Ed Notes Extended

Friday, August 16, 2019

2019 -- Politico's Big Joke: MORE Wants to take over UFT - by not wanting to win Elections

What's left of MORE prides itself on being intolerant and insular. It does not wish to deal with viewpoints that vary one iota from theirs. As for what that viewpoint may be, I have no clue. I only know that whatever it is shuts me out as a "right-winger." .... If I'm a right-winger, so is a good 95-99% of UFT membership. What's left of MORE represents what's left of MORE, and little else.  .....NYC Educator Blithering Baloney from Politico on MORE {Updated Sunday, Aug. 18, 2019, 1:30 PM}
Oh, that's just great,  and makes the Gods of Irony laugh: unions in legitimate need of reform (if the UFT is at all representative) are to be shaken up by naive Democratic Socialists acting as cat's paws for the Trots[kyists] ..... Former MORE leftist member, a founder of purged ICEUFT.
Democratic Socialists look to take over New York's powerful labor unions screamed the headline from Politico.
Another target is the United Federation of Teachers, a nearly 200,000-member union representing teachers, social workers, secretaries and other school employees. “UFT is the largest local of one of the largest unions in the country. It has the potential to be extremely influential in electoral politics,” the group wrote. “It is extremely internally undemocratic, but there is a reform caucus, MORE, which has many active DSA members.” MORE refers to the Movement of Rank and File Educators, whose website leads with a July post criticizing the union’s internal election process and calling for voting reforms. The union “fails to exercise the full potential of its power” and ends up backing centrist or conservative Democrats, the group added.
Did the authors check out the outcome of the last UFT election which was won by Unity with one of its highest vote totals in history while MORE's vote totals dropped by 75% and they finished behind a ghost caucus? Or read about the way MORE is no more democratic than Unity Caucus? Or that there are way more ex-MORE members than current MORE members?

The funniest quote in the article was a quote from a MORE statement on the election as if to blame the UFT election process instead of their own ineptness and poor judgement where they could claim, "at least we didn't finish last."
“With more DSA teachers, we could bolster and significantly support the internal movement for democracy and militant organizing within the union but it will likely take years to reform the UFT,” it concluded.
Note they say they want to reform the UFT which cannot be done without creating a credible threat to Unity which MORE killed in its divisiveness. They also lodged a protest over some of the procedures in the election with the UFT, some of which were out right funny.

One thing it does is reveal the MORE strategy, since the faction in control has not been able to make inroads into the rank and file even in their own schools, they have used an old tactic on the left and right: Seeding – Bring in activists to form a cadre - a woke vanguard who will lead the unwoke rank and file. There's more than a little arrogance in this concept.

Actually, the UFT was organized using similar tactics – remember, Shanker and other founders came out of the Socialist Party - the very anti-communist cold warrior wing. One of the founders who had been in a middle school which became the organizing center of the future UFT in the late 50s purposely left to go to a high school where he was able to organize inside the high school teachers association, the most militant segment of the union - he used the term "salting" when I spoke to him.

But they had no Unity Caucus to contend with - and it is that factor that is missing from all the training MORE does along with Labor Notes. In the future I'll get into why the current MORE strategy that took us away from the concept of a broad based opposition will fail and for every cadre MORE brings into the UFT and MORE, an equal number will leave or drift away.



Democratic Socialists of America in New York | Getty Images





The Democratic Socialists members approved zeroing in on six of those labor groups during a January meeting and have since begun pursuing the effort.... Politico
Funny how the MORE steering committee came out of the witness protection program in January 2019 to suspend me for 6 months for revealing the misinformation at the MORE election meetings to get people to run in the election not to win and alone in the fall.

James Eterno, another former MORE member (there are way more formers than currents) calls them out on the ICEUFT blog in his excellent piece on the same story: SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA TRYING TO PENETRATE NYC UNIONS
If the Democratic Socialists of America want to be taken seriously inside the UFT, they should work on having their people live up to that democratic part of their name. ... MORE voted against working with any other opposition group in 2019. It appears they are more interested in pushing their political views than in changing the UFT. It is impossible to defend MORE's indefensible lack of fairness. While I can still work with members of MORE on individual issues like opposing the contract, it is very difficult to support their candidates for union office under these circumstances. I don't want my union to be run like this caucus....
Here is another quote on the story from a former MORE member:
Honestly, I'd like to burn every single Bread and Roses flag I see. But from my vantage, this memo was a leak from DSA and, after reading the quotes from the union presidents, I think they may have angered the better part of all 151 of them. (The last time all the city's unions were on the same page, they pulled the rug out from under both Cynthia Nixon AND the entire WFP.) I don't think this is going to go unanswered by the union heads and I'm curious who to sympathize for here.... Former MORE  member.
Now to be clear - I joined DSA and like the work they are doing generally. The organization as whole is broad tent socialist unlike the MORE wing which is sectarian. DSAers who are teachers are wasting their time with MORE since DSA has so many other options for organizing and social justice work. Spending your time at meetings to "learn" how to organize your colleagues to do exactly what? When you could join one of the numerous DSA committees on housing, working for progressive candidates etc can actually lead to results?

Here is the full Politico story - tell Sally and Janaki to do some research.

https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2019/08/14/democratic-socialists-look-to-take-over-new-yorks-powerful-labor-unions-1141206

Democratic Socialists look to take over New York's powerful labor unions

5 comments:

  1. You are correct and MORE will not succeed in any tactic strategy that they attempt to do. When they railroad, never listen to dissenting opinion to try and bring better solutions to the table, THAT DOES NOT make a cohesive union/caucus at all. I guess MORE does not believe in the first amendment where people are allowed to speak freely in a safe environment without having to face consequences of censorship.

    And boy, I am out of the loop. I didnt know you were suspended by MORE for 6 months. I BET, that the information you were spreading was actually factual and truth.

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  2. Actually, I was suspended for 6 months for threatening to not cooperate with one their fan boys if he didn't start being honest on steeeing committee. ("...you made a threat! You made a threat! You threatened!! I feel UNSAFE!!!"). Mike was suspended for using the words "bull" and "shit" in the same sentence and Peter was suspended expressing an opinion outside of MORE on his blog. Norm, however, was special. Norm was plain kicked out and they didn't even bother giving anyone a reason, other than his association with the Independent Community of Educators.

    Look, these people can't be taken seriously and they'll never be able to accomplish a damn thing in my union. I don't think DSA yet realizes that their own folks in MORE just cant' be taken seriously but they will soon enough and, by then, you'll start seeing these folks leave NYC for places like Philly or DC to try to seed there. That's about as cohesive as they'll ever get.

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  3. DSA demonstrated their political ignorance (and preference for virtue signalling over serious analysis) by coming out for Open Borders at their recent convention.

    Yup, that'll go over real well in formerly unionized and now deindustrialized regions suffering from declining life expectancies and "deaths from despair" and scale equivalent to the AIDS epidemic.

    Look for this group to implode within five years, with much help from the ex-ISO sectarians now infesting and manipulating it.

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  4. Norm, who is currently on the steering committee of MORE?

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    Replies
    1. I believe they cut the size from the original 9 to 5 and did not have an election - there were 5 people announced in September - but I think they decided to reduce the role of steering -- it was they that emailed me I was suspended for 6 months from meetings and from certain listserves and the internal bulletin board. Other than that action before my suspension in January I didn't see much action though there was an internal group that the members of MORE were not party too- I mean why actually do stuff in the open? In fact I do not believe the members of MORE were told in an announcement that I was suspended - they probably think I died.

      Delete

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