Military Police Attack Staff of University in Brazil To Crush Strike

4 strikers were injured when military police attacked the a university lock down to protest government’s policy towards privatizing the largest public university in Sao Paulo.

Students joined the staff of the university in their strike and their resistance to state repression. Barricades were erected to defend the public university from the state.

The strikers locked down university gates, then after the police attacked them, the battle moved on the street.

USP plans to fire 3,000 employees to save salaries of 20,000 dollars a month for senior positions in the university and the private contractors of the public university. Strikers protest and say this is a premeditated destruction of the university so it can be privatized.

After they declared a strike, employees on strike at USP (University of São Paulo) were attacked by the military police, who tear-gassed them and fired rubbet bullets at them.
 
Video of police attacking the strikers:

The strikers closed the gates of the university to signal their strike, this was the excuse police had to crack down on them.

A striker says, reminding that the staff declared strike only after 2 months of protests and call for dialogue with the university bosses failed: “Absurd repression of the USP employees. This is how the rectory and the government want to impose their policies: by baton and fire, by military police force, this is the only “dialogue” they know. This repression is aimed to crush a legitimate strike. (By attacking the strike) they want to criminalize our right to fight. The University is a public asset and must be at the service of the majority of the population that sustains it, it must not be only for the privileged few.” 

The strikers – students and university employees – responded with erecting barricades to protect themselves from the police attacks. The union says 4 strikers were injured, one worker was hit by a bomb shrapnel in the face; of course the military police claim they injured nobody.

Some 80 employees and students resisted the police attacking the university to forcefully open its gates and break their strike; the city of Sao Paulo deployed 12 police vans against them. Cops fired not only tear gas, but also rubber bullets.

This weekend there will be protests towards police attacking the university and the brutality of their tactics to break up the employees strike. Students support the strikers as well as some professors, opposing the plans of the rector whom them accuse of implementing the government policy towards the privatization of the university.  The rector supports firing 3,000 employees, claiming financial “burden”, but refuses to touch the financing by the university of private contractors, nor cuts in the salaries of the senior positions in the university who receive wages of 20,000 dollars per month, higher than that of the governor of Sao Paulo.

Last week, the union representing the staff has distributed a document in the campus in which the university listed the intention to “voluntarily dismiss” 3,000 people, claiming this will solve their financial crisis. The union who represents the strikers announced they stopped working also to protest the ongoing restrictions to health care, the degradation of hospitals, the arbitrary “flexibility” of salary cuts, the huge increase  in the cost of life overall, especially in the energy bills for the population. They demand an increase of their wages with 9.7%. They barricaded themselves in one of the buildings, as the standoff with the police continues. See here an early video of the police attacking the university strikers.

The plan to fire 3,000 university employees, based on disinformation by manipulative statistics,  seems to be heading towards destroying the university, and towards the privatization of education.

Source and more pics: Revolution News