Nick Brings the Bacon - Filibusters and Fabrications - UFT Delegate Assembly Notes, With Context March 2022

Mulgrew's "report" yesterday took up 3/4 of the meeting and then he claimed the 1 minute of point of order was the reason they didn't get to any of the 11 resos on the agenda. 

• Today I'm speaking to three lunch hours at an elementary school in Unity territory and should get some read on how the election is playing out. There is a strong Solidarity person in the school. Yesterday a UFC person handing out leaflets to people going into the DA said an elementary teacher wanted leaflets for her school because "everyone is talking about UFC." But I'd bet in some schools there is no clue about the election.

I used to say Putin uses the Unity caucus model of control but hasn’t yet achieved where Mulgrew is at. I guess a little sensitive issue now. But if you look at party in power I can only think of China as a longer running autocracy than Unity and they even had some term limits and more internal accountability than Unity - the longest running autocracy where each of 4 leaders over 60 years hand chose the successor. And yesterday all 700 nysut delegates were told how to vote at the upcoming NYSUT RA convention. Mulgrew used their 6:30 meeting as an excuse to not extend the DA  by claiming they had a meeting at 6 - Nick who is still a Unity Caucus delegate challenged him saying he has the paper that says 6:30 - some think that was the funniest moment of the DA. There is no democracy inside Unity Caucus. Plenty of people are not happy with Mulgrew, which is why they are trying to Hide Mulgrew in Plain Sight. But there is no way to even challenge him without losing their jobs. Maybe one of the reasons Nick Bacon left Unity.

  

When we get honest DA reports we see through the cracks. If Nick Bacon continues his DA reports, they will be a gold mine. And if he gets elected to HS Ex Bd, expect more great reports.

I've always maintained that dry DA minutes without context is like diving without a steering wheel. I don't believe any DA reports are devoid of political influence, so we might as well get a point of view. Are people fine with Mulgrew taking up 3/4 of the time with his practiced report and then claiming they are running out of time because some took 30 seconds to make a point of order? These Unity hacks remind me of the Republican idiots questioning Ketanji Brown Jackson. Unity is fundamentally the Republican Party. If UFC were to win Unity's role would be the same -- to stop anything from being done. A hack is a hack is a hack is a hack.

Finally we are seeing DAs getting covered with context and political analysis as UFC HS candidate Nick Bacon posts notes on the New Action blog. 

The DA outside game: Retiree Advocate was there and will be there in the future

I was outside the DA with over 3000 copies of the hot off the press United for Change leaflet which I shlepped in my famous suitcase and left an hour an a half later with one leaflet. I still have 17,000 in my garage. Reps from MORE and Solidarity and ICE are coming over after school today to pick up for their groups and I'm offering a pizza party to celebrate the UFC alliance. RA was there in force to back the OT/PT rally for the pay they have not gotten, which Mulgrew passed off when asked a question. 

The Inside game  - Nick Brings the Bacon

Filibusters and Fabrications- Thoughts on the March, 2022 Delegate Assembly

Published March 23, 2022 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

The March DA was December all over again, as Mulgrew avoided giving any space to members of United for Change by using every tactic under the sun to silence us, and really all non-Unity members of the Delegate Assembly.

1. Abnormally Long President’s Report: Mulgrew’s report dragged on for over an hour and left virtually no time for official business. He even invited some speakers to make the report particularly long, a tactic he uses when he really wants to filibuster. That presentation, full of glitches, was about an online system for chapter leaders that could have just as easily been an email. (Keep in mind, most delegates at the DA are not even Chapter Leaders…they’re delegates). It’s worth mentioning that one of the presenters was Unity Caucus’s Maggie Joyce, who Mulgrew suspiciously called on in the last DA too, even as he couldn’t manage to allow a single UFC delegate to speak in either of the last two DAs. Watching the talk, one couldn’t help being reminded of the December DA, when Mulgrew called on a staffer to give a time-share like presentation about how good Mulgrewcare was. Mulgrewcare, of course, was later scrapped after UFC’s own Retiree Advocate (working with some other groups) exposed it for the fraud that it was and won in court. And, despite a pretty interesting question period, with speakers making critical points about things like abusive administration, undelivered vacation days, and delayed payment to OT/PT, Mulgrew’s answers left much to be desired, though he spent tons of time answering them (to avoid taking other questions).
   
2. Making up rules: When Camille Eterno tried to make a minor parliamentary inquiry about a mistake on last month’s minutes regarding what she had said then, she was ruled out of order and not allowed to speak. The reason? Mulgrew claimed that parliamentary inquiries can’t be made during the President’s Report. Of course, the Delegate Assembly is deliberative–and as such uses Robert’s Rules. Searching as we have, we’ve found no place in Robert’s Rules specifying Mulgrew’s rules. That leads me to think he may have, you know, made it up, so that he could silence Camille. It’s worth noting that Mulgrew erroneously accused Camille of electioneering, even though she mentioned nothing about the election or about caucuses. Ibeth Mejia, who I’m running with for High School Executive Board, tried to use a point of order to advocate for them to take Camille’s point, stating that it was absurd for Mulgrew to interrupt her with a simple request about the minutes, but was also shouted down.
3. Not Calling on UFC Members (Redux): We at United for Change are used to not being called on by Mulgrew at this point. Indeed, we haven’t been called on for a new motion since November, and to this day I think I was only called on to read our resolution on healthcare back then because Mulgrew still thought I was with Unity Caucus. This time, when many UFC delegates were amongst the first to shoot their hands up, Mulgrew waited and palpably searched the audience for Thomas Conavoy, so that he could read the inherently uncontroversial resolution on recognizing Diwali. Another non-UFC person was called on after, and this was the last person recognized by Mulgrew. Earlier in the DA, Daniel Alicea asked a point of parliamentary inquiry about needing to rotate between those for and against given motions, and Mulgrew answered that when there is a debate they do have such a procedure, which of course begs the question: why was that procedure so conspicuously not followed in February, when a debate followed Camille Eterno’s motion to appeal the chair. Of course, that ‘debate’ consisted of Mulgrew recognizing the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary, and another Executive Board member, all of whom of course agreed with Mulgrew. Indeed, in that debate, not a single person was called on who disagreed. Not a single person was called on from United for Change.
4. Not allowing the meeting to be extended: Mulgrew talked for so long during this DA that there was no way we were going to get to any resolution on this month’s agenda. He also prevented UFC from raising an important resolution on mayoral control, as well as another resolution on Tier 6 (which, ironically Unity was also prepared to present a similar motion on…if only Mulgrew hadn’t run out the clock). Peter Lamphere tried to make a motion to extend the time, but was ruled out of order for technical reasons. Mulgrew claimed there was too much important business to conduct right after the meeting, because the UFT members of the RA were meeting right at 6:00. I made a point of order, because I hold the invite, and it clearly says 6:30. He claimed that 30 minutes was needed to prepare the room. So I stuck around after the automatic adjournment at 6:00. When I left at 6:20, the chairs were exactly where they left them. There was no need to end at 6:00 PM, but I think we all knew that. (And by the way, Mulgrew, if you know in advance that you ‘need’ to adjourn at 6:00 PM, why not make your President’s report a little shorter in the first place so there’s no need to make a motion to extend)?

 Also see Eterno abridged report:

ICEUFT Blog

LIVE BLOGGING FROM MARCH DA -