Showing posts with label New Action/UFT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Action/UFT. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

UFT Tier 6 DISASTER - It's worse than you thought - New Action

I will be at the DA today handing out this leaflet before the meeting. There is a demo also re the cease fire at some point. I will take a few photos. I haven't been following the exact issues but expect some UFT reso and a push to add cease fire. I have a lot to say on this issue but not here at this time. There are enough people taking on the BIG issues. Some people have to still keep their eye on the daily conditions UFT members face.

Tier 6 is a major issue

I see the Tier 6 issue becoming a big factor in the next UFT election in 2025 because it is doubtful the UFT will get much change. But I would bet on some minor incremental change, oh, say around January 2025 just a few months before the election.

A committee sponsored by New Action has been working up some data on just how bad Tier 6 is. Over 50% of current UFT working members are in Tier 6. And for us Tier ones, Tier 4 looked rotten. (Tier one was ended c. 1973.)

Remember when Randi traded our 8.25% down to 7% for peanuts? Until recent interest rates hitting 5%, 7% still looked like gold so most of us didn't complain much. The handout says the difference over 40 years is $1.5 million compounded. It doesn't say based on what base but back of envelope calculations show that for every 100k you get 7k in interest each year  vs what we used to get - $8,250. So in one year that's a loss of $1250 for teachers. Compound that number even over 10 years. Randi the negotiator. As we always say, the UFT often seems more interested in working to save the city money than in its own members.

But the Tier 6 stuff is even more sickening. The UFT leadership claims Tier 6 reform is a high priority but they also talk about incremental improvements. People will be dead and new teachers on Tier 10 and working till 80 to get a pension.

 


If you want to copy and paste and share with co-workers I put the text below the break. Or contact NAC for copies.

 

Monday, October 11, 2021

Delegate AssemblyGate: UFT Leaders blink, opposition organizes for Oct. 13 DA over medicare and health and safety issues

EdNotes - BREAKING - 3:15PM, Oct. 7 --  Notice to Attend DA Sent out during school day as UFT Leadership Packs Upcoming Delegate Assembly with Unity Caucus Members  ---  IMAGINE -- Actual working chapter leaders and delegates were sent a notice - purposefully when they were in the classroom, thus giving the vast Unity Caucus network, many not in classrooms an advantage in registering - and all seats were filled almost immediately -- thus shutting out the many newly elected (spring 2021) chapter leaders and delegates --- one of the stories was that MORE elected 100 of them and few of them will be able to get into the DA next Wednesday -- but we (Retiree Advocate) will be outside and will urge every ch and del shut out to join us outside shouting -- let us in....  - UFT Closes Doors to DA -- UFT Update: Ant...

Coming Wednesday (Oct. 13), ICE-UFT will be joining with multiple other opposition groups for a Healthcare-Health and Safety rally at the UFT's first Delegate Assembly of this school year. Delegates, Chapter Leaders, rank and file active UFTers, retirees and others will all be there. I have never seen this kind of excited pulling together among opposition groups in the UFT.... James Eterno at ICEUFT blog

Monday, October 11, 2021 - Good morning - happy day off (I barely noticed).

It's in the DNA of the UFT leadership over 60 years of Unity Caucus existence to hold on to power at all costs. This didn't play well with some.

How is this at all reasonable? A teachers union that locks teachers out of its meetings because they're...teaching? Space is certainly an issue, but if there are caps on attendees who want to be there, then this is de facto suppression of full delegate participation. ... A delegate

Chapter leaders and delegates are elected to FULLY REPRESENT their respective chapters endowed with FULL POWER TO LEGISLATE. This is yet another example of seeking to make the DA a rubber stamp for a @UFT leadership that doesn’t consult the rank and file. We must be & do better..... Delegate

Over decades, that has been the major thing they have been good at -- managing the membership. When it comes to the DOE or big progressive ideas or aligning with progressive politicians, the UFT leadership has been mush -- think Schumer compared to Mitch -- they have the same mentality -- it's not in their DNA to fight back, other than to fight back against dissident members of the UFT. That's where they show some level of militancy.

At some point, that single-minded focus on control, especially a leadership totally out of touch with the members, begins to fail. The attempt to pack the upcoming DA with Unity Caucus members while retirees rally outside over the Medicare issue (Rallies, Lawsuit Updates - Retirees go to court ), joined by newly united opposition protesting the way the leadership has handled safety in the schools, may seem like a minor failure, but it is indicative of an increasingly isolated leadership, even within the confines of Unity Caucus and middle management at the district rep level. 

Last Wednesday night Oct. 6), a joint zoom event was held where parents and teachers told their stories. Zoom -- ICEUFT, Educators of NYC (EONYC): Educators Speak Out on Unsafe Schools -

Of even greater concern to the UFT leadership was this posting by Daniel Alicea, of Educators of NYC, promoting the rally outside the Oct. 13 DA:

Note the logos at the bottom -- just about every group involved in the UFT other than Unity is listed -- possibly with more to come -- and of course independent non-affiliated who are always heavily recruited by Unity, especially the newly elected chapter leaders, of which there are many, might be tempted. That MORE can claim 100 CL and Del is significant.

Plus the delegates and Ch Ldrs connected to the other groups would be the first real threat to Unity control of the DA since the early 60s. Making sure to keep as many activists out of the in-person DA is right in the wheel alley of the UFT/Unity leadership.

If these groups can actually deliver getting their people to show up that would put icing on the cake and present a real long-time threat to Unity control of the DA -- just imagine if they have to drag out all their people every month -- why they'd have to offer them a post-DA dinner as a bribe.

Was it a glitch?

I was told after posting the breaking story of an attempt to pack the DA (rivaling FDR's attempt to pack the court) by someone with inside info that I was wrong - it was just a glitch and reversed a few hours later. 

I maintain it wasn't a glitch (I had info that for the Sept 22 CL meeting, some Unity people were sort of told to make sure to be there in person) but intentional.

By 5PM, the meeting that was supposed to be socially distanced - the excuse to limit in person attendance -- had been opened up. 

The reversal to open up the space inside the DA was incited by the outrage of chapter leaders and delegates calling and tweeting at union officials. By 5PM the so-called artificial "safety distance rules" set up for the DA - and for the Sept. 22 chapter leader meeting -- where Retiree Advocate/UFT Caucus people were also outside in force.

Let's follow the bouncing ball.

Since the registration [for Oct. 13 Delegate ASSEMBLY] email was sent during the work day, I opened it and registered less than 15 minutes after dismissing my kids. Virtual available only. No other option. Locked out of the full democratic process. Thanks for such a warm welcome to the DA, @UFT! ....Classroom teacher, newly elected delegate

The UFT executive board recently voted to allow a hybrid delegate assembly. While I support giving this option to members, I received an email to register for the DA at about 1:50. When I tried to register in person it said it’s at capacity… Classroom teacher, chapter leader

Response of Brian Gibbons, UFT social media head:

From reports, Brian Gibbons has not been a classroom teacher.

I do find it ironic that the UFT leadership seems fine with sending its members into crowded non-socially distance schools while using the safety issue to restrict attendance and limit democracy at union events. For instance, all Ex Bd meetings are supposed to be open to all members but right now you must be vaxed to attend (interesting that the unvaxed members the UFT is supporting in court would not be allowed in). All retiree meetings this year will be remote - there is one Oct. 13 from 1-3PM -- interesting how that meeting was moved from the usual Tuesday to just before the DA which starts at 4 -- the leadership knew we were planning to rally.

I'm proud of the work Retiree Advocate/UFT has done over the past year -- we are a group of people from various caucuses and have worked very well together - a model of sorts. I wrote this in April, 2021 -- The United Front: Retiree Advocate/UFT brings friends and former opponents together for Retiree Chapter election.

In some ways the actual issues pale compared to the fact that all groups are talking to each other at various levels - privately and in more official ways from what I hear. Working together for the Oct. 13 DA -- the first DA for many who had been elected last spring --- might turn into actually bringing a long-time dream of mine to fruition -- a united slate in this spring's UFT elections. 

Wishful thinking? I'm torn because I don't look forward to getting involved in another UFT election but if wishes come through I will be there.

Monday, July 12, 2021

Unity Caucus and Chinese Communist Party - Xi Jinping uses Unity as model, China as example of communism failure or success? Can a one party system succeed in holding power over the long run?

Hell yes - look at Unity Caucus. I'd bet anything that if the opposition were to actually win an election Unity would do exactly like Trump and Lukashenko in Belarus - say we somehow managed to steal the election and refuse to leave power and incite a Unity nob to storm the delegate assembly.

Let's explore the concept of one party rule on the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, 70 years in power, and compare it to the 60th year of one party rule in the UFT. True that we actually have elections in the UFT, but the system has so been set up as to assure Unity of continued control. I'll get into the details of how that is accomplished at another time.

If one party has total power for decades even if there are so-called opposition parties, I am suggesting that in reality that is a one-party system. After all, Shanker modeled Unity on the foundation of some of the leftist parties he came in contact with in his youth. (A mentor was former communist and Trotskist Max Shachtman who ended up as a neocon, as did Shanker.) One party - or one caucus - systems emerged from one of the concepts of Leninism - a vanguard party of the highly conscious (the woke? elites?) who lead the workers. it is a powerful idea --- but also dangerous in how it has proven easy for the party to be captured by a strongman - and it often seems to be a man, which distorts the party into a personal cult. [My main issue with the idea of that form of socialism - even Marxist-Leninist parties in this nation often are dominated by a tiny group of leaders amountint to a cult.]
Unity Caucus has always been somewhat of a personality cult, even when led by women. (Actually, Sandy Feldman was the least cultish UFT president).

Monday, July 12, 2021


Good morning,

I've been thinking about one party systems. I've been accumulating some articles (below) on the Communist Party of China - which celebrated its 100th anniversary and has been in power for over 70 years. With all the attacks on communist countries as being failures, China represents a success for its one party system - so far - the Soviet one party system did fail around its 70th year. China doesn't seem even close and in fact the Party, which has an astounding 90 million members, seems stronger than ever. But the party under Xi seems to have become more restricted than it has been in decades and that lack of dynamic can affect a party - witness current Republicans. In so many states we in essence have a one party system and laws intended to make that permanent.
The chairman’s call for struggle and violence against capitalists is winning over a new audience of young people frustrated with long work hours and dwindling opportunities.... [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/business/china-mao.html]
Mao-Tze Mulgrew- Can we say the same for our own lovable one party system in the UFT? Can we atrtibure bad decision making to the lack of even a hint of internal democratic dynamic?

The standard idea of democracy is two or multi-party systems with the idea that at various times they will occupy power at some point. Now we know that communist run countries are proud of their one party systems. This is different from social democracies like in many areas of Europe which have multi-parties.So if the UFT has had one party in power while the opposition at most could elect less than 10% of the Ex Bd, that is in effect a one party system.

I've come to see how one party systems can have overall benefits for a nation or a union -- think of consistency of a party line -- but at the very least there has to be some level of internal democracy in the party where issues are shared and debated in an open manner even if the Party closes ranks once a decision is made. This is known as democratic centralism and I can see it working for an organization if it is truly democratic --- if the Party is fairly open to many members instead of a small oligarchy -- democracy even if limited can work. But when one person or a small tightly woven group dominate, democracy gets distorted. 

And I will claim that internally, Unity is not and has never been democratic and may be even less so than ever as Xi Jin Mulgrew seems to have consolidated power into three men and one woman in a room. I doubt that Shanker or Randi or even Sandy also didn't have their crew of non-elected henchpeople -- but this is the first time we hear rumors of internal resentment -  even if one person is making the decision, at least a show of consulting others goes a long way.

Even small groups like the MORE Caucus can get distorted - and some of us lost our battle for democracy to a tightly controlled group from the ISO (International Socialists), a party that had run on many of the precepts of one-party systems and were very uncomfortable in an organization of free-flowing ideas. So very Unity like. There are signs that MORE may be moving in a promising different direction organizationally due to the influence of DSA people were are more committed to democracy than ISO people were -- which may make MORE more open -- we'll delve into that in the future. My hope for MORE is that DSA - which I am a member of and seems to have a real dedication to democracy, has a positive influence.

The CCP in China and Unity Caucus have a good chunk of members - ie. Unity has around 1000 or more and if democratic debate and decision making takes place among even an internal fairly representative body -- that would be a form of democracy - in theory. In fact MORE also has increased membership by 10 times -- which if they get to have a say would create more democracy even as the group running MORE would still be one party - or faction.

The UFT one-party system does have elections, even if rigged and set up in a way that the opposition cannot win - retirees vote for every position except the 23 Ex Bd elem, middle and high school positions. Also witness that the almost 7000 people who voted for RA in the recent election get no delegates to the DA or to the AFT/NYSUT conventions -- as one party as you can get.

The only way Unity can lose is if it loses the support of retirees, which they are risking with the move to take people out of Medicare. Given Retiree Advocate went from 18% of the chapter election vote in 2018 to just short of 30% in the recent election, that is a sign of some slippage, but probably not enough to affect the general UFT spring 2022 elections. But then again many retirees still weren't aware of the changes. We got just short of 7000 votes while Unity got around 16,500. These out of potential 70,000 votes. With the Medicare changes probably set to go through on Jan. 1, 2022, we might see further movement away from Unity and then things will become serious.

But I will point out that even if we see a united opposition -- if MORE has come to its senses - I felt the MORE "decision" to blow up the opposition in the 2019 elected was manipulated by the ISO and allies faction and opposing points of view were suppressed -- which led to my suspension.

I would also say the same about New Action too since even they resisted a united front with Solidarity Caucs last time despite strong support fot it -- and I heard from some internally that even their decision was controversial with charges of lack of democracy.

Which just gores to show that democracy is challenged wherever we roam.

I will say that so far in Retiree Advocate we have had complete democracy - consensus -- but we are mostly a dozen people -- but still we come from three different groups and have managed to help lead the resistance on the health care issue.

And RA will play a role in bringing groups tegether for the elections. But if we managed to unite we could win elem, middle and high schools with amajority  and 49% of the retiree votes and still end up with at most 23 Ex Bd seats out of 100 and no officers. To me that is fundamentally a one party system. The key would be turnout - imagine if we even had 50% turnout. But I maintain that winning 23 Ex Bd seats would be revolutionary.

Can we compare Unity to places like Belarus or Hungary where they make sure that even if the other party gets more votes, they don't win. In fact compare it to the Republicans in Trump world where if Dems win in the future, they will be charged with stealing. And I'd bet anything that if the opposition were to actually win an election Unity would do exactly like Trump and Lukashenko in Belarus - say we somewho managed to steal the election and refuse to leave power and incite a Unity nob to storm the delegate assembly.

Ok - enough of this meandering. Here are the articles on China -- with an interesting one that the young people are sort of rebelling the inequality by going back to basics - Mao and his calls for working class rule -- which given his entire history of total conrol of the Party with echoes of Trump control of Republicans might cause you to lol. And Bret Stevens on why Xi will fail - also LOL - Stevens thinks the CCP will fail because they lie to the people -- missing the irony of how often our own government has lied which has created so much mistrust our system may fall before China's does.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

UFT Update: Which Came First - the leadership or the membership? Are teachers in LA and Chicago different than NYC?

I keep wondering if there is a major difference in the kinds of people who go into teaching in NYC vs Chicago and LA -- the three biggest cities. Since 2010, Chicago and then LA have elected left wing leaderships that have led strikes with the support of the overwhelming majority of members.

Here in NYC in the UFT we don't see anything even close. So is it the memberships of these cities that is different? Or is it the differences in the leadership?

In the endless back and forth we hear about the failures of the Unity Caucus leadership we hear their response: It's the members, stupid - or the stupid members.
I'm taking a short break from my posts on the 1975 crisis with Part 4 still being worked on -- I'm going back to 1968 after the weekend death of Rhody McCoy to link 68 to the failures of 75. Check them out:
People inside the UFT leadership often blame a conservative leaning centrist membership that they see as less progressive than they are and that trying to move them in a more militant direction is useless and even dangerous for them -- at one point they were resisting using Trump's name in some reso so as not to alienate the Trump backers in the UFT - of which there are surprising number - I know them on FB.

So is the leadership correct? That the teachers in NYC are not as militant or active as Chicago and LA - or is it the nature of the leadership itself that doesn't even attempt to create a more active and militant union?

Sunday, April 28, 2019

UFT Election Overall and Retiree Data: Halabi Reports

Mulgrew had 37,000 votes and over 20,000 came from retirees, a warning shot across the bow of the UFT leadership and to some extent it explains their reaching out to former opposition people to stay on the Ex Bd by running on the Unity line. It won't do them much good as the UFT needs deep structural changes instead of cosmetic ones.
It was a bad election for the UFT. Vote totals were down across the board. My caucus, New Action, did particularly poorly
Unity did sweep the seats. But the group that has a monopoly on power has a growing inability to turn out votes, even after turning a popular chapter leader of a huge school, and a prominent Bernie Sanders supporter, with following.....
....Unity can claim a victory – they took an absolute majority of the high school votes for the first time since I’ve been a teacher… but with their second lowest vote total in years, perhaps ever.
I’ve seen speculation about who came in second overall. These results make me think Unity came in second – and those with an interest in promoting distance between the members and the union – our enemies – came in first...
..... Jonathan Halabi, https://jd2718.org
I've been posting the election data as Jonathan compiles it division by division. Below are the retiree votes -- which seem to have leveled off at around 21,000 with Unity getting almost 90% of the votes. First here are his rough overall totals. The numbers are pathetic for everyone.


Here is the rough skinny on the retiree vote:

Friday, April 26, 2019

UFT Election 2019 - Functional Chapters Based on Halabi Data

Functional chapters (non-teaching) are the mystery ship of the UFT - we address the fundamentals. There are about 40,000 working functionals - non-classroom plus 60,000 retirees and they are lumped together when they vote in UFT elections and get 19 Ex Bd seats. Thanks to Jonathan Halabi's efforts, we are getting some of the data from the UFT elections with his comparisons to previous elections. In this piece he provides info on the often mysterious functional chapter(s).
Actual teachers in the three divisions total over 70,000 so even if a strategy of winning the three teacher ex bd divisions (total- 23 seats) where retirees don't vote was successful, the UFT would still be under Unity control, but seriously threatened if the opposition could gain control of the functionals. Below I delve into why that would be so difficult. Even if the opposition were to win these 19 and add them to the 23 teaching seats the 42 seats would still fall short since there are 48 Ex Bd at-large seats where retirees vote. And in fact retirees vote and run for the functional ex bd seats too so that is how the election is rigged.
9000 non-retiree functional voted in this election out of the 40,000. Unity got 7200, a drop of around 400 from 2016 - maybe due to the OT/PT people. MORE received 824 and New Action 212 while together in 2016 they got 2200. So they lost 50% of the previous vote together but MORE even got less than they did in 2013, which is remarkable since they opportunistically focused their attention on the OT/PT chapter and ran one of the big voices in opposition to the contract as an officer. Let's assume a batch of their 824 came from that chapter.

The surprise was the showing of Solidarity (referring to them as Portelos' clique by Jonathan is disrespectful to the people involved) which got 917 votes, following their trend of tripling their 2016 votes across the board. I assume some of the unhappy OT/PT people went for them too. And secretaries are not happy either. Paras seemed to get some improvements in their contract and I would assume they went big for Unity.

I hear over 21000 retirees voted. (Some MORE supporters are whining about a phony issue where some retirees cut off the ballot in the middle and sent it in - we are addled, you know. And to count those the machines had to be reset. It seems that somehow counting these caused some to start charging it was fraud -- sure.)

In previous posts Jonathan covered the other divisions of the union and also did an overall summation (which we have yet to publish). I've been trying to break down the data with some analysis. Why? Because the past counts no matter how much people want to deny it and the patter in UFT elections is consistent. Yet we will see once again in 2022 caucuses claiming we need to vote in new leadership in the UFT. My goal is to get people to stop wasting everyone's time and energy unless you have built a massive and united opposition going head to head with Unity. That won't happen as long as caucuses see their priority as building their own narrow caucus instead of an opposition united on some basic principles. Let me know when that happens.

Here are my previous reports in reverse order of publishing with links to Jonathan's posts.
Also read Arthur's take: MORE Plans to Fail, Fails to Plan to Fail Sufficiently, and Comes in Second Among Working Teachers

About the functional chapters: 
There were 13 colored ballots during the contract vote for the functionals. The biggest one is the para chapter with I am told 19,000 members. Secretaries were usually over 3000. Guidance counselors and social workers and OT/PT and school nurses and hospital nurses. Others are much smaller.

Each chapter elects its own chapter leader and delegates and an ex bd to run the chapter and Unity makes sure to control this process and make sure the chapters remain loyal and don't go off the reservation. They have been pretty successful in this -- I was in a functional in my last few years in the system - the teacher assigned chapter -- I worked for the district - and I believe Randi opened up a delegate position for me since I was not in critical mode at the time --- I was sort of told that they wanted to be pushed - a little -- but when my pushing went over a line they were not happy.

Functionals help Unity control elections and the delegate assembly
Retirees are a functional and there are 63,000 retirees with 300 delegates to the DA - and add all the other chapter delegates -- like paras etc -- all pretty much under Unity control - so the functional chapters when added to the Unity chapter leaders and delegates in the schools give Unity control over the DA too.

Retirees don't vote for contracts but do vote in UFT elections. But their vote is broken out separately because there is a cap on retiree votes - I think 21,000  - which means if more than 21,000 vote - as I think happened this time -- each vote becomes a fraction. Like this time maybe .95 or something.

The little trick Unity plays with the 19 functional ex bd seats is to lump them together instead of allowing each functional to elect its own member(s) to the Ex Bd. One reform of the UFT Ex Bd to open it up would be stop lumping them. And to manage the retiree issue I would give retirees a bunch of seats on the Ex Bd since they are such a big chapter -- say 5. But I would also cut down on the 300 Unity delegates they get in the DA. And I would also give retirees a seat on the ad com. But they would not vote for the rest of the adcom or at large ex bd. In fact, I would fundamentally eliminate the at-large seats or maybe reserve 10.

Well, I hope you understand more about the UFT functionals. If my plan to win the 23 ex bd teacher seats ever came about, an opposition would have make some inroads into some of the functionals. Ironically, the only chapter with even a semblance of an opposition is the retiree chapter where the Retiree Advocate operates with New Action and some of the former MOREs who are also still involved. We run in the chapter elections and put out a newsletter but of course getting retirees to go against Unity is a useless operation because who are the happiest people in the UFT?


Wednesday, April 24, 2019

UFT 2019 Election Report - MORE Follies, Middle and Elem from Halabi Data

A united front in UFT elections might actually have won the middle schools in addition to the high schools and possibly made a dent in the elementary schools.

MORE shrinks rank and file power
MORE is contending that attempts to win these seats is somehow counter to what they term as "building rank and file power", another piece of rhetoric that is fundamentally meaningless, as if having the rank and file actually cast a vote for you doesn't really mean very much. The actions of MORE have actually shrunk rank and file power by undermining the general opposition to Unity Caucus and strengthened the ruling power. Building real rank and file power requires weakening the control of Unity and how driving out people into the arms of Unity does that is beyond me.

Arthur has a must-read funny and devastating blog post on the MORE folly of not winning: 
MORE Plans to Fail, Fails to Plan to Fail Sufficiently, and Comes in Second Among Working Teachers
MORE went into this election cycle with the clear goal of losing. Optimally they would get no votes whatsoever. However, an election campaign requires that you ask people to vote for you. Otherwise, it would not be a campaign. So there's the rub--when you run to lose you have to at least pretend to run to win, or people will find you insincere. Now it's pretty tough, when you are sincerely insincere, to prove you are not. So that was one quandary.
The ISO (now disbanded) wing of MORE (which is still intact and in control of MORE) in its internal reports to the ISO leadership (which I will be publishing excerpts of) were selling the idea to the newly recruited Democratic Socialists (DSA) that the now purged ICEUFT wing of MORE was somehow right wing - a joke since it was mostly socialist or left Democrats - and that in order to win seats on the UFT Ex Bd MORE would have to dilute the social justice message where in reality we called for cutting the rhetoric and dog whistles and presenting a broader base of ideas without labeling things as bread and butter or social justice. As a lifelong socialist in ICEUFT recently commented: We are not ceding to MORE that their vision of social justice is the correct one.

ICEUFT was truly a rational social justice caucus. That real conditions teachers and students were facing in the schools not the agenda of a tiny group of people is the real way to drive building rank and file power.

The ISO fraction (as they call themselves) viewed winning as being just for the sake of winning. Arthur takes that down with:
... you run no candidates whatsoever for the high school seats, because last time you won them, and that was a disaster. I mean, there were those people going to Executive Board twice a month, making themselves available to anyone who wanted to talk to them, and advocating for just about anyone who asked. Worse, they didn't bother to advocate for the things you wanted because it was Monday night and hey, Monday night is rumba lessons.
The point I could never seem to get across within MORE was that winning seats from Unity IS a message to the rank and file, which has its only opportunity to participate during elections and gives them a chance to send the UFT leadership a message. And by winning or at least challenging seriously, the leadership itself feels threatened enough to possibly modify its policies. For me the golden oak leaf cluster would be to win all three school divisions where retirees can't vote --- that would not only send a message, but would also open up the idea of a law suit on the retiree issue -- that the working teachers were voting opposition but were thwarted.

That dream is done in by the sectarian actions of the MORE leadership under the control of the ISO faction or fraction or whatever.

In this election, whatever share of the rank and file that votes shat on the MORE vision of building rank and file power.

Middle and Elem school election outcome
Jonathan Halabi has been doing a yeoman job parsing UFT election data. (What a way to spend a week off. But look at me spending time on doing the same thing.) Here is his middle and elementary school data with my commentary.

While we considered winning the high school ex bd seats a pretty sure bet with a united front, the middle school ex bd seats were deemed remotely winnable if a concerted effort was made by a united opposition. That may not be obvious at first but look at Jonathan's data over the past 3 elections - 13, 16, 19. In 2016, MORE/New Action with Solidarity data hit 39%, withing striking range in 2019 with a concerted effort to hit the largest middle schools from the beginning of the school year. Notice the drop in Unity votes from 2016 (think of it - Unity gets 1236 out of a potential 12,000 MS teachers). If you take the opposition totals from 2016 and apply them to 2019 (not a given), we would have been in striking range. The only time the opposition won the middle and high schools (13 seats) was in 1991.

MORE received only 145 ms votes - and they had one strong school - Kevin Prosen's where I bet many of the votes came from. Solidarity despite the low totals actually has made its best showing in MS % wise - and bested MORE with 188 votes. New Action's 74 votes is mostly due to the work of the tireless of Greg DiStefano in Staten Island.

Where did the rank and file strategy go in the middle schools when 882 people voted for MORE/NA in 2016 and only 219 MS teachers voted for them individually this time, a drop of about 75%? As Arthur said, MORE failed in its attempt to get 0 votes but got close.



Now the elementary schools are a different kettle of fish and winning this division would require a district based strategy, which no opposition in history has had(other than my group, Another View in District 14 in the early 70s). I did try to bring that idea to MORE with a focus on the one district where we seemed to have some strong elementary school people - District 15 -- but that effort fell apart as people left and other reasons. My idea was that a strong effort in just a few districts might pull enough elementary school votes to get close. That idea is not dead too.

But again look at the Unity numbers - 7k in 2016, 6k in 2019. MORE/NA did not do too bad in 2016 - over 2500 elem school votes if you add Solidarity. I believe most of these elem school votes came from MORE which in 2016 still had some force in District 15 and a few other districts.

And look how Solidarity outpolled MORE in the elem schools this time -- 519-433.  A disastrous drop for MORE -- probably closer to 80%. Hail to building rank and file power.


Here are my previous election reports:

Sunday, April 21, 2019

UFT Election Results: Halabi Posts High School Totals Plus Historical Perspective

I've been reporting on UFT elections - UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE the Biggest Loser, Solidarity Stays Alive-
based on the data I've been given. Election results have been coming in piecemeal - Since I'm  not attached to any caucus I don't get official results. New Action's Jonathan Halabi posted these interesting high school vote totals on his blog where you should check out his comments. I left this comment on his first election post:
As a UFT wonk these numbers are fascinating to parse. Don’t forget that in 2004, ICE-TJC won the high schools because Unity didn’t run candidates. Unity vote went up very little. Total opposition vote went down drastically. The reason? Has to be the split in the opposition. Longtime anti-Unity voters just sat it out. The MORE drop from 2013 is stark. 60 or so people who signed up to run on the Solidarity ticket including a people who are respected in the UFT. Portelos played so much of smaller role this time — if he had played a bigger role they might have gotten more votes. The pattern of 30 years was broken not by Unity but by decisions made by the opposition caucuses. The so called Portelos clique which was considered marginal was given life by the MORE disaster. Also the idea that Arthur and Mike brought votes to Unity might be valid when you look at Unity’s 2013 totals – or not valid when comparing to 2016. The 50 extra votes this time could be from Arthur’s school plus some from Mike’s. Both schools had voted heavy for MORE/NA last time.
He also did a followup which I will address in tomorrow's post.

UFT 2019 High School Election results compared to previous years.


Analysis: There are about 20,000 high school teachers in the UFT .... Only 3265 voted in 2019

Unity
WOW! The numbers are ridiculous. Jonathan is painting this low turnout as a big loss for the UFT even if a win for Unity. But I don't even see this as a win for Unity in this sense. It is clear that if there were a united opposition that went after winning, Unity would have lost again.

2004
Look at the Unity numbers over the 6 election cycles Jonathan posted. The height of their vote totals in the HS was in 2004 but ironically, they didn't run any HS Ex Bd candidates due to their deal with New Action, which lost to the ICE/TJC which got 1417, less than half what Unity got. NA got 700 - so even if you added that to ICE/TJC, Unity would have won outright.

2016/19
Now consider that they only got 50 more votes this time than in 2016 and also that Arthur and Mike brought them a batch of votes over from MORE. So this makes Unity look even worse in the high schools. Mike got a bunch people to vote Unity at Leon Goldstein, which had been a TJC and then MORE school - and 4 faculty ran with MORE this time. Assume Arthur shifted at least a 100 or maybe 150 votes to Unity. It is clear to me that Unity is as weak as ever in the high schools, if not more so and that a united opposition that started early could win these seats in 2022 even if Arthur and Mike stayed with Unity. My question is why bother?

Solidarity
Some are painting the outcome as a big win for Solidarity over MORE but I don't see it that way. MORE, though suffering a tremendous drop in the high schools still beat Solidarity 544-376 with New Action getting 242, which is not totally out of line with the past performance since NA only got 454 in 2013.

But note that even with the ballot line and running candidates for HS Ex Bd, Solidarity went from 108 to 376 - which some are saying is a major move - more than tripling. I guess, but given that there are 20,000 hs teachers, that the HS have always been the most militant part of the union and that MORE ran no candidates for the winnable ex bd seats, claiming 376 votes as a victory is farcical.

New Action
The question is whether they survive. I think they do decide to continue a presence in the UFT and I hope they do. If the landscape changes within the opponents to Unity, they may have a role.

MORE: Plus A little history going back to the 2016 election
Since MORE was a combination of ICE and TJC plus others, Halabi has a continuous record of high school voting since 2004. Note the consistency over 4 election cycles from 2004 through 2013 - MORE's first year. 1417, 1524, 1369 with ICE/TJC and then when they combined with NYCORE and others  -- a shockingly consistent 1430 in 2013 even with so many new people. For MORE to drop from 1430 in 2013 to 544 in 6 years is a shocking loss of support.

I think MORE will just shrug the outcomes off and try to sell the idea they really didn't put much effort into this election and they never really cared about the outcome anyway. Will the members buy it? Since MORE is fundamentally a DSA oriented group I think most will because they have a bigger agenda than UFT politics.

But they must deal with the fact that ICE/TJC and MORE through 5 election cycles, with a broader agenda than just social justice pretty much were able to get 1350-2200 votes in the high schools. And look at the MORE candidates and the high schools they came from - count the potential votes and you will see even in the schools where they had a base they didn't necessarily get overwhelming support. I heard reports from one school with a prominent MORE as CL where people complained that chapter meetings were all about issues that they felt had nothing to do with them - like the fact Mulgrew signed on to bringing Amazon back - something they couldn't care less about.

To say MORE didn't put effort into the election is not totally true. The election is pretty much all MORE talked about at its meetings since October and they kept pushing people to get out the vote in their schools. Since MORE is almost all high school based, the 544 votes is a sign of how weak an impact MORE is having. But they may even try to sell this as a base with the argument that MORE in essence remade itself into a new caucus after the purges and was essentially starting over. Still, there are those numbers from 2013  - 1435 - when MORE was a new caucus to explain.

Also consider that some of that 544 comes from legacy voting - people not aware of changes in MORE but who had voted for MORE in 2016. Thus the actual strength is less than 544. Also consider the two schools Arthur and Mike come from. Arthur probably brought 150 or more votes to MORE in 16 and assume some shift of these to Unity. And Mike's school, which had always been opposition due to TJC's Kit Wainer, was split this time.

Background to MORE internals in the 2013 and 2016 election and signs of divisions

With all the action around the founding of MORE, with the ICE and TJC and NYCORE connections, especially in the high schools, in 2013, I expected we had a chance to compete for winning the HS ex bd seats. So when all we got was 1430 and Unity 1592 to which New Action's 452 were added, it was a bitter pill that all we needed was 2000 votes in the high schools to win and fell so far short.

It was clear not enough outreach even in their own schools had been done and it was at that point that I saw that MORE as an electoral entity did not have much promise, which is why I fundamentally urged them not to run unless it was in coalitions. MORE held a "2013 victory" party on the day the results were being announced attended by 80 people and when I showed up crestfallen to deliver the outcomes - they begged me to show a happy face. Also a clue that they did not want to face reality but wanted a positive spin. But imagine that 80 or more people came out in 2013 and compare to today? The MORE promise and where it went? would make a good study.

Some of us knew that with better organizing we could get at least 2000 or more in 2016 and we set out to do so -- but disruptions internally in MORE in 2014 derailed us.

Mike, James, Arthur and I - and the rest of the ICE wing of MORE - were the leading proponents of going all out to win the high school seats in 2016 as a way to show the membership Unity could be beaten in at least one division with the hope that would lead to a move to defeat Unity in the middle schools and eventually the elementary schools in the 2019 election.

That we had to put up a fight internally in MORE to go for these seats was a sign of things to come.

In the spring of 2015 we began a high school newsletter outside the bounds of MORE because trying to do so inside would be a struggle with the ideologues. But that newsletter - The High School Forum - got some resonance and distribution we were asked to bring that inside MORE, which later on co-opted the name. We formed a MORE high school committee which none of the MORE sectarians got involved in - at first. And that allowed us to take the lead. (We also urged the other divisions in MORE to do the same -MS and ES -- and that never happened.)

By early summer 2015 when NA was still with Unity, we organized at the MORE convention to focus the high school committee on winning and the vote was very favorable. We really thought we might win the high schools even if Unity and New Action ran together. After all, in 2013 Unity only had 1592 and New Action brought only 452. So we aimed at 2500 votes even if NA stayed with Unity.

Rumors were that NA was not happy with Mulgrew and I and a few others did see that if New Action could be lured away from Unity and into an alliance with MORE we could beat Unity in the high schools for sure in 2016.

At the convention we put together a MORE high school committee basically run - in the early stages - July, 2015 - by the ICE wing and its supporters - much to the dissatisfaction of the ISO led ideology wing which didn't really want to go after these seats - they didn't see winning as a fruitful exercise - (given today's context I might take the same position).

We reached out to New Action and there was a positive response and thus an alliance was born -- though I do remember some of the ideologues pushing back at a MORE meeting in September of October 2015 that New Action wasn't ideologically kosher enough due to its 12 year alliance with Unity. That winning came second to ideological purity. The majority of MORE at that point was overwhelmingly for the alliance. How things changed by the fall of 2018 and I would say the split in MORE was fundamentally over these kinds of issues.

By the fall it was clear we had some momentum and at this point the MORE sectarian ideologues became concerned enough to jump onto the HS committee, which led to struggles through the fall of 2015 to shunt Mike and Arthur off the ballot, with unmatched levels of skulduggery which we managed to beat back. I kept stressing that Arthur's large school was the key to winning a close vote.

We won that internal battle at the time but the ideologues used their own negative reactions to the victory in the election as an internal organizing tool against Arthur and Mike.

And they literally began their attacks within weeks of winning the high schools in May 2016. But that's a story for another day.

I may even write a play.

Thursday, April 18, 2019

UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE the Biggest Loser, Solidarity Stays Alive

Mulgrew, the Unity Caucus candidate, received 38,591 votes, or 86.2 percent of the votes cast while Solidarity Caucus candidate Lydia Howrilka received 3,604 votes (8 percent) and Dermot Myrie the candidate of the MORE caucus, got 2,540 votes (5.6 percent).... All 102 seats on the union's Executive Board were won by the Unity caucus........UFT Web site 
My spin - a massive win for Unity and a massive loss for the
opposition even though Solidarity can claim the mantle of the only caucus that shows signs of growth.

Unity won by the biggest margin in years as the folly of 3 opposition caucuses was revealed. The total of Solidarity and MORE was roughly 6000 votes (we don't have New Action since they did not run officers). That Lydia finished second was the big surprise and the poor showing of MORE is making me eat a lot of crow with some former MOREs who predicted this disaster -- kudos to John G and Peter Z. John predicted Solidarity would beat MORE and Peter predicted MORE would finish under 4000 votes. Even he was over optimistic.

And for the first time since 1993, Unity won the high schools unassisted - Wait, Wait -- actually they were assisted by having Arthur and Mike join them and bring many former MORE votes with them to Unity.

I know this puts Solidarity in the titular position of the opposition with the most support but it is a hollow "victory." Sadly, it seems that New Action has faded so far and let's blame MORE's refusal to run with them as a reason. Some of us in the opposition might even join New Action to try to keep it alive.

In 2016 election MORE/New Action had almost 10,600 votes and Portelos running for Solidarity had 1400. 6000 (plus whatever New Action gets) combined this time is a drop in half of what the opposition received just 3 years ago. Sad. Remember - I urged people not to bother running because the outcomes mean something to people. So even if you don't want to troll for votes, people take the ability to get votes seriously even if you don't - yes, I'm talking to the faction in control of MORE who pushed this idea on some fairly inexperienced people and they just wasted 5 months of talking about the election. I bet they will have a victory party.

No one - MORE or New Action - wanted to run with Solidarity because they didn't have a big base. I didn't expect much from them and challenged them to prove they had a base of votes. And they did to some extent in that they finished ahead of all the other opposition groups and now can claim a mantle of the opposition with the most support even if it is minuscule. But they worked real hard to get on the ballot and get votes. Give them credit - let's see if they can build on this outcome. (Frankly, ICE got around that many votes in its first run in 2004 and I thought that was pathetic.)

Now Solidarity beating out MORE is a big thing in the tiny world of the opposition inside the UFT and their 3600 votes was in line with my prediction since I expected them to double their totals from last time especially since they had a slate this time. Showing some growth is essential but it was clear they didn't have enough of a base to make much bigger gains. But no matter what people say, the real race was to beat MORE -

and
-
Shockingly they did. I expected MORE to lose thousands of votes - but MORE dropped so drastically and so quickly. Jia Lee who was the presidential candidate and received 10,700 votes in 2016 ran for VP Special Ed this time and received only 2700 votes to Solidarity's Quinn Zanoni's 3600. Jia's vote totals dropped by 8000 votes and it has nothing to do with her but it does in this sense - she backed all the way the MORE moves that have turned it into a boutique caucus.

Think of it - in 3 years MORE lost 8000 votes. Someone do the % drop math -- from 10,600 to 2,600. Is 75% a rough figure or am I way off?

From what I've been hearing a whole bunch of votes for Solidarity came from people who voted for MORE last time. Let's say 1000 - the difference in their totals. But what happened to the other 6000 votes that the opposition got in 2016 - and also remember that 12000 people did vote against the contract. MORE lost them or even didn't try very hard to get them. And don't forget, they must have had some support from inside the OT/PT unit, so imagine their base in terms of classroom teachers is even smaller.

Here is my first impressions of where MORE lost votes:
Solidarity, Unity, and non-voting.

But watch the spin - MORE will declare victory - that they didn't really try and purposely ran not to win and that there are 2600 people out there to organize for their platform -- just like they organized the 10,600 last time.

All the years of building up to 12000 votes and it all went crashing against the rocks of MORE sectarianism.

At the end of the day, the opposition in the UFT is decimated and Unity Caucus is more empowered than ever. Nice work.

The faction in control of MORE ought to write  book - how to destroy a union opposition and empower the ruling power.

Here is the UFT posting.

Michael Mulgrew re-elected UFT president

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

UFT Election Update: I Vote Thrice

Hi Norm - I just got my UFT ballot in the mail. I've never received one, and today was perfect timing, because I had it out with someone in the UFT office. They have not responded to my email sent in October, despite me following up every month or so. I may need to start advising young teachers to save their dues for getting their own personal champion rather than have faith in the UFT's ability to even respond to an email within 6 months....
What do you recommend I do with the ballot? Did you have a falling out with MORE?
People have been asking me for UFT voting advice. I am flummoxed. This is where the long-term dangers lie for the UFT - arrogance and ignoring the pleas of people under assault. And I certainly won't tell anyone to vote for MORE. But.....


My teacher friends and neighbors are in California for 6 months and I am taking care of their house and mail. I asked what to do with their ballots -- we forward all their mail - and they told me to decide who to vote for since they usually ask me who to vote for anyway.

This time things are a bit more complicated since there is no slate I would recommend.  However, it does give me a chance to have one of my friends vote for New Action and the other for Solidarity while I in essence toss away my ballot and vote for individual candidates from all 4 slates - Unity too.

Why am I throwing away my ballot? The individual votes are counted -- they have to tear the booklets apart and feed them through the machine and this process delays the count by hours. But they only give us the slate vote totals and that is what gets reported. So those individual votes, which are usually around a couple of hundred people, don't count for much. But this time I have to do it on my ballot.

So, I'm going through the pages of the ballot and voting for people from all caucuses that I like or respect or know. It is tedious work. We have to pick out 48 names from the at-large Ex Bd candidates. Then 750 at most from the AFT/NYSUT convention list - which is easy to do since Unity has 750 running and MORE, Solidarity, New Action COMBINED have less than 150 -- that is why even a combined opposition can't come close to Unity. (The only time I can remember matching them in numbers was around 1980, but I hear from Ellen Fox they did match a few times -- but certainly not close since I became involved in elections again in 2004.)

Well, anyhow -- I will do a follow-up with a list of some of the candidates I voted for and why. I did manage to find a few MOREs that I still like and respect to vote for plus every New Action candidate even if I didn't know them. Plus every Solidarity candidate I know - minus a few that I have had some bad blood with in the past.

Thursday, January 10, 2019

Whither/Wither The Opposition -- Past, Present and Future Tense - Part 1

Whither: to what place or state. --- old Eng.
Wither: become dry and shriveled.

What will be the state of the opposition in the UFT at the end of this election cycle in April? One of my multiple New Years resolutions is to tell the story of the on-going history of the opposition inside the UFT over the 5 decades of my own involvement. Given I am sitting out the UFT elections, I have plenty of time on my hands. The problem is, where to start?

We are a few days away from the official opening of another UFT election period and all three caucuses running on their own against Unity have been issuing calls for people to run with them and to get ready for the petition campaign which begins at the Jan. 16 Delegate Assembly. In normal times, I would be spending all my time getting ready for a 5 week long petition campaign.


For me, what a relief to be an observer and reporter in the upcoming UFT elections after having been intensely involved in five elections since the 2004 campaign.

But these are not normal times. I saw Ellen Fox the other day at the UFT Ex Bd meeting and she said for her this was the first time in 40 years she will not be involved in an election.
 
Are there so many fractures, will there be no hope for the future growth of the opposition to become an effective force to counter the 60 year old Unity Caucus machine?

It's very disappointing so see what has happened over the past 5 years after the promise of MORE when it began in 2011-12 with the support of almost all the leading voices in the opposition to Unity over the years. New Action was still aligned with Unity but over time I expected that that aging caucus would eventually join with MORE in coalition (it did in 2016) and hopefully merge. A disappointment was the defection of Portelos in 2014 when he formed his own caucus -- there were reasons he will argue. I would argue if he has remained in MORE and brought his supporters in, it would have strengthened the hands of the faction in MORE that was eventually pushed out -- the ICEUFT people. We would have had a stronger opposition to push back against the faction that gained total control of MORE with an boutique agenda aimed at a small segment of the UFT rather than the broader rank and file. That's boiling down the essential disagreements that took place in MORE over the years.


With the Los Angeles teachers in the UTLA about to strike Monday (changed from today - an unfortunate snafu due to a UTLA miscalculation) under the leadership of a progressive, left-leaning social justice caucus and with Chicago TU in the hands of a similar caucus - two of the three largest cities --- proof that such social justice like groups can succeed in winning and maintaining power -- here in NYC we find ourselves in possibly the worst situation we have faced since the New Action defection to Unity in 2003.

There is no clearer difference in the opposition in the 3 cities than to look at union elections. The NYC version of the progressive caucus - MORE - doesn't want to win anything in the election while citing the work of the groups running LA and Chi -- but never seeming to realize that those groups actually did run to win - and they did win. Which is why they can talk about striking.

If MORE had real power school level power through influence in many schools so as to raise its issues with a broad rank and file then a discussion of strike feasibility can be opened. For MORE, which weakened itself to a point where it has less influence than it has had in 5 years, to talk about strikes here in NYC, is sort of ludicrous. Instead the MORE campaigns to get the union leadership it so vilifies to do take up the MORE campaign. In Chicago and LA the caucuses themselves had enough widespread support as to take on bigger issues without relying on the union leadership. Here MORE tries to be a lobby caucus.
A fractured opposition

Now we know we can't win the whole ball of wax here but we could chip away at Unity power in the schools which is where the battle will take place. An election campaign could help build power through gathering of votes. The ballot box does count. MORE/NA getting almost 11,000 votes last time was the largest total in a long time and an opportunity. An opportunity lost.

There are consequences for this gap between the 3 big cities. Chicago and LA, have pushed back against the ed deform movement, while here in NYC we have seen the UFT be complicit with so much of ed deform, from testing to charters to teachers being held accountable based on test scores. And of course the willingness to stand by as abusive principals chop up our members. Our own union has partnered with the ed deformers all along the way. And as far as I am concerned, MORE itself has dropped the ball in many areas of push back against deformers. That there is no caucus strong enough to become a bulwark leaves us in a precarious position.

It is a sad situation where each of the three caucuses will be running their own independent campaigns with the clear outcome that none of them can win anything on their own.

In what place or state will we find the caucuses post election? Whither or just plain withered?

I see little point in running in an election where the 3 groups end up competing as much as with each other than Unity for votes and candidates and support. There is a lot of blame to go around but let's not get into those weeds at this time.

What a waste of time and energy. I urged MORE to either unite with everyone or don't run and use the opportunity to engage in their campaign outside the election process.

The leadership of MORE, which includes a bunch of people who used to run Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC), a caucus that had shrunk significantly and merged into MORE, opposed me. They argued we would miss a chance to get 2 pages in the NY Teacher - which I had pointed out are barely read by anyone. And they also said they would gain access to all the schools by running -- I pointed out they could gain access to all the schools, even by not running.

When the vote was taken, we could see a lot of doubt about running coming from the newer, younger and untenured people in MORE, which seemed to surprise the old TJC crowd. So they scaled back -- you don't have to run around the city putting stuff in the mail boxes - the very opposite of the argument they used against my position for not running.

Then came the news that even 2 people can get pages in the NY Teacher if they run -- countering their other argument for running a slate.

The only way forward post-election is some kind of united front - a big tent opposition, even if the purists have to retreat somewhat. The Unity machine is the problem and why NYC is different from Chicago and LA. I looked back to the past.

The United Front of the 80s and 90s
In recent posts I've been exploring the historical record as recorded by me over the past 22 years in Ed Notes, but especially the early hard copy publications from 1997-2005. I am reminding myself of all the issues we faced back then, with a lot to echo today's issues.
These had wider distribution I believe than the Ed Notes blog -- the Del Ass and into the schools directly in the latter years of 2002-5 after I retired.

After the 2001 election, which despite New Action winning the high school seats, showed them declining, I tried to play the role of peacemaker between all the groups (NAC, PAC, TJC) and independents by calling for meetings to form a coalition for the next election in 2004. That effort fell apart very quickly and I saw first hand the level of hostility and infighting that existed - to the extent that I, for the first time began to think that a new caucus was necessary to take on issues being ignored and thus was born ICE a few years later. The 2004 election had 3 opposition groups running, the only time other than the present.

I was reminded of the impact the mass campaigns against Unity by all elements of the opposition had in the 80s and 90s when a coalition of groups and individuals under the New Action Coalition (NAC) began to come together in the late 70-early 80s and found a united front was able to recruit a full slate of 800 people to run. And they began to chip a way at Unity power for the first time.

Now we are back to the beginning where we stood in the mid-70s.  The only way forward is for people to get some sense after the election and sit down and find a way to move toward a united front.

I made a chart with the historical links between caucuses over the decades. One day I would like to see them all culminate into one box.




Here are links to recent Ed Notes posts on this topic:

Monday, September 21, 2015

Why I Am Voting YES on the MORE/New Action Election Alliance; MORE Strategy Vindicated

New Action has come to its senses and decided to align itself with tried and true activists in the MORE caucus. Opposition is finally coming together... NYC Educator, New Action Joins MORE.

Bernie Madoff could win a credibility contest against Mulgrew's Unity Caucus so I'm not too concerned. I have been vocal of my support for MORE and my disgust with New Action. My disgust with NA was rooted in their support of Mulgrew's presidency. Now that NA has removed that support, my disgust is waning. MORE still has credibility in my book. ....Roseanne McCosh - PS8X
MORE held an extensive discussion at the MORE general meeting on Saturday, which included push back from some people over various issues related to the arrangement and asking what are the differences between MORE and NA, etc. (I'll get into some of those another time).

Kit Wainer, whose roots were TJC, led the discussion - he was also one of our reps in discussions with NA - and when I think back to where TJC stood on NA 10 years ago -- well to me this was something.

MORE is in the process of a membership vote on the proposal to endorse the election 2016 working arrangement with New Action.

I am voting YES.

This may surprise readers of Ed Notes going back to its beginnings in 1997. I have been a severe critic of New Action, even when my pals James Eterno and Ellen Fox were elected to the UFT Exec Bd as New Action. Of course once NA made its deals with Unity as far back as 2002/3, we became allies in ICE.

ICE offered New Action a deal for 2007 election
That didn't stop us from contacting New Action before the election in 2007 - ICE/TJC had defeated NA in the 2004 election for the high school Ex Bd seats - the only time NA did not have people on the Exec Bd since 1994. That offer was turned down and ICE and TJC continued to work together - which culminated in a merger of sorts in 2012 to form MORE with others.

When MORE formed, individuals from New Action were invited in and some did join MORE while continuing to support New Action. That did cause some tension. After the 2013 election when MORE significantly outpolled New Action in every division other than retirees, things began to change.

MORE stood firm on refusal to work with New Action
At first New Action asked for some working arrangements with MORE. We refused  - why help promote another caucus that was partnering with Mulgrew?

At a meeting in October 2013 Julie Cavanagh and I made that point very clear to New Action. We are ready to work with you when you agree to break with Unity. That offer has been on the table since then. I also pointed out that MORE is open to New Action coming in and serving on steering and bringing their experience to MORE. I pointed to the demographics - that MORE was the first opposition in decades to attract a younger generation of teachers - making groups like ICE. TJC and New Action at risk of becoming retiree caucuses. (There is an audio tape of that meeting.)

There were one or two voices in MORE that insisted we not adhere to that position and instead work with New Action even while they officially supported Mulgrew.

MORE stood firm, believing that working with a group that supports Mulgrew would be a disaster for MORE - witness Roseanne's comment above. Only by not compromising would New Action eventually come to see that an alliance would help them and MORE - or else they might be threatened with losing more ground to MORE in the 2016 elections.

And I will say that the old ICE core was much less receptive to New Action than some of the new MOREs who did not live that history.

Personal contact helps
Over the last year at every DA I would tell the guy handing out NA lit: When are you guys rejoining the opposition? He would laugh and say - maybe sooner than you think.



I have to say, that since that Oct. 2013 meeting, I did get the NA point of view and lost a lot of my hostility towards them and to most (not all) of its leaders. I got to hang out with Jonathan Halabi at the AFT14 convention in LA and enjoyed some of our conversation. I realized what an important ally he could be in so many ways.

Another thing that happened was that as MORE chapter leaders began to have contact with New Action chapter leaders, there was a growing mutual respect. Really, that is where a lot of this stuff happens. At the grassroots level.

Now don't get me wrong. My dream of one caucus - branding a clear alternative to Unity - has not come to pass. The slate will look something like MORE/New Action. I think that over the long term that is harmful. People might ask - if you guys can't get together into one organization, how can you run the UFT? Well, coalitions running unions have worked in the past. But at this point of the process, I am not worried about that. In the key area of the high school executive board, MORE will get 4 and New Action will get 3 and MORE gets to choose the presidential candidate.  Pretty much everything else will be split - where there is an odd number - MORE due to its stronger position, will get the extra slot.

At Saturday's meeting, the strengths more than the weaknesses of New Action were brought out. A 25 year old distribution network, the fact that they have been putting out some pretty decent literature over the past year or two - taking very similar positions as MORE. So I won't get into the negatives and the differences at this point.

If we win the high school seats and contend in other divisions we will be working together over the next 3 years. I assume Halabi will be one of the NA Ex Bd members and while MORE hasn't chosen anyone yet, I expect our 4 will bring a lot to the table.

Let's see how well we work together and revisit the issue in April.


Thursday, September 17, 2015

MORE and New Action to Run Joint Slate in Upcoming UFT Elections

MORE announced a potential ground-breaking agreement with New Action to run together in the UFT elections, subject to ratification by the membership. Read it here: morecaucusnyc
MORE and New Action Propose Joint Slate for UFT Elections

James Eterno and Kit Wainer, two former UFT presidential candidates were joined by the always amazing Lauren Cohen, chapter leader of PS 321K and a rising star in the movement, as MORE reps in meetings with New Action over the past month to hammer out an agreement.

There is a long convoluted history behind the announcement of a united slate for the 2016 elections by MORE and New Action, still to be ratified by the MORE general membership after a discussion at this Saturday's MORE meeting - the first of the school year. MORE steering has already voted to recommend ratification.

At Saturday's meeting MORE will also discuss and nominate potential presidential candidates. The agreement with New Action allows for the candidate to come from MORE.

I will be telling a more detailed story with background in upcoming blog posts because I think in order to move forward we have to understand the historical context and the lessons learned. I posted Part 1 of the history of opposition caucuses in the UFT  which took us up to the mid-90s.
My thesis has been that multi slates and multi caucuses has been a hindrance to developing an effective opposition. There is some irony in taking this position, given that I helped form a new caucus called ICE in late 2003 in response to the New Action deal with Unity, which disemboweled the opposition in the UFT. Over time it became clear to many of us that we needed to create one big tent and MORE was the result. New Action has been invited into the tent since MORE's formation. 

This is not exactly what is happening - at this point - though one might get that impression from  headline  from NYC Educator 
New Action Joins MORE - New Action has come to its senses and decided to align itself with tried and true activists in the MORE caucus. Opposition is finally coming together.

I wish New Action members actually joined MORE so we could build one brand for the opposition. But New Action prefers a joing MORE/New Action slate where we work together but as 2 separate organizations.

New Action and MORE are running much along the lines that ICE and TJC ran together in the 2007 and 2010 elections. I think that even though it is better than having 2 separate lines on the ballot it still sends a message to members - why do you need 2 caucuses?
ICE and TJC finally got the message that we had to be in one caucus together in order to move forward and withdrew from UFT electoral politics even though ICE maintains itself as a non-electoral caucus. I have no problems with various groups putting forth their ideas but for UFT elections I believe we need one group. While the current agreement with New Action is not an ideal one from my perspective, I view it as a beginning with the hope that New Action members will get involved in MORE and join MORE steering to help run it.

Many of us have been severe critics of New Action over the past decade, non more so than former New Action member who was tossed out, along with Ellen Fox and Camille Eterno and Lisa North when they balked at the deal with Unity and then joined me and other Ed Notes supporters to form ICE.  Here is James' take on the announcement on the ICE blog where some of his reservations seeps through.

MORE and NEW ACTION TENTATIVELY AGREE TO RUN TOGETHER IN 2016 UFT ELECTION

I will urge MORE members to ratify the agreement on Saturday because it is the right thing to do and a way forward for the opposition. MORE, unlike the older caucuses, has been successful in attracting a new generation of activists, mostly in their 30s with a long career ahead of them. Most members of ICE and TJC understood back in 2011 and 2012 that we had to give up some of our independence in the interests of building a force to challenge Unity. I am hoping that this elections is a transition faze towards that aim.

The reality of groups like ICE, TJC and New Action is that we are too loaded with retirees or soon to be retirees. You can't build an opposition on the backs of retirees or teachers looking down that road even though Unity relies very much on retirees to hold on to power.

MORE is being run by 8-15 year teachers, not even halfway through their careers. Retirees like me have been happy to take a step back and let them take over. They are the future.


Thursday, June 25, 2015

Revised - The Unity 300 - UFT Retiree Chapter Sends 300 to Delegate Assembly - Why I Am Boycotting the Election

Note the weakness of this argument as a reason to vote for RA against Unity:
Voting and participating in our nation’s elections and our union’s elections are the only way we can have a voice in issues that determine the way we live. By actively participating in the process we become a vibrant force in retirement.
The only way to have a voice? Where is the call for a democratic process in the UFT that would make elections mean something?
Why don't people vote? Because Unity has so locked up the process as to make it impossible to win anything.
Here was the one opportunity every 3 years to reach every retiree in the union and expose the sham of Unity caucus.
The worst thing about this is that it doesn't even talk about what this election is really about for Unity -- packing 300 more Unity delegates into the DA. It is not enough for the general UFT election process to be rigged -- but they make sure to fill the seats at the DA with loyalists who no longer have anything to lose in the assault on teachers.

This is pablum and what we would expect from the loyal opposition - if you can call it even that. Participating in this process without attacking it is endorsing some of the most fundamental undemocratic processes in the union. I'll pass on voting until RA or any other group of retirees really takes on Unity..... Norm to ICE mail
It may seem counter-intuitive for me to sit out the current retiree election and not vote for the Retiree Advocate, which is running against Unity in the retiree chapter election. I will vote for independent Roberta Reid - I give Roberta credit for putting in the effort - and a very few candidates I know). I consider RA to be New Action light.
Catering at Unity Caucus meetings

[See NYC Educator: New Action Takes a Position on Semi-Democracy]


Think of it -- every 3 years RA can send out something to 60,000 retirees and not a word of real criticism or exposure of Unity Caucus.

What does it mean to a union when retirees no longer facing the travails of daily teaching have a major say in UFT policy bodies? A lot of people complain about retirees voting in general UFT elections, especially when 52% of the votes cast in the 2013 election came from retirees. But that doesn't bother me that much and won't until an opposition can capture the majority of votes of the working teachers. Then I would go to court. So far that is not happening.

To me the more insidious undemocratic actions are the current chapter elections going on in the functional retiree chapter for chapter leader, an exec board and for 300 delegates to the UFT DA. The UFT constitution calls for one delegate for every 60 members in a chapter. That the retiree chapter, with probably close to 60,000 members, is treated the same as a school is beyond outrage -- (I believe the max number of delegates is capped at 300.)

When I retired I attended a few retiree meetings and found them worse than the DA -- the Unity leadership is only interested in using retirees for its political campaigns - but also the Unity 300 as a force to make sure they don't lose control of the DA.

This allows old Unity loyalists to participate in the DA - and in fact pack it when needed. Let me explain. The 300 don't show up at every meeting. When there is challenge from the opposition for an upcoming DA, Unity Caucus calls a post-DA meeting - with catering - to get those retirees out to the DA -- and I believe attendance is taken too.

The DA is packed with Unity loyalists - as Arthur points out today at NYC Educator - Why Aren't People Standing for UFT Delegate?
I represent the largest high school in Queens, we have multiple delegates, but making them come would not make a dent in the pre-determined results. When Unity leadership sends the message, everyone knows and acts accordingly. It's infuriating to see the DA represented as a place where decisions are made, as opposed to a place where people are telegraphed how to vote, with virtually no subtlety whatsoever. 

I have tried to get  dissident voices heard by leadership, and the DA is just about the worst forum in which I could do it.
Arthur talks about how James Eterno was shut down at the May 2014 contract DA. Julie Cavanagh who ran against Mulgrew was next at the mic and Mulgrew shut down the debate because he was so afraid of Julie's getting a chance to speak -- even people in Unity raised their eyebrows at this -- big, bad Mulgrew - afraid of a girl.

There are over 3500 delegates and the 300 retirees are less than 10%. But rarely do more than about 800 - if even that - attend. As Arthur points out - what is the point? To his credit, he shleps in from eastern Queens every month and writes up the meetings -- and then we head to Chipotle for dinner. Next year Eterno will be back as the only ATR delegate elected from a school to add his wisdom.

Let's assume half of the Unity retirees - 150 - come to the DA - the number jumps to 15-20% of the delegates. No wonder they voted down the major MORE resolutions this year on protecting ATRs by giving them a chapter, a reso opposing high stakes testing and support for the opt-out movement.

Now back to the Retiree Advocate, which advertizes itself as an independent caucus in the UFT retiree chapter with members from various groups, including ICE and New Action. But it is overwhelmingly New Action and their literature reflects the New Action non-militancy. There is not one word of criticsm of Unity Caucus or its undemocratic process, especially in this election that puts 300 delegates in the DA. Even a minimal call for proportional representation would make sense. (Meaning if RA gets 30% of the vote they would get 90 of the 300 delegates). And there is no call for controlling the influence of retirees in the general UFT elections. They refuse to take on these issues because they are pandering for votes.

-- RA is New Action light.

New Action, which has ran Mulgrew as its presidential candidate in 2010 and 13 (and Randi in 2007) is a major force in RA with some of their key people running. Two years ago, the leaders of RA acted as a front group for New Action in pushing hard for a MORE/New Action alliance and set up a meeting - which was controversial in MORE because many did not want to meet with New Action until they renounced their deal with Unity. But in a close vote, the meeting was set up and Eterno, Julie and I were chosen to rep MORE. James had an emergency and couldn't make it. NA and RA people pushed for cooperation. Julie made eloquent statements about how we cannot work with people who support Mulgrew -- we told NA to call us when they were ready to talk about alliances when they decide to rejoin the opposition. (There is an audio tape of that Nov. 2013 meeting.)

New Action, many of whom are running on the RA slate have jobs with the UFT - and in fact they are running New Action leader Michael Shulman, who makes 15 grand a year working for the UFT, for Retiree Ex Bd.

On this issue RA is silent. Thus I can't vote for slate that echos New Action to such an extent.

By the way -- I am a forgiving soul - the second I hear New Action gets serious about abandoning the dirty deal with Unity, in the interests of uniting the opposition, I would urge MORE to open a dialogue. But my guess is that New Action has too much to gain - in terms of Ex Bd seats - to give up that deal.