Cross-class coalition-building at Columbia University

Cross-class coalition-building at Columbia University from Waging Nonviolence on Vimeo.

What does it take to organize across class lines? In the context of a nationwide revival of both labor struggles and student movements, students and workers at college campuses are increasingly having to find out. At Columbia University, students recently started to back a group of Faculty House workers who are fighting for a new contract. But what does solidarity mean at a university where students pay up to $60,000 a year, while campus workers can barely make ends meet? We hear from Osmond Cousin, who has been working as a chef at Columbia for the past 18 years, as well as Jane Brennan, an anthropology student who is one of the main organizers of the student-worker solidarity group. Cousin and Brennan share insights into how both groups have been building alliances in order to increase pressure on the university.

Now Available: The Fight over Digital Rights

Hot off the presses at Cambridge University Press, it’s The Fight over Digital Rights: The Politics of Copyright and Technology, by Bill D. Herman.

About the Book
In the political fight over copyright, internet advocacy has reshaped the playing field. This was shown most dramatically in the 2012 “SOPA blackout,” when the largest online protest in history stopped two copyright bills in their tracks. For those not already familiar with the debate, this protest seemingly came out of nowhere, yet it was the culmination of an intellectual and political evolution more than a decade in the making.
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