No, Its Not Wrong, But I Must Know.../I Didn't Mean To Hurt You - I'm Just a Jealous Guy

I want to make some clarifications about the "Education In The Streets" post. First, i'm in no way trying to claim that undergraduates or the UOC 'own' the action, which was only possible and succesful the first time around because thousands of maintenance, service, clerical, technical, and academic workers were striking. Not that a lot of undergraduates didn't put a huge amount of organizing work into that week - but whereas with the financial aid campaign the UOC was able to craft its own timeline and make demands on the administration according to that timeline, in '03 we were almost entirely dependent on the federation timeline and the organizing of Locals 34, 35, and GESO, District 1199, and CCNE. One of the things that was powerful about the action and one of the things that made it work was the fact that everyone owned it.

As for the question of turnout, well, i was in a daze for most of the March Strike action, I just know we had 500 undergrads cause that was the official count and given how many people were there, and how many advance confirmations we had prior to the action, and how many stickers we gave out, and how many undergrads weren't wearing stickers, it seems more than plausible. This strike was the first time GESO'd gone out without the rest of the federation since the end of the grade strike in 1996. That they were in a position to do so last week demonstrates their strength as much as does the fact that folks i'd heard openly badmouth the union only a year ago were not only on the picket lines last week, but, in some cases, were leading them.

Really what i wanted to look at in the post was the implications of the possibility of the Classrooms In the Street model becoming a unique and representative tactic of Yale labor struggles. I guess in the end, i don't have too much to say about this, so maybe i should open up the conversation to any thoughts my three to five readers might have on the subject...

More clarifications will likely follow as i continue to second-guess myself.