On October 18th, AFSCME workers and students at UC Santa Cruz held a rally in the Baytree Plaza and then marched to the base of campus calling on UC President Dynes to release funds promised by the California Legislature to low-paid UC workers. AFSCME workers and students are also demanding wages comparable to those of neighboring colleges and universities where people are paid up to 30% more for doing the same amount or less work.
At the base of campus, people immediately marched into the center of the Bay and High intersection. Then everyone crossed the streets at the same time, though allowing cars to pass through without much delay. Since the police and Santa Cruz Metro began re-directing traffic away from the base of campus, people decided to use the opportunity to rally in the middle of the main entrance to campus. This was the first action this school year in ongoing struggle where students and workers are united in demanding social justice at UC Santa Cruz. Read more and view photos
SlideShow of photos taken on September 1st, 2006, during Oaxaca’s 5th MegaMarcha which started in the community of San Felipe and ended at the zócalo in the center of Oaxaca City. Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets and marched to demand the immediate departure of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO), liberation for political prisoners, the cancellation of 70 government arrest warrants for people involved in the leaderless Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO, by its Spanish initials) movement and the desire for popular governance.
On August 8th, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was un-welcomed to Salinas High School by members of the American Federation of Teachers, Monterey Bay Central Labor Council, Watsonville Brown Berets and other demonstrators. With an escort of police in cruisers and on motorcycles, Schwarzenegger’s vehicle drove past a group of protesters and into a back entrance of Salinas High. Police quickly locked out the people who, in the theory of US Democracy, are supposed to be represented by the Governor. 
On June 7th, UC Santa Cruz students concerned about their missing journalism program asked questions of Bill Ladusaw, UCSC’s Vice Provost and Dean for Undergraduate Education. Ladusaw seemed to place blame on UCSC’s faculty for the loss of the journalism program, while dodging questions about the misappropriation of funds at the administrative level, including Chancellor Denice Denton’s extravagant dog-run. Ladusaw encouraged students to seek support from faculty members and the academic senate for the reestablishment of the journalism program, though it was unclear why students should shift their focus off of UCSC’s administration. 
On June 6th, UC Santa Cruz students and workers held multiple rallies and confronted Chancellor Denice Denton to demand affirmative diversity on campus. Workers and students are charging UCSC with active institutional racism and sexism by sustaining hidden systematic policies and practices that have the effect of disadvantaging students, faculty and workers of color. Affirmative diversity means actively working against the status quo of institutional racism and sexism at UCSC. The Diversity Coalition says the first step for UCSC is to “acknowledge it is not the progressive place it claims to be.”
