Amid chants of "Whose university? Our university!" approximately 5,000 students, faculty and union members rallied on Upper Sproul Plaza throughout the day to protest the university administration's handling of the budget crisis.

The rally, which began at noon and formed into a march around campus at 1:45 p.m, drew protesters and picketers who demonstrated throughout the morning and afternoon.

Faculty members, union leaders and students addressed the crowd as students chanted, waved signs and cheered from overhead trees and balconies.

"Our problems are connected," said Isaac Miller, a member of the Solidarity Alliance, an organization of students, faculty and workers that helped organize the rally. "Our struggles have the same roots. If a crisis is a moment to choose, then it's time for us to make an educated decision. Our solidarity cannot be cut."

Leaders of the University Professional and Technical Employees union--which is on strike today and organized a number of picket lines on campus--spoke at the rally as well.

"They pushed, and they have pushed too far," said Tanya Smith, president of the local chapter of the union and who was laid off from her campus job last week. "They came after the workers, they came after the faculty and they came after the students. And the students, the staff and the faculty and Berkeley won't take it. We've had enough of this."

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau held a conference call with reporters this afternoon in which he said he supports the repeal of Proposition 13, which many point to as a key cause of a decline in state revenues that led to the budget crisis.

"I think that students should be upset and they should be expressing their opinion on the fee increases," he said. "I tell them: go down to Sacramento, go down to your local legislator and tell them that it's the obligation of the state of California to support this great educational system."

Some speakers at the rally drew parallels between today's events and the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s.

"They're telling us, 'screw you,'" said African American studies professor Percy Hintzen. "They're telling us that they're going to take it out on our backs. And we have to be courageous like the '60s ... Berkeley has changed the world. We have been called to change the world over and over again, and we are going to win this war."

Faculty and GSIs held various teach-ins on campus in the hours leading up to the rally to discuss factors that led to the budget crisis and ways to respond to the situation.

Ellen Moore--a UAW Local 2865 member and a GSI who teaches a literacy and societal development class-- held a teach-in outside of the Free Speech Movement Cafe and chanted with a group of protesters outside Moffitt Library.

"I hope that the regents and the state government will see that we are united," she said. "I see the cuts that are happening as absolutely detrimental to public education in California."

A general assembly is set to take place this evening at 6 p.m. on Upper Sproul Plaza where organizers and students will discuss how to move the effort forward after today's events.

Javier Panzar of The Daily Californian contributed to this report.

Stay tuned to >dailycal.org for real-time updates about the systemwide faculty walkout and union strike. Get published online by sending your own photos and observations to youreport@dailycal.org.

Tags: WALKOUT