President Emmert Blocks Tent City 3--Despite overwhelming support!

After almost a year of work by students, community members, faculty, workers, and activists, President Mark Emmert at UW has unilaterally decided not to allow Tent City 3 to set up at UW, despite overwhelming student, grad student, and faculty support. See the message from Students for Civic Engagement with Homelessness (SCEH) below. Below their message, see a response from an ABC member. We in ABC see this struggle as related to budget cuts in a number of ways. Mark Emmert claimed that part of the reason he decided not to support TC3 was due to other things at the university--again he is acting as if the dire situation of folks at UW is inevitable, when in fact, it is the direct result of decisions made by upper level administrators!
You can visit the SCEH at
http://sites.google.com/site/tc3atuw/; send them a letter of support, and answer their call to tell Emmert what you think of his decision! Feel free to take up some of our points, or lay on your own!

From SCEH, via Facebook:
Subject: The President's Decision

Friends,

Yesterday we received the disappointing news that President Emmert has denied our request that the U.W. host Tent City in spite of the fact the proposal had won the support of the ASUW Senate, GPSS Senate and Faculty Senate.

Before I go on, let me pause to thank all of you for the support you have given with respect to our proposal to host Tent City 3 at the University of Washington. Without you, this proposal never would have been anything more than an idea.

Although this decision has been made for now, we feel that this is far from the end to this debate. Our group, Students for Civic Engagement on Homelessness, is planning numerous events for the fall, where we hope to see you. These include an art exhibit, teach in, and fundraiser for tent city. We hope that through encouraging the already present dialogue surrounding this issue we can continue to keep this subject at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

Please feel free to express your thoughts on the decision by letters to the editor, to Mark Emmert himself, and the list of other administrators whose e-mails are located at the bottom of this page.

Again thank you for your continued support, and please look for further e-mails in the fall regarding the events mentioned above.

On behalf of SCEH,
Hunter Marshall (treasurer)

Mark Emmert - pres@u.washington.edu
Doug Wadden - djwad@u.washington.edu
Norm Arkans - arkans@u.washington.edu
Phyllis Wise - provost@u.washington.edu
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Know Your Rights! Flyer

It's been a little while since we have updated--but it is not for lack of activity! ABC Coalition is working hard, even over the summer; in particular, custodial staff have been working extra hard to stop shift changes, stop speed-ups, and continue solidarity across workplaces and shifts. Democracy Insurgent! and ABC Coalition worked with custodial staff to create the Know Your Rights pamphlet below. This pamphlet was created to help custodial staff fight back against management retaliation and unsafe working conditions, and also to let staff know what their protected rights are under federal and state labor law, and their contract.