Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Joe Williams' DFER Propaganda Laugh Riot, Lauding E4E, Ignoring MORE Support

...new organizations like Educators for Excellence are increasingly giving voice to teachers who have a totally different framework for social justice...... 18% of active teachers who actually voted, one out of five of those teachers voted for someone other than Mulgrew to be president... Joe Williams, DFER, in DN.
Message to Joe Williams: Those one in five voted for MORE whose members mock and despise E4E as your astro-turf creation. In case you missed it E4E didn't have the chops to put itself out there in the UFT elections even with their millions of dollars to run a campaign. They would have been exposed as the joke they are. In fact they barely have a presence left here in NYC with their events dwindling to nothing. Hey Joe, I have an idea. Why doesn't DFER sponsor a debate between MORE and E4E and watch them run for the hills. Or rather they have already run for the hills -- the Beverly Hills.

Perdido Street School made this cogent point:


Many of us in the UFT rank and file despise the UFT leadership because they cave to much to the DFER/hedge fund/Bloomberg/Gates/Obama agenda, not because they don't cave enough to it.

DFER propaganda-meister Joe Williams mocks UFT President Michael Mulgrew 

Now Williams does have a few interesting things to say.
Once upon a time, city teachers were united in a social justice battle for better pay, benefits and working conditions. They fought hard and they fought together, because the benefits of doing so were obvious.

The internal dynamics of the UFT expose the stark disconnect.
Inside the union, the old guard is still holding on strong – and that has become a nightmare for Mulgrew. The men and women who made the UFT, now retired, still serve as the most active voting bloc within the union. (Retirees are allowed to vote in UFT elections.) The problem is: Most of them left NYC long ago, for warmer environs down south and a lower cost of living.
In union elections this spring, for example, only 18% of the city’s teaching force cared enough about what the UFT was doing that they even bothered to vote. (And of the 18% of active teachers who actually voted, one out of five of those teachers voted for someone other than Mulgrew to be president.)

It has gotten so bad that the UFT is considering launching an internal task force to find out why the overwhelming majority of active classroom teachers are disconnected from the union.
Yes, that internal task force, which MORE is/will be invited to take part in. Which I adamantly oppose -- I am in the minority. Here's what will happen. They will be sworn to secrecy so our own reps can't come back and report to us. The TF will be dominated by Unity -- and New Action -- all caucuses, even phony bogus ones like NA are supposed to be part of this. And I can predict what they will come up with. 
And the lack of a democratic union where nothing much can be at stake given the way the elections are structured will NOT be part of the discussions. They will recommend more outreach/advertizing etc. 
Frankly, if I am still around I will argue for MORE to boycott the election farce next time in 2016 -- campaign yes, but against the way elections are run -- and the resulting campaign will actually have a bigger impact. I will lose that argument inside MORE and if the numbers don't change much - oh, maybe MORE wins the 7 high school exec board seats and MORE will be where New Action was in the 90s. Ho hum.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Norm, honey, we had this conversation since ICE.
What do you mean "ignore the election" because that's what I argued you guys were doing for years. You need to run a campaign, which both ICE and MORE never did. At least not on a grand scale to at least get name recognition.

Yes, my mind and soul still has elements of capitalism...especially now as I go through my quarterly investment statements which is keeping me happily retired. MORE's last campaign could have been so much better with just a few tweaks. And even though you disagree, I know the election result would have been far better because MORE could have generated excitement. But it's good to know that the UFT sees a problem. And MORE should refuse to sign any agreement because that's a big part of the problem.

And again, can you get rid of the spam filter since you are moderating. btw, why are you moderating??? I love reading Unity Hack comments.

Anonymous said...

Joe Williams'math is a little off when he says 1 in 5 active teachers who voted, voted for someone other than Mulgrew. Of the active teachers who voted in the slate ballot, 2968 voted for Julie Cavanagh. 12,003 voted for a slate. That comes to 25% or 1 in 4 who want a real fight against Williams and his crowd including 40% in the high schools.

If E4E launches a campaign to de-certify the UFT, what will that 25% do? Will they vote to keep the UFT or oust them and start another union?

By 2016 conditions in schools will be worse so that there will be a movement to oust Mulgrew or his successor in some way.

ed notes online said...

I have no control over the spam filter. It is automatic it seems. As for moderating that is solely due to the amazing amount of ad spam I get. If I don't moderate I have to delete them individually. This way I can bulk delete them. I don't censor any comment other than spam - except for one particular slimebucket Unity scum who only emerges from under his rock during election times when he is worried he might lose his gig.

ed notes online said...

You may think so but that will depend on just how far MORE gets in organizing people at the grass roots level. One test will be how many chapter leaders who get elected in the 2015 elections are willing to break with Unity. I can predict the results of the 2016 election based on those elections and how many of these people join Unity between their election and the next fall when Unity does very heavy recruiting to get them in the caucus and away from the opposition. If most are susceptible to their appeal that is not a sign there is movement at the school level and the Del Ass will remain what it has been. If MORE could grow to a few hundred chapter leaders that is the beginning of a game changer. I am not convinced yet we will be at that point. But happy wishful thinking.

ed notes online said...

Unity ran a campaign -- piles of glossy leaflets in every school etc. They dropped by 8000 votes. MORE did hold steady from the ICE/TJC totals while New Action dropped. But we picked up basically what they dropped -- just a few hundred votes in each division. MORE did not eat into that 8000 drop in Unity votes. You can say it was the campaign and that may have been a factor. But those 8000 people who voted last time -- meaning they do vote --- chose to sit it out rather than vote MORE. My analysis is always that MORE has not had enough people on the ground in those school to pick up those votes. You can't have a campaign until you have an army of campaign workers willing to do the scut work. No matter how much money people spend on campaigns everyone knows the ground game of vote pulling and canvassing is a must. MORE has not developed enough outreach to do that and my issue is how they plan to do that in an effective manner? A clear path has not emerged yet.