Gorbachev Says Weingarten Obstructs Democracy

MOSCOW — Mikhail S. Gorbachev is voicing growing frustration with AFT President Randi Weingarten’s leadership, saying that she has undermined democracy by crippling the opposition forces. He cited the buying off of New Action, the former opposition party, as a key sign of the deterioration of democracy and growth of authoritarianism in the AFT/UFT.

"Just watch what happens in the election in Washington DC where Weingarten favors the undemocratic current union leader over progressive forces led by Nathan Saunders, said Gorbachev.

“She thinks that democracy stands in her way,” Mr. Gorbachev said.

“I am afraid that they have been saddled with this idea that teacher union needs authoritarianism,” Mr. Gorbachev said, referring to Ms. Weingarten and her close ally and replacement, UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “They think they cannot do without it.”

In an interview, Mr. Gorbachev even described Ms. Weingarten’s governing party, Unity Caucus, as a “a bad copy of the Soviet Communist Party.” Mr. Gorbachev said party officials were concerned entirely with clinging to power and did not want teachers to take part in the civic life of the union.

Mr. Gorbachev was especially disparaging of Ms. Weingarten’s decision in 2003 and again in 2007, when she was UFT president, to attempt to eliminate elections by offering New Action a deal for not running a candidate against her.  All positions are now filled by 52 Broadway appointees. The impact of this change was illustrated in Mr. Mulgrew’s dismissal in July NY Teacher longtime investigative reporter Jim Callaghan, who was replaced with a Weingarten loyalist.

“Democracy begins with elections,” Mr. Gorbachev said. “Elections, accountability and turnover.”

“For those who want to change the country in order to advance these processes faster, advance democratic processes, the participation of people is needed,” he said. “It is necessary to have opposition groups. But go and try to find a viable opposition group!”


“The AFT and UFT have a long way to go to usher in a new system of values, to create and provide for the proper functioning of the institutions and mechanisms of democracy — the institutions of civil society,” Mr. Gorbachev said. “All this is done through a major transformation in people’s brains. And this, clearly, is changing very slowly.”

Putin and Medvedev, Russia's equivalent of the Weingarten/Mulgrew tandem "only wish they had the power and control over the Russian people that the AFT/UFT leadership hold," said Gorbachev.

"The KGB has used their manuals for 40 years but to no avail. If we had followed the model set up by Al Shanker more carefully, the Soviet Union would still be alive and well and I would still be ruling the roost. Boy, that Weingarten and Mulgrew. Rulers for life. Every dictator in the world bows down to them. Saddam was a particular admirer but look how it ended for him. He never had the Unity Caucus manual into Iraqi. Bad error trying to interpret it on his non-native language. I blame that for his downfall."

Original NY Times article