3/9/2019

"POC:USAS#3 & Islamic Alliance for Justice stand in solidarity with this brave union sister who's being smeared for the crime of being a Black Muslim woman who speaks to truth to power." 

3/8/2019

"We fought for seats at the table and won, and will continue to fight for fair financial aid and student autonomy over our time and labor."

3/4/2019

"POC:USAS#3 is proud to be one the 20 amazing student organizations that are joining Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine in its renewed push for the university to accede to BDS measures. BDS is a labor issue, and our $7 billion university should heed the calls of Palestinian trade unions, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and other trade unionists around the world to *STOP* investing in the occupation of Palestine!"

2/28/2019

POC:USAS#3 takes a stand for the protection and strengthening of labor studies. "With the recent departure of our former Dean Kevin Hallock, ILR has been searching for a replacement. We feel that the process should have student involvement, as our next dean will have the power to greatly influence our remaining time in ILR, as well as the school's future for years to come." 

2/23/2019

In visual form, undergrads challenge the classist logic of the burdensome "student contribution fee." 

2/23/2019

In November 2018, POC:USAS#3 & First Generation Student Union held a student-contribution teach-in that was attended in part by key administrative stakeholders in Cornell’s financial aid policymaking process, ultimately resulting in their concession to engage in sustained negotiations on “the student contribution question” with our organizers. In February 2019, the 2 groups held another open forum with the purpose of further mobilizing the campus community & building up our movement’s base.

2/18/2019

“I felt joy for the marginalized communities of New York City threatened by Amazon, amazement at the power of grassroots organizing and confident in the raw strength of New Yorkers,” Daniel Bromberg ’20, a Brooklyn native, told The Sun. Katayrna Restrepo ’21 similarly celebrated the company’s withdrawal as “a major win for local grassroots organizing,” saying “the next fight concerning Amazon would be to fight the prospect of the headquarters moving to another area as Bezos has no intention of leaving this project.” 

2/14/2019

"If it weren't for the inspiring community organizing and power-building of groups such as Queens Anti-Gentrification Project and No Amazon NYC, Bezos' megalomanic ass would've never been kicked out of the big city. SOLIDARITY FOREVER!" 

2/13/2019

"As members of the People’s Organizing Collective, USAS Local #3, we unconditionally offer to facilitate an initial conversation between our partners at WRC and Cornell’s administration. As President Pollack cements her vision of “One Cornell,” of a global university whose footprint reaches far beyond our quiet campus in a rural corner of upstate New York, she has a historic chance to ensure that this vision is materialized in keeping with the highest respect for worker and human rights."

2/12/2019

"Today The Cornell Daily Sun wrote in an editorial that our proposed abolition of the Student Contribution Fee is "facially unworkable." We’d like to inform their editors that several peer universities (e.g. Harvard University, Rice University) have met the VERY SAME DEMANDS we’ve presented to Cornell University! Additionally, we find it deeply problematic that an ostensibly objective student publication is using their platform to derail grassroots student organizing." 

2/11/2019

"Foremost, we want to reiterate the crucial role that graduate student-workers play in the lives of undergrads. Graduate students are our mentors, our instructors and our friends. They oftentimes fill tasks left by overloaded professors — meeting with us one-on-one to guide us not only through our coursework, but through our larger academic and professional trajectories. Cornell does not work unless its graduate student-workers do, and the undergraduate experience would be a shell of itself without them."

2/9/2019

POC:USAS#3 took another step in its campaign to abolish the student contribution fee, issuing demands that key administrators heed their unfulfilled promise to engage in negotiations with our organizers.

2/12/2019

Yana Kalmyka & David Leynov kickstart awesome work towards enriching a labor studies field that has become more-and-more diluted in the era of the neoliberal university. 

12/25/2018

Our cross-organizational collaboration generated significant funding for "Trees of Life," a project which has planted nearly 200,000 such trees since its inception in 2006. This work has helped Palestinians offset the enormous destruction of trees by Israeli soldiers and militant settlers in their occupied homelands. 

12/12/2018

"LE MONDE REGARDE! POC:USAS#3 stands in solidarity with the French students on the front lines of le Mouvement des Gilets jaunes ("Yellow Vest Movement"). Macron must go, and with him the entire system that enriches the elite at the expense of the working class. From Paris to Pittsburgh to Palestine, le fascisme ne passera pas."

12/9/2018

In February 2019, hundreds of workers, students, and organizers from across the globe will converge in Oxford, Mississippi to learn from each other, sharpen their organizing skills, and forge lasting connections needed to reinvigorate the global labor movement. POC has launched a fundraising drive to send a delegation of Ithaca-area student organizers to attend 22nd National USAS Convention. 

12/2/2018

POC strongly believes that Cornell Graduate Students United's petition’s demands — from gym membership reimbursement to an improvement of the therapy referral process — are reasonable and necessary requests that deserve immediate university action. We encourage the university to accept and implement CGSU’s recommendations, and ask that CGSU be included at the decision-making table as further actions are taken to improve Cornell’s mental health services.

12/7/2018

One of our senior organizers, Yana Kalmyka, wrote an incredible piece shining light on a developing local crisis that has put human rights and economic justice in the crosshairs.

11/15/2018

The student contribution fee needs to change, argued the People’s Organizing Collective and the First Generation Student Union in a teach-in Thursday evening. At the gathering, members presented data and testimonies about how the required payment presents challenges for low-income students.

11/15/2018

The event, co-hosted by Cornell’s First Generation Student Union, will allow “undergrads to ask questions, speak to their own experiences, and connect with students organizing against predatory financial aid policies,” according to the event’s Facebook Page titled “Any Person, Any Study-Any Tax Bracket?”

10/23/2018

The People's Organizing Collective: United Students Against Sweatshops Local 3 & First Generation Student Union staged its first action in the campaign to abolish Cornell University 's classist $2900+ "Student Contribution" Fee. We packed administrative offices at Day Hall Cornell University to announce our campaign demands, deliver nearly 300 petition signatures, and tell university leaders in a creative action how low-income students already "contribute" to Cornell in innumerable ways — as researchers, workers, volunteers, artists, club members, organizers, student athletes, and so much more. We spoke to the Interim Director Financial Aid and Associate Vice President of Enrollment, as well as to representatives of the Office of the President. We requested and anticipate clear responses from letter-drop recipients within two weeks.

9/24/2018

POC Student Organizers Co-Author & Co-Sign Letter Condemning Cornell's Non-Union Real Estate Contracts. 

9/23/2018

At its first meeting, POC decided to join two local and statewide campaigns that are critically important in advancing worker and healthcare justice.