Where are the pressure points? Students explain why and how they accept the open invitation of the Arizona Board of Regents and show up to speak at meetings. – Editor
From Hypatia Meraviglia and Marcos Esparza, members of United Campus Workers AZ 7065 and graduate students at Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of Arizona (UA)
United Campus Workers CWA local 7065 is a pre-majority wall-to-wall labor union that represents workers at all three higher ed institutions in Arizona. CWA Local 7065 makes a point to show up to EVERY MEETING to flood the public comments section of the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) to remind them of our demands and to make our voices heard.
The members of the ABOR are governor-appointed (selected, not elected) public officials that hold concentrated power over Arizona’s three state universities. They create policies that affect all of us as students, staff, faculty, and community members. ABOR holds public board meetings every two months or so with a thirty-minute block of time called the “Call to the Audience.” During this time, they invite concerned higher ed workers and community members to give public comments.
This board meeting is one of the only spaces where workers can speak directly to university decision-makers. It provides the space for a cross-sector organizing moment to demonstrate solidarity across our connected struggles and show how powerful we are together. Students, staff, and faculty stand together to speak on a spectrum of issues, from mass layoffs and nonrenewed contracts that harm contingent faculty, to the safety and First Amendment rights of student encampment protestors, to the ever-widening gap between pay and cost of living for campus workers. Union members are often joined by collaborating organizations like the Arizona Students’ Association, UA Resist, Students for Justice in Palestine, and by student government representatives and local and state politicians.
The regents sit (mostly) silently through the statements, sometimes scrolling through their phones or staring bemused. In one hot mic moment a few years ago, ASU President Michael Crow sat through a statement on the growing $10,000 gap between grad student stipends and cost of living before grumbling that these people “need to take ECON 101.”
The real audience is our university communities, who read and watch press coverage and public recordings of the statements. Continual bad press for the universities has been a powerful tool for some of our biggest wins, including waiving student fees at the University of Arizona and the resignation of its President Robbins.
Persistent, powerful presence at the Arizona Board of Regents’ public comment serves to build and exercise our strength as a pre-majority higher ed labor union by hitting the administration where it hurts: their image and their pocketbooks. Public comment is a methodical structure test to mobilize members and collaborating organizations, make cohesive demands, and stand proudly as a union. When we fight, we win!