Letter from Silvia Federici

April 22, 2010


To "Geographers for a Democratic University” and all other teachers, students, and workers and community members on strike on May 3rd.

I am writing to express my full support for the strike that students, teachers, and service workers are planning for May 3rd at the University of Washington, in coincidence with the termination of the TA/ASE contract. This strike is a protest on behalf not only workers at the University of Washington but students, teachers, service workers on every campus.


Under the pretense of the economic crisis, everywhere university administrations are destroying the foundations of public education. They slash education budgets, expect adjunct teachers and other workers on campus to work in precarious conditions and for starvation wages, impose on students constantly raising tuitions, thus redefining college education as the privilege of an elite.

These policies destroy our hopes for the future and contrast with the requirements of a society built on social justice.

Like many faculty, I am in solidarity with the movement that is growing on US campuses against these trends, and I  fully support the students, faculty, service workers of the University of Washington for courageously refusing to accept the budget cuts and the restructuring of their position at the university which the administration is trying to impose on them.


In Solidarity,

Silvia Federici, Emerita, Hofstra University

(Hempstead, New York)

Member Edu-Factory Collective and

Midnight Notes Collective

silvia.federici@hofstra.edu