...was a comment I heard repeatedly today while handing out the ICE leaflet on ATRs at a school slated to close. When I mentioned the union, teachers just laughed.
What coulda/shoulda/woulda happened with a union that was not laughable? Concerted action at all schools simultaneously.
Instead, the union is part of the DOE ATR creating machine.
An ICE committee is reaching out to ATRs and putting their situation in the context of closing schools based on high stakes testing and the UFT sellout of seniority. The committee is meeting this Wed. Jan 7 at the Skylight Diner 34th St and 9th Ave at 5 pm. We will be preparing a leaflet and are open to input. Come on down.
Remember, Ich Bin Ein ATR
Norm:
ReplyDeleteIt's not that they are useless, it is that they do not care...except about themselves.
I beg to differ. For one thingm they've certainly done a good job advancing the career of Ms. Weingarten. And they've managed to bring Green Dot Schools, which specifically rejects tenure and seniority, to the city. They've also managed to pass contracts calling for more work for less pay. In fact, it's become a de facto hero to union and teacher bashers like Rod Paige.
ReplyDeleteHow can you suggest the union has no use?
NYC
ReplyDeleteMe suggest they are useless when they give us so much to write about? Never.
And to Joel Klein they are enormously useful.
But I guess if you are a teacher in a school that is being closed 4 years after being reorganized where most of the teachers were replaced, you just might see them as useless. Or worse.
I wish the UFT was ONLY useless. At this point, they are more than useless; they are destructive. This is not "ha ha" funny as your picture suggests. Dedicated teachers and their families are being destroyed, mentally, emotionally, and economically. I wonder if Randi has any concept of the lives that have been destroyed.
ReplyDeleteThey should have had Don McLain playing "The Day the Music Died" at Madison Square Garden a few years ago. More appropriately, "The Day the Union Died".
My house will go into foreclosure soon. So much for the union!
It is true the union is destructive. Before there were unions when conditions got bad teachers started to organize. When the UFT got started there was no union in power to interfere. Now when teachers try to organize the UFT rushes in to kill it by deflecting militancy.
ReplyDeleteThey make it harder than ever for teachers to defend themselves.
I think the union takes the position of conventional business -- the same ideology which brought us currently on the brink of doom. I guestion whether a union can follow the policies of Milton Friedman and succeed. This union is very useful to those interested in the idea that the Market Economy can balance itself without regulation. That should be a contradition in terms -- the point of the union is to provide regulation. What I think happens is that they go along with Market Economics and then have to cleanup
ReplyDeleteWhat a political mess we're in with NCLB !No matter where ya go,there you are !Call Washington and get active ! It takes a team united !Inform the general public and go teach ! Get to CNN and your local news stations,radio stations and change.gov ! Why isn't there a national Public Educational teacher's rally in DC ?
ReplyDelete