I agree (Union Activists - Are We Weird?. ) Prioritizing building an all-inclusive coalition is a losing game. We've seen where that goes and the fact that UFC evaporated shortly after the last election is all the evidence that anyone needs to know that these types of marriage of convenience strategies aren't built for long term organizing. How many UFC officer candidates left the DOE post election? This pattern of squabbling between elections and trying to come together last min is a real bummer.... Anon. comment on Ed Notes
There's still time to register for today's ABC Member Meetup zoom.
We’re excited to invite you to an important UFT Members Assembly: "The ABCs of Pay: Let's Talk!". In this Zoom meeting, we will dive into one of the most pressing issues for educators - fair compensation.
Surveys show fair compensation is the leading issue for UFT members. This meet-up will focus on the nuances of pattern bargaining and how to break it, plus other ideas on how to increase compensation. Within two hours of posting this meeting, 100 people signed up. You can't run in an election calling for better compensation without an actual plan on how to win that and developing a strategy that differs from the Unity strategies. Explore the options and compare to how the current leadership approaches the issue - Hands up, surrender to the pattern. What is the Municipal Labor Committee and how do we break its stranglehold on pattern bargaining?RSVP, Tuesday 12/10 @7PM: UFT Members Assembly - The ABCs of Better Pay
Date: Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Time: 7-8 PM
Location: Zoom [rsvp.uftmembers.org]
Future meetups will focus on other issues. Tent Date for next one on How to win changes in Tier 6 is Jan. 7.
Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024
UFT Caucuses: When to Hold and When to Fold
UFT Caucuses come and go - except for Unity. And there are some signs of lower level desertions.
Here's a little history of UFT oppo groups, over 55 years of observance where in most elections coalitions were built and ended the day after the elections.
My 1970s caucus, Coalition of NYC School Workers, was extremely active for a decade and was a one-third component of the New Action Coalition, a united front of 3 caucuses that came together every two years to run in UFT elections from late 70s through early 90s and then went their own ways between elections, often competing with each other for a scarcity of activists. The other two caucuses were New Directions (founded in 1976) and Teachers Action Caucus (c.1968) and merged c.1995. This pattern, while eventually winning some exec bd seats, which often seemed the sole purpose of running, made no progress in building a serious caucus to challenge Unity, a consistent fatal flaw.
The School Worker Coalition's key organizers began to lose interest in the early 80s - I bought a house in 1979 and began an MA in computer science and taught at Brooklyn College that took up the rest of the 80s into the early 90s. We didn't try to breathe life into a dying caucus corpse. The core stayed together and began to meet and eat socially - which those of us still alive still do. The main organizing we did was menus. But we continued to talk about the major issues and stayed informed. Discussions still ran deep and incisive and when I re-emerged those talks gave me a base with which to organize in my own school.
I came back to life in the UFT in 1994 when I became chapter leader, but my focus was on my school and district where I had to battle a principal and try to woo a district and local union leadership that had viewed me as an enemy in the 70s - and I was fairly successful in neutralizing them since they knew I could still be a problem for them if I did exposes. I did not have much time to do central UFT work other than go to the DA.
Not until 1997 when I was no longer teaching and working at the district did I have time and energy to do central union organizing work with the debut of Ed Notes, the newsletter. But I was a lone wolf in a sea of caucuses. I relished the freedom but understood you need a caucus to move the ball. The lone wolf phase lasted through 2003 when NAC sold out to Unity and I helped found ICE, not a caucus loaded with limits or norms (except me) in response.
New Action was composed of the other two wings of the original election New Action Coalition that functioned from 1979-1995, TAC and ND.
TAC and ND continued as separate active caucuses through the 80s and early 90s. The original coalition, not the caucus New Action but the coalition of caucuses, began to win the high schools and the biggie came in 1985 with winning the HSVP and then 1991 winning the 13 HS and MS exec bd. But they lost it all in 1993 which opened Unity to taking away the right for divisions to choose their own VPs.
Then came the 1995 contract battle and the voting it down, led by TAC, ND and independents. (I played little part in that for reasons I can't remember.) Apparently talks for a merger of TAC and ND had been going on and that led to the current edition of New Action - New for ND and Action for TAC. Both groups knew it was time to fold into something new and it worked, attracting people like James and the future Camille Eterno. And Lisa North. So TAC and ND folded for something better - more big tent than either ND or TAC (which was considered the left at the time.)
There were other caucuses called PAC - Progressive Action Caucus. c. 1997. They were focused on teacher who were having trouble passing the license exams and they existed through the 2004 elections when they ran with ICE. They had a big court case and when that was lost they folded -- but funny thing they recently won on appeal 2 decades later.
And Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC) which was founded in 1992 but didn't participate in UFT elections until 2004. More on them later.
Now let's leap ahead to ICE - Independent Community of Educators - which came out of a meeting I called on Halloween 2003. We attracted those who quit New Action like the Eternos, Ellen Fox and Lisa North plus very newly active UFTers like Jeff Kaufman and Julie Woodward, but also what was left of the core people from the old 70s School Workers Caucus. I was impressed by how many independents there were who were not interested in New Action, PAC or TJC and were looking for something that ICE seemed to offer - an Independent point of view freed from caucus hierarchies. And I will say, ICE has never had hierarchies.
This combination in ICE proved dynamic - for a few years. And then it wasn't after the 2007 election when we clearly began to shrink. Meetings of 50 went down to 12. While others persisted I read the cards. We had no real future as a traditional caucus but could continue in some ways to have influence in the UFT, even today. Despite my reluctance we gave it one more try in the 2010 elections, when we ran with TJC. It was time to fold as a traditional caucus after that, to the consternation of people like the late James Eterno and Ellen Fox.
Oh, TJC - Teachers for a Just Contract. They were around since the 90s but came to life as a caucus for the 2004 elections when ICE and TJC ran separate slates except for the high schools where we ran the same candidates and won. BTW - a formula for running two slates in the coming up election with enough candidates on both slates to win a majority of exec bd and ad com. A possible solution to settle differences. But leave that for another time. The older ICE socialists were very much opposed to the TJC version of socialism and I would say ICE formed as much to stop TJC from representing the opposition. ICE was a bullwark to both NAC and TJC. To say TJC was pissed is putting it likely. They viewed ICE like ABC is viewed by the legacy oppo today.
TJC was the hot, younger thing then while ICE leaned older. So they may have had legs but also faded when the younger International Socialists (ISO) abandoned the older socialist Solidarity segment and by the 2010 election they could only field a relatively small number of candidates. It was clear that both ICE and TJC had no future.
In 2009, some of us in ICE founded a new non-caucus group called GEM - Grassroots Education Movement - a group that had no intention of running in UFT elections but was an advocacy group for public education. GEM attracted new people not interested in UFT politics and, unencumbered by the burden of trying to build a caucus, GEM took off like a rocket - we accomplished more in a 2-3 year period than any caucus I've seen - totally focused, not on positioning, but united on key issues. Even parents were involved. GEM had legs but we got waylaid.
Then came the 2010 Chicago victory of CORE, a caucus founded only two years before as a union study group. Suddenly some eyes in GEM lit up - we need a CORE in the UFT - and that folded GEM, sadly, and all groups linked to the UFT were invited to discussions of what became MORE - Movement of Rank and File Educators. I was involved in choosing that name - I always wanted to see the word Educators or workers in group names.
The day of MORE's first big meeting, TJC folded, but ICE people were a major presence in the founding of MORE. And don't think many ICEers weren't reluctant. Gloria, Lisa and I led the push for ICE to give up our autonomy and veto power as we entered MORE. James Eterno was a skeptic. The recently passed Ellen Fox never failed to remind me she opposed ICE giving up autonomy. She wanted to see MORE as a coalition of groups instead of a caucus. Sadly, I now think she was right.
But as MORE grew, ICE continued to function -- at times were accused by some in MORE of functioning as a caucus within a caucus which was LOL since we are the most undisciplined group of anarcho-socialists. Rice pudding over politics. One thing I learned in MORE was there were highly disciplined factions in MORE that did operate semi-undercover as a caucus within a caucus and were using MORE to recruit for their own outside groups.
In 2014 a segment of MORE split off to form Solidarity Caucus, which is still around today. Solidarity was very dependent on the leadership of Francesco Porteles and Lydia Howrilka and when they left Solidarity has floundered. After MORE/NA won the 2016 hs seats (where they functioned fairly well together despite MORE steering attempts to interfere and "steer" the exec bd, to no avail - which led to the future troubles and the purging of ICE.
So, I gave you a history of most UFT caucuses (I'm leaving out Retiree Advocate for now) and how they merged or folded or became something other than a caucus.
The conclusion: I'm clearly not opposed to caucuses. I do push back against caucuses when I consider them fundamentally ineffective. Ed Notes once rated a caucus as A caucus in Need of Improvement. I reserve the right to be critical of caucuses - some for external policies, but also for those with clunky over burdened internal process that bog them down in minutia and too many rules and norms - I hate norms.
I can only say my best experience in caucuses and uncaucuses had been when there is dynamic conversations on issues of concern to NYC educators -- while some caucuses spend a lot to time talking about themselves.
So far my ABC non-caucus experience has been much more of the dynamic conversations with ideas flowing freely. I care more about that process at this point then imposing a formal structure on the UFT election process.
