Ed Notes Online: NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees Stands in Solidarity with DC37 Retirees: Press Conference and Rally in Protest to AFSCME Takeover

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees Stands in Solidarity with DC37 Retirees: Press Conference and Rally in Protest to AFSCME Takeover

“[AFSCME] seems to be pulling at strings, to be honest,” Pizzitola says. “I think they're going to make any accusation that they can make to see whatever sticks.” The DC37 Retirees Association decided to pause its regularly occurring contributions to the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees for several months before ultimately deciding to resume them once again a month before AFSCME swooped in, suspended the officers, and changed the locks.

Tuesday, March 5

Sorry I won't be here to make the rally and presser. Going to Philly Flower Show. Today Retiree Advocate organizers were outside 52 Bwy handing out leaflets to 50, 60, 70 year UFT member retirees being honored with a luncheon. I was eligible as a 56 year member but somehow my invitation was lost. If I'm still here I will go next year when I turn 80 and be honored by the new retiree regime after we win the chapter election this May.

In case you missed it, there was a hostile takeover of the DC 37 Retiree Association, using a bogus reason when the real reason was that they have been contributing to the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees which has led the court battles to counter the city/union attempt to undermine our current medicare situation.

Now, this is interesting - having a national take over a local - Randi and the AFT have done that a couple of times that Ed Notes covered.

A question I've been asked: What it Retiree Advocate were to actually win the chapter election. Would Unity resort to drastic moves to prevent us from taking over? I can imagine them creating some irregularities and calling for a new election. Or make it extremely difficult for RA to run the chapter by tossing all kinds of roadblock in their way and then look for any transgression they can create and go to AFT asking for a trusteeship.

Well, back to the rally:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees Stands in Solidarity with DC37 Retirees for A Press Conference and Rally in Protest to AFSCME

Manhattan, NY, March 5, 2024 Outraged by the hostile takeover of the DC37 Retirees Association, the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees stands in unwavering solidarity with our fellow retirees.

For years, we've fought tirelessly to defend traditional Medicare, only to face betrayal from those who once swore to fight for us. Now, the DC37 Retirees, despite belonging to a supposedly powerful union with a long history of leadership, face draconian punishment for simply advocating for the exact cause we champion.

Their supposed leaders, failing their fundamental duty, offered no support or guidance before seizing control of the DC37 Retirees Association. This outrageous double standard becomes even more egregious when considering other union groups with similar issues faced no such consequences.

This betrayal goes beyond the takeover itself. In June of last year, a powerful AFSCME official, Ann Widger, threatened the DC37 Retirees Association for daring to support our legal fight to protect traditional Medicare. Her message: continued donations would result in receivership. Following through on her threat, the hostile takeover occurred when donations resumed.

Unions, once beacons of dissent, now stifle these very voices and threaten those fighting for their fundamental rights.

We are the backbone of the labor force who demand a swift return to the core values of unions: protecting workers and retirees, not silencing them.

This attack on retirees trying to protect their earned Medicare benefits is shameful. AFSCME, once a champion for Medicare alongside Dr. Martin Luther King and President Johnson, now allows its largest district council to force retirees into a privatized, for-profit plan that weakens their access to doctors, denies care, is rejected by many of our healthcare providers, and puts seniors’ lives at risk.

We thought we were UNION!

PRESS CONFERENCE

Join us on Wednesday, March 6th at 11 AM at 75 Maiden Lane as we fight for justice, our healthcare future, and the soul of the union movement!

###

Contact:

Marianne Pizzitola

President

NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees

Marianne Pizzitola

President

NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees

And

FDNY EMS Retirees Association

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"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 Online

Ed Notes Extended

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees Stands in Solidarity with DC37 Retirees: Press Conference and Rally in Protest to AFSCME Takeover

Statement on ASFCME Trusteeship of the Retirees Association of DC 37

AFT Set to Take Over Florida Local - lack of democracy an issue -- HA!

AFT Takeover Sanctioned By US Labor Department

AFT Hack Attack on Portland Local 5017

Labor Dept. Rules Randi Take Over of Nurses' Union Illegal

Randi Invades Detroit

Well, back to the rally:

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