imagestuff

May 22, 2009: High school students protest budget cuts and layoffs outside the Los Angeles Unified School District Headquarters.

With the arrival of fall, students and teachers trek back to schools and campuses in the Golden State. But instead of the usual talk of halcyon summer days, the buzz is about canceled classes, laid off teachers and coworkers, tuition hikes, crowded classes, and how to make rent.

In Los Angeles, K-12 education is in turmoil. Teachers held a hunger strike in May and June to protest 3,000 layoffs. In August, the mayor pushed the Board of Education to turn over control of one third of the district's campuses to private groups, including charter school operators.

This is all the handiwork of state legislators, who resolved a $26 billion budget gap with brutal cuts to education, as well as healthcare, domestic violence shelters, parks, and other basic services. Those same lawmakers found $2 billion for tax breaks to corporations!

California's budget crisis is the wrecking ball that both Democrats and Republicans are using to decimate public workers' unions and services. Draining programs of adequate funding is a set up for failure and privatization schemes - from contracting out services to public/private partnerships. Nowhere is this clearer than in Los Angeles, where schools that "underperform" are targeted for closure or takeover.

A wealthy state on the brink. There is no reason for a state as rich as California to find itself in such dire straits. The state economy ranks close to that of Italy or Spain. In 2008, businesses in California netted $1.8 trillion. Chevron Oil, based in San Ramon, California, netted $21 billion alone.

The government will spend $85 billion in this fiscal year. Most of it comes from taxes and fees on individuals. Corporation taxes bring in a measly 7.8 percent of state revenue. Clearly, there is enough wealth to avoid budget cuts.

But Democrats, who control both houses of the legislature, refuse to tax big business. Instead, with Republican Gov. Schwarzenegger, they opt to run a top education system into the ground.

California's crisis, like that of every other state, is the result of the worldwide recession brought on by capitalism's failure, with its chaotic boom-bust cycles. California is especially reeling, with almost 12 percent unemployment and the highest mortgage foreclosure rate in the country.

So what are the state's wealthy and their bought-off legislators doing? They are following the lead of New Orleans elite - who used Hurricane Katrina to cut and privatize programs, and grab land.

Students and education workers hit hard. Key among those programs is education. The budget cuts take $8 billion from California's education system. Classes are packed, after-school programs are cut, 20,000 K-12 teachers are laid off. Especially hurt are inner city schools that teach primarily students of color and immigrants.

Both the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems are reducing student admissions, cutting undergraduate classes, and raising fees drastically. Staff and faculty are furloughed even as they face heavier workloads at the same low wages.

In the face of these take-backs, top administrators keep their high salaries and executive perks. One staff worker at UC Berkeley aptly asked, "Where did that money come from - couldn't they use it to save jobs?"

This author teaches at one of the California Community Colleges, where fees have risen 23 percent. More students are trying to add classes, after being turned away by CSU and UC. At the first meeting of my general chemistry lab, 36 students competed for three slots. Several beginning level classes have been cut, along with academic counseling, library hours, and Disabled Students Programs and Services.

In hard times, public colleges are a lifeline. They are the entry point to higher learning for immigrant and people of color communities who traditionally have been unable to send youth to college. They provide laid-off workers a second chance. The slashing of education condemn these and other nontraditional students to low-paying, low skilled jobs - or joblessness.

The people fight back. Californians are mobilizing. In March, thousands of college students, faculty, staff, administrators, union and unorganized workers protested at the state capitol. In June, homecare workers marched, and in August state workers rallied to demand, "No cutbacks and forced furloughs!"

Radical Women and the Freedom Socialist Party have attended several of these rallies, and added a critical voice to the fight against cuts by proposing concrete solutions: Tax Big Business to Pay for Services and Stop Privatization! In Berkeley, FSPers and RW sisters are calling on UC management to "chop from the top" as part of the Student Worker Action Team (SWAT).

These protests are a heartening sign that opposition to the cuts is mounting. But it will take more than rallies to stop the practice of punishing workers, students and the poor for fiscal crises. For starters, labor needs to dump the Democrats. It's past time to run independent, anti-capitalist labor candidates.

A cue can also be taken from the United Teachers of Richmond (California), which voted 97 percent to authorize a strike. State workers in Service Employees International Union also voted to strike, as have unions at UC.

But strike votes are not enough. It's time to follow through with work stoppages. History shows that strikes are the working class's true source of power.

By joining together in a general strike, we can shut entire states down to win our demands. That's the kind of fighting strategy that won the eight-hour day, and it's what is needed to stop the budget-cutting politicians today.

Bob Price, a chemistry professor at City College of San Francisco, received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. He can be emailed at RPChemist@aol.com.