Organizing UC-AFT
(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, and do not represent official UC-AFT policy.)