"...to make the international mass movements we need to abolish capitalism and build socialism, to take democratic control of society and the economy, to stop the threat of climate collapse." - Steven Lazaroff
1. We need to make the university into a problem–or transform the problem so that folks see the chains of causation that actually determine our lives, e.g. that the university is a credential factory wanting to present itself as a vaunted location of knowledge production.
Unsurprisingly, our workers report very high rates of anxiety and depression related to financial difficulties in general and an everyday inability to pay for rent, food, or healthcare. It is hard to study and do our best work when we are put in such constant danger and fear. Backing this up, our undergraduate paper The Vidette published interviews with graduate students based on a study from Frontiers in Neuroscience that shows “68% displayed symptoms of anxiety and 50% displayed symptoms of depression.” Unsurprisingly, the graduate students interviewed also happened to be graduate workers and members of the ISU Graduate Workers Union. Even more damningly, our members clarified the sources of their hardships and psychological distress:
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