We, the Students for a Democratic Society of Chapel Hill, express our complete support for the University of Minnesota's clerical, technical and healthcare workers' struggle for a fair contract and a living wage. In this struggle, between worker and management, we commend the efforts of the AFSCME, striking workers and UMN students. We implore the University to end its corrupt wage inequalities by guaranteeing its underpaid and hardworking employees a respectful, honest, and fair contract. All government institutions should guarantee their employees a wage that allows them to support their families while avoiding the corporate style of salary degradation between management and worker. As concerned students involved in campus labor battles at UNC, we find the UMN strike necessary and unquestionably honorable. We furthermore commend the UMN SDS chapter for undertaking a hunger strike and putting themselves on the line to support the workers at their university. What is needed here is justice, fairness and equality. All workers at UMN, at all universities, and throughout the United States deserve these rights.

This statement was read at a press conference on Thursday September 12 at the Pit.

We, UNC-Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society, are here today to honor the unbreakable link between students and workers. We are here in solidarity with the demands of UE150 and Chapel Hill/Carrboro workers for the University to halt its censorship of demands for collective bargaining. In addition, we demand that UNC administration support efforts of collective bargaining and engage in non-interference with unionization efforts. SDS is also here putting out the call to other students to join in this struggle against the blatant denial of workers’ rights. These workers drive our buses, clean our dorms and feed us everyday. This university works because they do. We as students need to support the workers in their internationally undisputed right to collective bargaining. Therefore, we join UE150's demands:

UE 150, the union that represents workers on campus and in the town of Chapel Hill (as well as many other public sector workers across the state), is calling for a rally and a press conference on Thursday, September 13, at 12 noon in the Pit, to speak out against both the University's censorship of an article submitted to the University employee's newspaper about collective bargaining and the Jim Crow law in North Carolina (NC General Statute 95-98) that prohibits public sector employees from collectively bargaining.

The union is asking for all of those who oppose University censorship and support campus workers, Chapel Hill town workers, and all of North Carolina's public sector employees in their struggle for the right to collectively bargain to wear red and come out to the Pit at noon on Thursday.

With funding for the criminal war on Iraq set to run out on October 1, this September will be a crucial time for the those who oppose the war to take action! UNC-Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) will be organizing buses to Washington D.C. to join both the Youth and Student Day of Direct Action Against the War on September 28 and the Mass March to Stop the War at Home and Abroad on September 29. If you would like to come with us to one or both of these actions in D.C., let us know!

There are two buses leaving Chapel Hill to join the Youth Day of Action: one will leave the night of Wednesday, September 26 and one will leave in the late afternoon of Thursday, September 27. The bus to join the march will be leaving early in the morning on Saturday, September 29. All of the buses will be coming back to Chapel Hill on Saturday night.

Film + discussion

We're kicking off our month of protesting the war of Iraq with The Battle of Algiers, a classic 1966 film which documents the Algerian people's heroic battle against the French colonialism. Following the film we will discuss the parallels to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and what we can do to stop the war.

Please RSVP

Thursday September 13 at 7pm
Manning 209
Free food!

Students for a Democratic Society invites you to be a part of history this summer, at our 2nd National Convention since reforming on Martin Luther King Day, 2006.

In less than a year-and-a-half, SDS has grown to thousands of members at hundreds of chapters across the U.S. and represents one of the largest radical multi-issue voices on the American student left. SDS has proven itself to be an emerging force against imperialism, leading targeted actions to shut down the war machine from New York to Washington State. SDS is also combating the multi-layered forms of oppression that exist within our organization and the society at large, including but not limited to class, heterosexism, racism, and sexism. SDS incorporates a vision of environmental and climate justice, working to reverse the trend of ecological destruction that threatens the planet. And through it all SDS remains committed to participatory democracy as not only a goal but as our basic operating principle.

Dear Anti-War Friends and Allies—

Representative Price has failed to represent the will of the people and lead us out of Iraq. Instead, Price is trying to appease the growing anti-war movement which is sweeping through North Carolina and the rest of the country with empty rhetoric and failed promises of action. On February 16 2007, six students, as part of a larger coordinated national effort, visited Price's Chapel Hill office to share our grave concerns about his supposed commitment to end the Iraq War. David Price's political advisor, Rose Auman, would not allow us to speak to Price by phone. Instead, Auman called the Chapel Hill Police Department to intimidate and silence us. The David Price Six were arrested and charged with first degree trespassing for the 'crime' of exercising our first amendment rights to seek a redress of grievances from our Congressperson. When we invited Congressman Price to come to our trial to testify as to his position about our country's invasion and occupation of Iraq, he wrote to District Attorney James Woodall and asked him to drop the charges against us. Woodall declined.

Dear friends and allies,

On Friday, February 16, six students were arrested in the Chapel Hill office of Rep. David Price demanding that he vote against more war funding to continue the criminal war on Iraq. On Monday, March 26, the six entered a plea of 'not guilty' in the Orange county courthouse.

On Monday, May 7th at 2 PM, the David Price Six go to trial for their efforts to publicly condemn the Iraq Occupation and Representative Price's complicity in the ongoing violence.

By David Dixon

On Saturday, April 21 over 400 hundred people marched and rallied in Greensboro against the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, against torture & for the impeachment of Bush & Cheney. Groups that took part and/or spoke included Action Center For Justice, Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society, CodePink Charlotte, Grassroots Impeachment Movement (GRIM), Greensboro Peace Coalition, Justice at Smithfield Campaign, NC Labor Against The War, UNCG Campus Anti-War Coalition, Cakalak Thunder drummers, the World Can't Wait, ANSWER & Troops Out Now Coalitions, musical performances and others.