Delegate Assembly Today - UFT Members Handout, plus a few words from me (for a change)

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

 

I will be at the DA handing out the leaflet below and the Retiree Advocate leaflet. But I want to get upstairs first and get an aisle seat - in case I have to pee. One thing we've done is divide the 300 delegates into groups with volunteers taking a portion of the group. I have about 17 people in my group. I get in touch with them to make sure they get the registration emails and for some there have been some snags. Some are suspicious but I trust Yasmin Colon, who has been incredibly responsive, as has been LeRoy Barr when issues come up. Let's not get all Trumpian with conspiracy theories. Unity does do shit, like identifying Tom Murphy as RTC CL in the new calendar, but let's focus on the big stuff.

Like how long will Mulgrew talk today? Put your money down for the Ed Notes pool. I say 48 minutes. Take the over/under. 

 

Expect loads of paid staff to be there and for some of them to reserve entire rows of seats. I'm tossing their shit on the floor.

 

What tricks will they use to chew up the new motion period?

Here's a fun one. Apparently LeRoy Barr has taken away the table the oppo had for 25 years (that I procured from Randi). And also ordered that any motions we want to distribute not be allowed on the lit table unless we send it to him in advance. Wanda, who polices the table disallowed our motions last month. Today Wanda may face someone who will sit on the table and refuse to move until the police are called. Phone videos may be available. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, here is a piece of lit from UFT Members with resos that LeRoy will Barr from distribution on the lit table because it has a group name on it.  I call this the Barr make up a rule as you go dictum.

I work with this group, a loose conglomeration of people who are focused on reaching out to the membership beyond the usual suspects. This had caused some consternation from those same usual suspects, but I won't go any further because a hell of a lot of people don't want me to report what is really going on, one reason Ed Notes has not been publishing as often -- social censorship from all sides of the oppo world. Wanna know one reason given for not talking about UFT elections? Unity will find out! Horrors. Too many oppo people spend too much time thinking about Unity reactions. Better spend energy on organizing people outside the usual suspects because an election won't be won with the current crop of US. 

And by the way -- how about a little more transparency instead of closed door meetings and decisions? Just sayin'.

(If you don't hear from me in a few days, you know why.)

 

 

 

 

Dear UFT Members,

Thank you for participating in the launch of our grassroots movement! To date, 1,200 of us have completed our member survey, over 1,000 of us signed our petition to expand UFT member voting, and 150 of us joined our first Member Assembly held at the end of last month. What a start!

Here are some next steps for November:

1. Share the Petition for UFT Member Voting

Please share with at least 1-2 UFT Members you know. In less than a week, our petition to expand member voting to electronic and/or in-person voting for our UFT citywide elections has collected over 1,000+ signatures! 

If each of us share this petition with just 1 or 2 (or more!) UFT members, we know (both in-service and retirees), then we will double or triple the number of signatures. Please share the petition far and wide, or simply ask 1 or 2 UFT members to sign. Each and every signature goes a long way toward making change happen!

Sign UFT VOTES! petition

2.  Share the Petition to End Mayor Adams' Scripted Curriculum Mandates

Educators and school communities must have an active voice in creating, choosing, adopting & implementing curricula that best serves our students - not politicians, bureaucrats or corporations.  Yet, we are forced to teach using Mayor Adams' latest reading and math scripted curriculum mandates that treat classrooms like assembly lines.

UFT members are dealing with a lot of unnecessary and frustrating managerial oversight. We're being pushed by school admins and superintendents to use certain scripted curricula that just don't cut it. 

There's not enough support, and many don't seem to get the wide-ranging needs of students in the biggest, most diverse school system around --- or they also feel pressured to implement.

Sign our new petition calling on the Mayor and Chancellor to halt these scripted curricula until educators, school communities and families can have authentic input.  Bring back teacher voice and autonomy.  End this micro-management, now.

Sign the TEACHER VOICE, NOW petition

3. Sign up to join  one or more (or all!) of our Campaign Working Groups

We said from the beginning that we will do this work together, and we mean it! We’re going to begin with the following working groups to start building out our UFT Election campaign.  Sign up, now. We will connect with you to see where you best fit:

1. Get Out the Vote: - think of ways to increase awareness in and the desire to vote in this year's election;
2. Organizing/Member Mobilization: - develop and implement plans to increase participation in the movement;
3. Media: - help with the movement website, outreach, literature to be disseminated;
4. Divisional work groups: - join with others in the same divisions (i.e. elementary, middle school, high school) to think about what needs to be done to improve working conditions in your division and engage others in the movement;
5. D75: - work on messages and mobilization that address the uniqueness of D75;
6. Paraprofessionals: - focused on mobilizing paraprofessionals;
7. Retirees: - focused on mobilizing retired educators

The working groups listed above will meet remotely via Zoom. Please fill out the survey linked below to indicate what working group(s) you’re interested in joining. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work! 

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR ELECTION CAMPAIGN WORKING GROUPS

Lastly, download, print and share our November flyer and share at your school.

Thanks for reading, we’re looking forward to meeting with you very soon.

In solidarity,

Your fellow UFT members 

Our Voice, Our Union
join.uftmembers.org

UFT Members

info@uftmembers.org

 

Will Unity Echo Vote Suppression by Rejecting Electronic Voting (Again)? - It's time for UFT to Adopt Electronic Voting - Sign the Petition

In the last election, we had loads of people who did not get their ballots in the mail and when they requested another ballot, they were told by the AAA that the deadline passed, but they could vote in person. Tough commute from Florida or if you have a disability.

With the UFT election committee meeting (I''m a member again) coming up on November 26,  a push is being made to institute electronic voting as we did before the 2022 UFT election, which I review below.

First, Arthur hits the current attempt by gaining support with a petition.

Voting by Mail Is for Dinosaurs

UFT Unity adores it, but it's time for a change.

Arthur Goldstein

Nov 09, 2024

Please sign this petition. It asks that we use electronic voting, and/ or in-school voting (I very much prefer the former) for the next UFT election, so as to maximize participation. After you sign, please share it with friends, and post it to whatever social media you favor.

Why?

Mailboxes are all but obsolete. Yet UFT bosses insist on using them for elections. For at least as far back as I can recall, this has not worked well. A small minority has regularly chosen UFT leadership. If democracy isour goal, that’s less than ideal.

For years, voting participation in the UFT has been abysmal. In the last election, 75% of us could not be bothered to vote. Voting is too cumbersome or inconvenient for the overwhelming majority of our membership. That’s unacceptable.

UFT Unity resists efforts to improve this. In 2021, a proposal to use electronic voting was rejected by every Unity member of the Executive Board. Unity members vote in a bloc, as instructed. They sign an oath to do so. Oath or no oath, it’s absurd to point to mail-in voting as successful for our union.

 

Saturday, November 9, 2024

 

As a member of the UFT Election Committee for United For Change in the 2022, I and others pushed for the UFT to adopt electronic voting. With Unity stacking that committee any proposal for change was rejected.

I wrote about the issue in 2021:

Unity (Paid) Election Committee Reps reject UFC call for electronic voting

We (UFC) went in with the idea to avoid the ghost of UFT elections past of

The ghost of UFT elections

embarrassingly low turnout where the highest turnout is from retirees by expanding opportunities to vote through electronic voting. We don't even think electronic voting would automatically help us more than Unity. After all, they are so popular in the schools.

A Unity reso was made to disallow electronic sigs on petitions -- I misunderstood and thought they were banning electronic voting and objected but was told it was about petitioning -- one of them said he likes to see a wet signature on a petition. Weird but I guess I can live with wet signatures -- ich! I think we should allow non-wet signatures on petitions but that was not the hill I was there to die on.

But then came the fun part. We were asked to vote on the election posting which stated that ballots would be mailed out, and we did vote to accept that unanimouslybut they then said that meant there would be no electronic voting. Whoa - I withdrew my support and asked for this to be added after - Ballots will be mailed out - "and electronic voting will be allowed." 

We made strong comments. We pointed to PSC voting electronically -- backroom Unity comments are this 30K union is small. We raised the point that the AFL-CIO has endorsed electronic voting. And with Adams and Banks coming in, a low turnout was a signal to them that we are weak.

Wow! To Unity vote suppressors trying to increased turnout is a nuke. They looked desperate to kill it. So every one of them spoke against electronic voting with some weird arguments in support of low turnout -- like why do anything different when we've been "successful". The weirdest was claiming to protect teachers from using school computers to vote --- like no one has a a phone.  The final vote was --- SPOILER ALERT -- 8-5.

The next day (Dec. 15, 2021) we published:

UFT Exec Bd Vote Opposing Electronic Voting: Mike Shirtzer and another are Lone Dissenters, 13 Reasons For Electronic Voting as Unity Echoes Republican Vote Suppression

Do Mulgrew and company really believe that dues-paying members would have voted down an electronic voting option that would increase our union participation and give members increased access?... Mulgrew’s caucus-laden executive board used arguments against our members’ further enfranchisement that were reminiscent of those seeking to suppress and obstruct increased voting rights and voting access in our national and statewide elections. ..... EONYC

The other key issue at the Ex bd was endorsing the election committee recommendation not to include electronic voting in the upcoming election following its meeting last Thursday which I reported on last night - UFT Election Committee Meets, Petition Dates Set, Unity (Paid) Election Committee Reps reject UFC call for electronic voting.

If you went to any school in the city and took a poll on electronic voting would 99% oppose it? This is a true indication of how the UFT EB represents the 1% union bureaucrats, not the 99% membership.

Arthur Goldstein reported at that time- I'm not including the lame Unity arguments -- you can read them at NYC Educator--

Michael Shulman--(Election Committee member; Head of New Action, not on Executive Board)Thanks LeRoy Barr for invitation. Thanks Carl Cambria for chairing. Wants to discuss balloting. Favors voting electronically due to low voter turnout. That is key. Not a caucus issue. Big issue is getting membership to participate. Important to be proud of union democracy. We are not moving with the times. About 25% of our membership vote. That is unacceptable. There have been proposals to GOTV, but we are lagging. 

Since pandemic, our union uses secure electronic voting for DA, for CL, for SBOs. Not a radical new proposal. Other public sector unions doing this. We have capability, not as sole source. We could use both. If someone votes both, we could distinguish which came first and that would take precedence.  I come from older generation. I believe many younger teachers use electronic voting. Snail mail alien to them.

I put Shulman's entire comments down below, followed by the 13 points.

Mike Schirtzer (Independent)--Agrees with Shulman. PSC (Professional Staff Congress-CUNY union) has option of online voting. We are in a battle to enfranchise folks who lost right to vote. Eric Adams is looking to union bust. Need to show we are strongest and best union. DA and Town Hall numbers are staggering. We trust AAA to get it right. Teachers under 30 don't know where mailboxes are. Need to open options. 

Mike was elected on the Unity line in 2019 but has remained independent and it showed here. Mike has been nominated to run on the UFC slate for Ex Bd. I trust Mike's political instincts and actually would support Mike if he decided to run on the Unity line, which would make sense for Unity to be able to claim they have one independent voice on their slate

 Here is Shulman's comments to the Ex Bd:

A Missed Opportunity! Unity Votes Down Electronic Voting

By Michael Shulman, Chair, New Action Caucus

The UFT Executive Board had an opportunity to strengthen union democracy at last night’s (Dec. 13) meeting. Instead they clung to time-worn arguments that there was no evidence electronic voting would increase voter turn-out. My request to speak at the Exec. Bd. was agreed to, as I had fully expected. Unity would not leave itself vulnerable to the charge of being undemocratic. After 51 years of union activism, I was certain publicizing a negative reply would only embarrass Unity. They frankly would never allow it. And as an appointed member of the UFT Election Committee, I was in a unique position to make a presentation to the Board.

My arguments were pretty straightforward: Electronic voting would increase voter participation. 

In city-wide UFT elections around 25% of the membership usually vote. I stated that this was not a caucus issue (of course, I suspected otherwise) since it was in everyone’s interest to want higher voter participation. I pointed out that since the pandemic our union was utilizing secure electronic voting at delegate assemblies, voting for chapter leaders and delegates, and for school based options. I pointed to the fact that other public sector unions, such as the Professional Staff Congress, are now using this method for their general elections. I concluded with the reality that the younger generation of educators are using electronics on a daily basis. Why couldn’t we use both – electronic voting and mail-in ballots.

Here are some of the responses from our Unity colleagues:

1)     Nothing indicates electronic voting would increase turnout.

2)     There are a couple examples of voting in functional chapters that did not produce more voting.

3)     Members will use DOE email and cause problems.

4)     Voting on SBO’s has not been a success. We’re not there yet.

5)     The voting in one district is poor and did not increase voter participation

6)     There isn’t time to institute. It is questionable whether it would work. It is an untried idea.

7)     The head of the Retiree Chapter stated it is not certain it would work. We must campaign like Hell. We must do better outreach. The retiree chapter election produced greater turnout.

Only one member of the UFT Executive Board spoke in favor of my proposal. With one exception the motion was denied. Another victory for union democracy?? VOTE UNITED for CHANGE in the spring election. Run with us!

Daniel Alicea of Educators of NYC, a UFC coalition member, came up with the case for electronic voting. He may nail the 13 points to the door of 52.

13 Reasons Why We Should Have An Electronic Voting Option In the Spring UFT 2022 Elections - even if Mulgrew And Company Want To Stop You From Having It.

Do Mulgrew and company really believe that dues-paying members would have voted down an electronic voting option that would increase our union participation and give members increased access?

 

The State of UFT Elections: Membership Assembly - Who Are These People? Will Dormant UFT Members Arise?

The Membership Assembly is having ripples at my school.  One of our delegates and I were recapping it for people at lunch.  They want to know more. 

John Q. Teacher: I, and the other teachers at my school are confused about this. Are these meetings going to be used to organize a group of people to run in the upcoming election against Unity? "Making our voices heard" is nice and all, but is completely meaningless unless there is an organized group to run in the election. If Unity runs unopposed, they won't give a rats a** about a bunch of folks making demands. 

Anon:  Where are the caucuses? This seems ok but it's kind of worrying that none of the groups that I expect to see are represented here... is this group trying to be a spoiler? are they all gonna work together? what's going on???

Monday, Nov. 4, 2024

Will UFT Dormant Membership Arise?

These comments above were in response to the  Urgent Call to Action: RSVP for the UFT Members October Assembly which had almost 300 registrants and about 150 attending. One chapter leader came up with the lame excuse he had free tickets to the Yankee World Series game. No excuse. He could have zoomed from the Stadium. And they lost anyway.

 

My quick response:

Caucuses have been involved in some way - they have a process for making decisions - this group includes people from the caucuses but are a bit more impatient to get moving and not bogged down in caucus bureaucracy and also want to be more open to new voices and not only rely on the usual suspects. This is not a spoiler group. It only makes sense to run one slate against Unity or not run at all. What if there is no juice out there? Comments on blogs won't do. Needed are real bodies in the schools. Come on down.

I've talked about the state of oppo UFT caucuses in the past:  UFT Resistance Caucuses: We Need Them, But Why Not One Big ten

I've been a critic of the way most UFT caucuses operated even when I was in them, some of which I helped found. I tried to see beyond the often narrow confines of a caucus, with their rules and structures, which often (and still does) drive colleagues crazy. That is why I was most comfortable in the more free-flowing ICE, which I and James Eterno sort of ran (I drove him crazy too). But let's face it, there can be no organized resistance to Unity Caucus without caucuses, so love 'em or leave 'em, we need 'em. In fact in today's UFT world, the more caucuses the merrier. 

So what about the caucuses and the role they would play in a UFT election? I'm sure those caucuses that choose to run (not every caucus seems enthusiastic) will play a role.

Who are these people? Many are the usual suspects though in different configurations.  Sorry, you have to wade through a whole lot of preliminary crap in order to get the full context in follow-up blogs.  I understand the confusion, so let me try to clear a few things up, though there are still things I can't talk about -- you'll have to read the book.

Where Are the caucuses? the 1%

Ask the people you work with to identify UFT Caucuses - even Unity and see what they say. Ten percent might be able to give a cogent response -- actually more like 1%.

 

Let me state right up front. I'm in no way opposed to caucuses being involved in this election. I am opposed to any plan for the 3 self-identified major oppo caucuses meeting behind the curtain for months and deciding on the platform, the candidates and the format of the campaign  - the 6 men (and maybe a few women) in the room, and then sometime in January springing it on UFT members, going into 6 weeks of petitioning mode, then a few months of stuffing mailboxes (with little effect) and in May begging people to vote - which mostly they don't. Oh, the yawn!

In order to avoid caucus bureaucracies why not try something else? Gather a group of interested parties, hopefully with people from the caucuses, and start talking. Which is exactly what has been happening over the past past few months. Informal, ad hoc, open to people through the network. And over the past few weeks, that group has been expanding. And that has led to some of the most invigorating discussions I've seen in the UFT in some time. And I say this with some trepidation: Ex-Unity people have brought a lot to the table in terms of knowledge and analysis. And how little most of them know about the traditional oppo. I think the Unity people thought of oppo as a blob - they didn't distinguish the various components. Boy are they learning fast.

 

So why am I, who followed that model for election after election, now pushing back? One reason is that each caucus has its own procedures for making decisions. So imagine every major decision going back to some steering committee, or if not that, a tiny group of decisions makers at the caucus level and then going back to the election steering group to hash things out. Go watch grass grow.

A tiny group of decision makers (and I admit to being one at times) leaves out the 99% of working UFT members who wake up one day to find a slate - or two - or 3 - running against Unity. I could live with this process if it actually had some success in the past. But as one deeply involved in elections, the turnout  and votes for the oppo proves my point. Look at this chart below and how few in service people voted, especially in the 2022 election when all the 7 or 8 oppo united for the first time to force the first clear opp vs Unity face-off in decades. I went in expecting all these groups to pull people out in their schools and reach deeper into the 99%. 

It didn't happen.

 

No signs of a ground game -- except for James Eterno whose Queens network pulled hundreds of HS votes for UFC.

The results in terms of oppo votes were mostly the same as in 2016 when the oppo was much weaker. Sure UFC gained in % because Unity lost support, support that did not flow to the oppo, which if there was a real ground game, should have.  

 

Look at these numbers and compare to 2004 - other than retirees of course. Some of the discrepancies are due to D. 75 teachers being unfairly lumped into functional instead of their school chapter so they don't get counted for elem, ms and hs. Also the lower ms due to k-8 being elem and 6--12 as hs. Also note that from 2004 to 2022 there are 40k more UFT members while  turnout dropped on all levels.

Let's face it. No matter how many caucuses there are out there, the biggest one is over 70% non-voting DGAC- Don't Give a Crap. Let's take the 30 year RA out of it because we are no longer in the schools. NAC is 30 years old, MORE is 13 years old and has actually shrunk in size over the past 2 years while NAC has grown a bit, some from those leaving MORE.  ICE has become a minor player though we can play a role, as has Solidarity, which is still in business. Is the oppo stronger or weaker today than in 2022? (I will delve into this issue in a follow-up).

 

An election run solely by the caucuses had been a proven failure with "success" being electing the 7 HS Ex Bd out of the 102 members. After attending exec bd meetings after our "big win" in 2022 and seeing the energy drained from the oppo voices, this model has serious flaws unless infused with new people and new energy.

 

Let's win with the retiree vote is a dead end strategy

Now admittedly, things have changed since the June chapter and TRS elections (UFT's 3 Consequential Elections), offering people hope that the entire Unity machine can be defeated. 

 

But there is a fallacy in relying on the retiree vote to carry the day even if the DGAC numbers don't change much. If everything is equal and the retiree vote is the same as in June (not a sure bet), an oppo group might just eke out a win even with a lack of fundamental support in the schools. That thought seems to be driving some of the thinking in the oppo. And our leadership in Unity seems to actually be buying this argument and is running so scared they are actually making a lame attempt to service the members with school visits and love letters from Mulgrew. You might even notice improvements in healthcare --- score one for the oppo.

Let me blow a further hole in that thinking. RA won 63% based on Medicare, which Mulgrew is in a full scare propaganda blitz claiming he agrees. Will it work with most? No. But it might with some Unity people who deserted in the election and won't vote oppo in a general election that would make Unity lose control of the union. Expect some Unity votes to come home.

Also interest in this election by the new voters RA gained - expect some loses there.

And how much support does Marianne lends to this effort and activate her network of UFT retirees, a significant factor in the RA win.

Yes, I think we can win by holding some line in the retiree vote - and don't forget the para vote (though very low turnout usually) IF we get a significant growth in turnout in the HS, MS and Elem schools. And for that we need to REACH into the schools.

A new paradigm is needed to win the 2025 election

Are people out there who want to be involved in the UFT elections other than "just give us your vote"? People who could participate from the earliest days of a campaign? Imagine choosing candidates in an open forum instead of a back room. Sometimes I'm shocked at how little the union leadership AND the oppo leaders mistrust the membership.

If the apathy is the same,  the winning caucus is Don't Give a Crap. And Unity.

So, some people have advocated a different kind of election. Sure the caucuses need to be involved, but we need to get at least a portion of the former unreachable 99% involved in the election process from the very beginning of the campaign. Open up the process and let the sunlight in. 

A campaign based on individuals - most of them from the caucuses of course - and inclusive of those who are in or recently left Unity plus ICE, Solidarity and independents. 

 

A melting pot that would be inclusive, not exclusive of a broader based UFT membership than we've seen before. Of course the conundrum here is what if we issue a call and no one answers? The DGAC caucus wins again. 

There is actually such a group of people in a nascent stage of organizing who have been meeting and were behind the survey and the membership meeting. And so have the caucuses with communication between them.

Coming next: How we got here and where we may be going. And avoiding a horror show.

 

I'm glad Halloween is over.

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You can still fill out the survey:

Prep for UFT Elections - Fill out a Survey for UFT Members - What Are Your Concerns?