State of the CTU Address-Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis.
CORE took over the union on July 1.
Lewis asks the rank and file to organize parents and students at the grassroots level to defend public education.
http://vimeo.com/13012492
This message is so counter the the message given off by the AFT/UFT leadership no matter what the rhetoric.
One of the ironies is that one of the opponents will turn out to be the leadership of the AFT/UFT, a group with deep pockets and shallow morals.
This message is so counter the the message given off by the AFT/UFT leadership no matter what the rhetoric.
Is Randi Weingarten more aligned with Bill Gates than Karen Lewis? Watch her make nice to the CTU – with a dagger behind her back. The cynic in me is always active. Will Lewis, once enfolded in the pillows of power, be able to resist attempts to pull her away from her core - or CORE?
There are signs some of this occurred in LA where Duffy was not totally aligned with the core.
TWU in NYC - see stories out there on Marc Kagan, Elena's brother's disaffection from Toussaint.
The way around this is to de-emphasize the cult of personality and view the president as one of many who could serve. Any group fighting for power must take so much into account. There may be many lessons to learn from Chicago over the next few years, both positive and negative.
This message is so counter the the message given off by the AFT/UFT leadership no matter what the rhetoric.
One of the ironies is that one of the opponents will turn out to be the leadership of the AFT/UFT, a group with deep pockets and shallow morals.
This message is so counter the the message given off by the AFT/UFT leadership no matter what the rhetoric.
Is Randi Weingarten more aligned with Bill Gates than Karen Lewis? Watch her make nice to the CTU – with a dagger behind her back. The cynic in me is always active. Will Lewis, once enfolded in the pillows of power, be able to resist attempts to pull her away from her core - or CORE?
There are signs some of this occurred in LA where Duffy was not totally aligned with the core.
TWU in NYC - see stories out there on Marc Kagan, Elena's brother's disaffection from Toussaint.
The way around this is to de-emphasize the cult of personality and view the president as one of many who could serve. Any group fighting for power must take so much into account. There may be many lessons to learn from Chicago over the next few years, both positive and negative.
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To a degree your "cult of personality" is a straw-man. Cults of personality arise when people are disempowered and passive, when they project their aspirations through a leader or other figure. So the way to prevent union leaders from selling out is NOT to "de-emphasize the cult of personality" -- and how would you do this? -- but to have an activist, engaged, participating membership to which the leadership is held accountable.
By de-emphasizing the cult of personality I meant "to have an activist, engaged, participating membership to which the leadership is held accountable." Just didn't figure out how to say it clearly.
So, I guess that's the challenge for the insurgent opposition in Chicago. THEY'RE activist, etc. Can they engage the membership and forge a whole different kind of union, more like the FMPR? And more importantly, will this inspire or co-develop with similar changes throughout AFT locals? Because we know that the Shankerites are going to wage a war of attrition against Lewis and company. They're going to look for any little fissure and seek to widen it. They're going to wield both carrots and sticks to the max. So, the survival of this local movement depends to a degree on its ability to spread and generalize itself.
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