Led by the student coalition “Take Back Berkeley,” nearly 100 students, staff and faculty at the University of California-Berkeley gathered last week to protest the president's proposal for mandatory employee furloughs. UC President Mark Yudof proposed system-wide employee furloughs to begin in September in order to offset the UC system's $813 million budget shortfall. The protestors argued that the budget cuts should first come from senior executive pay chanting "chop from the top." UC spokesperson Ricardo Vazquez countered that executive pay cuts would not be enough to resolve the budget deficit because senior management compensation accounts for less than 1 percent of the overall payroll. The protesters also objected to the possibility of Yudof being given emergency powers, which would allow him to implement furloughs or salary cuts during a financial emergency, because of the lack of checks and balances on his decisions.

Student coalition Take Back Berkeley plans to follow up with more demonstrations as university officials continue to determine where to make budget cuts.

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