Ed Notes Online: Why Retirees Vote Unity - The UFT Retro Pay Story Still Resonating as Retirees Get Theirs

Friday, October 16, 2015

Why Retirees Vote Unity - The UFT Retro Pay Story Still Resonating as Retirees Get Theirs

The UFT message to pregnant moms: if you are pregnant and not working when the next retro is due - screw you - or rather, you should have waited to screw until you got your retro.

Michael Fiorillo has left a new comment on your post "Comments on UFT Sellout of Teachers on Leave

Our faux Tough Guy President's pathetic excuse is further belied by the fact that he made sure that retirees were made whole before anyone.

Not to suggest they were undeserving - we all deserved that money back in '09, and should have been made whole immediately, with interest - but where was their "continuous employment?"

Then again, what does he care? Like the so-called reformers he often shills for - witness his continuing support for Common Core, test-based evaluations and expedited firings - or passively allows to loot and pillage, it's obvious to me this man thinks teachers are chumps.

If you read Ed Notes you know my position is for the opposition to totally ignore the retiree issue related to their voting in UFT elections - at least until an opposition can show it can win enough votes from working UFT members in an election. Unity Caucus takes care of its retirees.

And so it did so once again - retirees did get their retro, teachers in leave did not. We are hearing about the Queens borough office maternity liason for the UFT - no one seems to be naming - and shaming her - publicly. (Someone leave a comment with her name.)

Arthur is on the case at NYC Educator

Callousness or Compassion?: Retro On Leave

The Queens maternity liason for the U.F.T. rose to oppose the resolution. First, she objected to the printing of the resolution on a page containing advertisements for an oppostion caucus, free of the "union bug." Even the parliamentarian, himself, could not say whether it was permissible or not.

Wait - let me get this straight. She is objecting to a caucus for putting forth a resolution, something that has been done for the entire 45 years I have been involved? And no union bug - given that opposition caucuses have to cobble together their own printers and copy machines to be able to afford printing materials - or go to copy centers to print? I printed almost 400 copies of a double-sided leaflet at the last chapter leader meeting on my own copy machine - which left it wheezing and coughing and demanding to form its own union.

I get it - let's try to make the opposition spend a fortune on printing as a way to shut them down.

Arthur continues:

Then, she proceeded to oppose the motion on the grounds that people on leave must know what they're getting themselves into. I would guess, however, if one is fighting off a deadly disease or surviving brain surgery, one doesn't have much of a choice. If one is about to give birth, although the situation is usually infinitely more joyous, one may also lack much choice.

The Queens liason further stated that the resolution seemed vague and that all persons on leave would be made "whole again" when the next retro check rolls around, provided he or she has returned to work. It is my understanding, however, that if one dies, not only will one never be made "whole again," but one's spouse, children or family will never be made "whole again" in more ways than one. The money once earned will be gone. Perhaps, retro is not a "God-given right," but the Union might have taken further pains to fight for it as a contractual right for those who might need it most.

The arguments used by the maternity liason struck me as callous, particulary to our colleagues fending off life-threatening illnesses and those who are the parents of children, much like the ones we have dedicated our lives to teach. So many members of our profession are women and so many are mothers. The system is stacked against them and the Union seems unphased--even the Queens Maternity Liason. Given that all members were asked to create a sea of pink shirts at the October Delegate Assembly in recognition of breast cancer, the callousness was magnified many times over. It felt like a flood.

One of our new MORE moms missed the retro by returning to work a day or 2 later.

And check out this Queens Maternity workshop for April 2016 - Join us and get answers to all your maternity and leave questions.

We know the answer to the retro question already -- hey, if you are pregnant and not working when the next retro is due - screw you - or rather, you should have waited to screw until you got your retro.

Maternity Workshop (Queens)
Date:April 14, 2016
Time:4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Location:
UFT Queens borough office
97-77 Queens Blvd.
Rego Park, NY
US

Preregistration is required. Walk-ins will not be admitted. RSVP by emailing kjordan@uft.org.

Try this common core math question - if you are pregnant in April when do you have to deliver and be back in time to get your retro?

No comments:

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended