Conference Proposals  »   Direct action proposal: coffee breaks for ucb janitors

Coffee Breaks for UCB Janitors: This brilliant idea for an ongoing direct action came up at 9/24 teach-out session with Roberto Mezzina + Prof. Scheper-Hughes: that ucb students relieve janitorial workers for short periods of time so that janitors can have coffee breaks. Was/is there any momentum for/organizing toward this idea among students in S-H's classes? I am staff and was there only that one time, but would like to join in such an effort--and help expand participation among staff--if there IS in fact a core group of students who would do this. (I and other non-students would be involved, with students' permission, as supplementary participants to support their effort; I agree student leadership + visibility should remain central, and makes the best point as an action.) Sustaining this coffee-break program over time, and perhaps documenting it somehow so as to enlarge the conversation/participation, could be really interesting.

Very valid points and impossible to disagree--thank you--although I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the administrators! My understanding is that this was proposed not because students feel responsible for providing what administrators should, nor because janitors don't get breaks (although they are increasingly insufficient as the number of janitors is reduced and the remaining ones are overworked), but rather as an act of solidarity and relationship building, and a recognition that janitors (and other maintenance staff) are just as much at risk as students as the university privatizes, but are often not acknowledged. I think it's proposed also to bring some class consciousness to the forefront, and with some idea that it's performatively interesting to stage such an action. (As with the all night study-ins that have happened in some of the campus libraries, which have included some nice theatre, and actually resulted in the reinstatement of the recently withdrawn Saturday hours.) Of course anything like this only happens if there is honest momentum for it and agreement about the reasons/spirit for doing it, at least among the small core group that gets it started. So I am still wondering what momentum is out there for this and similar direct-action/intervention ideas and could these ideas be part of the discussion at the conference?