We ask that you or Elementary Vice President Karen Alford attend the final day of the hearing this Friday, March 10 in order to send a clear message to the DOE, the arbitrator, and UFT rank and filers that the UFT supports this chapter leader. We further ask you to offer the assistance of the UFT press office in publicizing this defense. We further ask that you intervene personally with the chancellor around this case. If we do not defend our chapter leaders publicly and strongly, we may soon not have a union to defend at all....Before I head down to the hearing I wanted to post this call for the UFT leadership to offer public support by showing up today. Our most recent post on the CPE 1 retaliatory 3020a charges against a chapter leader -- Fight Farina Assault on Teacher Rights: Friday 9:30 - In Defense of a Chapter Leader Under 3020a Dismissal Charges
MORE/New Action Ex Bd members letter to Mulgrew
Last week the absence of UFT reps in the waiting room was noticed by parents. One of them told me a story about how she interacted with someone from the UFT and pointed out that I was there: The full-time UFTer responded with: "Well, he's retired." OK.
I know how the UFT thinks. If they show up here others will expect them to show up. They are also nervous about the way charges are presented -- not in an honest way to get at the truth, but to come up with every single thing the teacher might have done or written to use against them. Every single teacher does something at some point. So there is always germs of truth in the charges -- germs and manipulated alt facts. We know in this case that the principal did not remove Marilyn Martinez -- the Supt did and we are guessing that has to do with the battle against the principal, which every chapter leader in every school should be taking part in when the principal does wrong as part of their job.
And as I saw with the Portelos case, much of the defense against many of the charges - which were based on his role as CL -- was challenging those charges as interfering in the actions of the union.
When CLs are brought up on charges that should be a red flag to the union not to treat these cases like any other 3020a dismissal case.
Here is the letter in full.
MORE Demands Immediate Support for CPE1 Chapter Leader and JHS 145by morecaucusnyc |
The following letter was sent yesterday by the MORE and New Action Caucuses and our representatives on the UFT Executive Board. We hope that our supporters and will join us, and the UFT leadership, at the hearing today, March 10, and the PEP meeting on Wednesday March 22nd.
March 9, 2017
Parents and MORE members support CPE 1 Chapter Leader Marilyn Martinez. The hearing continues today, March 10th at 100 Gold St. in Manhattan at 10am.
Dear President Mulgrew, Vice Presidents Alford, Hinds, and Mantell and Assistant Secretary Barr:
As you know, our union, and the labor movement as a whole, is under major threat by the anti-labor initiatives promised by the Trump administration, as well as by the inevitable return of a case like last year’s Friedrichs to the Supreme Court.
In such an environment, it is crucial that the rank and file members of our union see that the UFT is at the front lines fighting to defend members publicly at every available opportunity.
There are two important opportunities to do so in the coming days that our union leadership must act on.
First, the Chapter Leader of Central Park East I, Marilyn Martinez, is facing 3020A charges which are clearly retaliatory from the abusive principal Monika Garg. Fifty parents and UFT members attended the first two days of hearings last week. We ask that you or Elementary Vice President Karen Alford attend the final day of the hearing this Friday, March 10 in order to send a clear message to the DOE, the arbitrator, and UFT rank and filers that the UFT supports this chapter leader. We further ask you to offer the assistance of the UFT press office in publicizing this defense. We further ask that you intervene personally with the chancellor around this case. If we do not defend our chapter leaders publicly and strongly, we may soon not have a union to defend at all.
Second, JHS 145 in the Bronx is facing a closure vote at the Panel for Educational Policy meeting on Wednesday March 22nd. The largely immigrant school community has mobilized to oppose the closing. As unionists committed to defending public education, we must join our voices with those of parents, students and teachers in opposition to this proposed closure. The Delegate Assembly scheduled for that day should adjourn early to allow Delegates, Chapter Leaders and the union leadership to attend the nearby PEP Meeting en masse.
In Solidarity,
UFT Executive Board members high school division
KJ Ahluwalia
Arthur Goldstein
Ashraya Gupta
Jonathan Halabi
Marcus McArthur
David Rosen
Mike Schirtzer
Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE caucus UFT)
New Action Caucus UFT
10 comments:
So Mulgrew, who can barely be bothered to go downstairs at 52 Broadway to attend the Executive Board meeting of the union he ostensibly leads, will motivate himself to attend the 3020-A hearing of a lowly Chapter Leader?
How quaint!
In fairness, sometimes the meetings are upstairs.
Want to get noticed by the NYC media? Get the parents, students, retiree's and all involved to go to Staten Island and show up at Mulgrew's residence. Believe that will draw attention to the plight of this chapter leader and the union's lack of commitment in defending their own.
How do you know for sure the principal wasn't involved? Reading the 3,000+ pages emails from my principal and superintendent, there was much talk including deputy chancellors, lawyers and directors.
As we can agree, there are ethical violations here. Ethics violations involving attorneys should be reported to the NY Disciplinary Committee. The attorney definitely involved is listed here in the right according to district http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/GeneralCounsel/Legal/SFC/default.htm
As well as Robin Greenfield, Robin Singer and Katherine Rodi.
Too much effort has been placed internally within the DOE and UFT. Letters to the UFT leadership and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee.
Of course the principal is involved but she's a puppet. This comes from the top - farina. I bet she hates Debbie Meier and her school where most parents opted out. At the other Cpe school the principal went along with the doe. As for letters to uft no one expects results but when all these parents see more as an ally and not the uft that causes a political issue for them. They have behind the scenes warned them to stay away from more but they don't care. They did the same at Townsend Harris and it worked there. Not that they need more as the kids drive that engine
Will there be similar letters written to the UFT and publicized for other chapter leaders and delegates attacked? I know the parents here are fueling the fight, but wondering if they weren't, would MORE and New Action write such a letter?
What if chapter leaders/delegates are not reassigned, but suddenly excessed? Just curious.
A little bit of snark. Of course this has to do with parents fueling the fight. Have you not learned that at this time neither more nor any teacher group is able to fuel the fights. At Townsend Harris it is students and parents while teachers are fairly quiet. At jhs 145 it is teachers in the school and parents. More has supported. That is what a caucus like more has the capability to do. Create some publicity in support. People at Townsend Harris are not interested in more support so we stay out of it. Schools fighting back en masse is the fuel not more. We try to live in the real world.
Didn't mean it to be snark, and actually rewrote the comment before submitting. Didn't know how else to ask this question.
I think teacher groups have the ability to do more than fan a fire that is already started and that starting the fire is also possible.
Show examples of fires started by teacher groups in recent years - decades even -- I'm not trying to pull rank but I do have some experience with all these groups and understand the dynamics under which most teachers operate -- GEM actually did get something going on a low level basis but there were too many issues. I don't have any answers other than to keep trying to build something even if flawed. Few people are like you - as you have found out. We can't put a head on a basically dormant body without the head ending up doing all or most of the work. It is not sustainable. A Fire needs fuel from below not only from the head. And the fuel can't be likes on FB but capable people working to organize in the schools. If we had hundreds doing that we would be seeing some action. When we can only count on double digits nothing much is moving. I mean we hear so many people are unhappy but where are they? What activated people at JHS 145? Closing their school. Look at Jamaica HS and how James got so many people involved. They are scattered all over the place now but at least that struggle stayed with them and they support James when he touches base with them.
MORE is around for 5 years and actually keeps attracting new people and supporters and also has some kind of organized structure that seems to be holding up. It may all fall apart as time goes on like so many other groups but for now this is what we have.
Conditions outside our control will determine if a fire gets started from below -- and we may not be able to do much more than get onboard -- but at least we have to be there with some organized presence to help people figure things out -- But we cannot just take the view that the UFT is utterly useless -- when and if we can get them to do something that is a positive. But never by saying "Please sir may I have another". Going at them head to head but also with some reasonable demands.
What constitutes a reasonable demand nowadays? Job security is no longer a viable option. Veteran teachers are dead in the water. AFT is organizing charter school teachers in Chicago. So much for the quaint notion that we oppose charter school proliferation due to the fact that it robs public school districts of much needed resources. Weingarten is holding hands with school choice champion DeVos. An AFT endorsement of the virtues of vouchers is imminent. Use of tax payer dollars to fund religious schools is less than controversial. Demands for smaller class sizes are ignored. The standardized testing dragon is insatiable. Our politicians favor the use of student standardized test scores to rate not only teachers, but collegiate schools of education. Make-believe graduate schools of education like Relay and make-believe TFA teachers are all the rage. Forgive me for my tendency to be unreasonable.
Abigail Shure
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