Mr. Welch: Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?...Paranoia has struck deep into the hearts of our ostensible leaders. After suffering major losses in two elections, they are losing their shit all over the place....It's Witch Hunt Time for Unity!Get out your tin foil hats! .... Arthur Goldstein
Al Shanker was a member of the Young Socialists. The Unity red-baiting critique on the flier distributed at the Jan. 2025 DA saying “ARISE=DSA” is their usual tactic. That said, where was Unity’s outrage over outside influence when Bill Gates funded the E4E caucus? Or his failed interference that led to the mass closing of schools? Mulgrew’s got no problem with them. But, a caucus that cares about working people? That simply won’t do for Mulgrew... Current NYC Teacher comment
The attack on DSA with current members elected to various offices is a naked political play to move the UFT to the right and to distract from the real issues - but also to pump up Unity Caucus members who might be straying
What a joke that leaflet was, though some are not taking it as a joke, but a genuine threat. Shanker and the founders of the UFT all came out of the Socialist party and a particular wing - the right wing anti-communist Social Democrats USA - SDUSA - the Max Schachtman acolytes -- Check the link to wikipedia for the full story. But here's an interesting rub:
Yetta Barsh Shachtman (1915–1996) was married to Max Shachtman and also held Marxist views. Barsh worked as the secretary of Albert Shanker, the president of the United Federation of Teachers.[33] The money she earned from this job allowed Shachtman to focus on his political work.[34] While working for Shanker, Barsh was responsible for the hiring of Sandra Feldman [35]Yes. Future UFT President Sandra Feldman was recruited out of the Socialist Party into the UFT after one year of teaching. How's that for "outside" interference? And I'd bet Shanker was also recruited from somewhere.
Teaming this leaflet with the reso on outside interference that Unity sneaked into the New Motion period, their usual manner of dishonesty, where Mulgrew makes believe he is looking around the audience and "accidentally" chooses the Unity CL of Murrow HS who acts like the reso wasn't planted by the leadership. Described by Arthur as:
a very formally worded resolution about “union interference.” At first I thought I was mishearing, but I was not. The woman who brought the resolution refused to name which insidious forces were interfering. I’d bet she was talking about my friend Marianne Pizzitola and her group, NYC Retirees.
Here is the reso (wow - got my scanner to work).
So it was a surprise to see them also come out with a vicious Unity leaflet right out of the box and attack the MORE dominated ARISE, along with NAC, heavily loaded with retirees and RA, totally loaded with retirees, the group of caucuses running under the ARISE banner in the election, in such a vicious manner - so early in the election. I would have expected them to do it shortly before the ballots are sent out -- well, I guess they will again then.
Accompanying the outsider reso with the Unity leaflet attacking DSA and MORE as somehow infiltrating the UFT, caused MORE's Peter Lamphere to see red and he called a point of order that Mulgrew shut down. Peter pointed out that every member of MORE was a member of the UFT, not an outsider.
Hell, I was a member of DSA for years, though less enamored now, as were UFT leadership types like Leo Casey, and the UFT has actually backed some DSA candidates and incumbents. In fact a strong candidate for mayor,
is in DSA. Imagine the UFT, given a choice between Cuomo and Mamdani, will back Cuomo because of their 65 year history of vicious anti-communism and red-baiting.
Hell, I was a member of DSA for years, though less enamored now, as were UFT leadership types like Leo Casey, and the UFT has actually backed some DSA candidates and incumbents. In fact a strong candidate for mayor,
Zohran Mamdani
is in DSA. Imagine the UFT, given a choice between Cuomo and Mamdani, will back Cuomo because of their 65 year history of vicious anti-communism and red-baiting. Some of you may remember the red-baiting sneak postcard attack on the ICE/TJC Presidential candidate Kit Wainer in the 2007 election. Here are some Ed Notes posts from those days if you want to dig deeper. I have a list of 60 years of their history of red-baiting to share at some point.
Let me point out that despite the red-baiting attack by Unity - and I will give some credit to someone from New Action being critical of that attack, New Action still ran candidates on the Unity slate and won exec bd seats on the Unity line, and ran Weingarten as their presidential candidate. Talk about baggage.
I guess you can see the outside interference in the reso when accompanied with the Unity flyer as an attack on DSA and MORE. Some retiree groups who have personally benefited from the work Marianne has done are sniping at her for being too bossy and I even heard one tell me she is not really an organizer, just someone who goes to court. Really?
I responded she has saved every one of us thousands of dollars and how is she not an organizer when she has tens of thousands of followers in multi municipal unions? I point to the retired fire fighter in my yoga class who high fives me about her. One leftist told me that Marianne has out organized the left and the Dem party and its subservient AFT/UFT/NYSUT by reaching deep into the working class and bringing people from many unions together, a leftist dream since the 30s. Marianne may have done something so unique in this country that people should do theses on her work.
I and many others knew this red-scare attack on MORE was going to come at some point. I would say knowing this attack was coming was a major reason the ABC faction wanted to run in the election without caucus attachment -- we argued with the caucuses that if we wanted to win we must try to minimize caucus baggage. RA won in June by focusing on one key issue. Unity did try to attach RA and Marianne to MORE but it didn't work.
For RA to tie itself to MORE and New Action, whose history includes a dozen years of supporting Unity and having key leaders being on the UFT payroll - in fact running Mulgrew as their presidential candidate in 2010 and 2013, so directly, is a mistake and will hurt the brand.
But expect Unity to try to smear ABC the same way given that ABC is open to all points of view, so why not pick out one person and smear everyone? One reason ABC advocated individuals and not caucuses run in this election was to undermine these attacks, though stopping them entirely is not possible. And they tried the same tactic in the RTC election by trying to link Marianne to MORE and it clearly didn't work because RA was very careful to stick to the key issue and in fact we decided to reject any comments on our listserve that dealt with the middle east.
But the attack on DSA is so weird given the history -- DSA is an offbranch of the Socialist Party UFT leaders came from. UFT has endorsed DSA electeds who are incumbents (AOC, Bowman, and a number of state senators.
Rather than let it die, the scuzzy Unity Caucus blog doubled down, using the 50's era "card-carrying" phrase. Here they do line up with the analysis that the outside interference refers to DSA but I still think that is cover for the attack on Marianne. Who are they kidding? Do they have a bigger fear of DSA or Marianne? No one has been fearing DSA recently, especially after the Trump election.
About that flyer: DSA=MORE=ARISE?
Lets talk about the caucus behind the curtain
Each month the Unity Caucus shares a flyer at our union's Delegates Assembly. Last week was no different - we shared a flyer that seemed to cause a stir. A new coalition named ARISE announced that they would be running in the UFT election this coming Spring. ARISE includes 3 caucuses: New Action Caucus, Retiree Advocate and MORE. The flyer called out the fact that this new coalition is just a rebranding of MORE, in an attempt to hide their own problematic political baggage. When you start to look past the slick website and the new logo, it's clear to anyone paying attention that MORE is the driving force behind ARISE.
So what happened at the Delegates Assembly last week and why does it matter?
A veteran delegate rose to speak against a resolution written to oppose the fact that organizations outside of the UFT are trying to influence the outcome of the UFT Spring election. No one objects to working with and being aligned with organizations outside of the UFT. The issue is that there is documentation (Politico Article: Democratic Socialists look to take over New York’s powerful labor unions | DSA Memo linked in politico article) showing that there is an outside organization ( the NYC DSA) actively strategizing to use the UFT as a tool for its own political objectives [see flyer below]. To flip something that this same delegate said at the DA: JWe are all card-carrying members of the UFT and unashamedly proud of it!
Jeez - card carrying Unityites. I'm a bit embarrassed for them.
Given the option of Unity, a group attached to MORE or non-sectarian ABC, which way do you think they will go?
I will close with this comment from the son of a UFT retiree, an active member of DSA:
“This
is fundamentally anti-worker hypocrisy. DSA advocates for powerful
unions and a better world, membership to this organization among UFT
members should be welcomed. Socialists
have been the bedrock of the labor movement since its inception,
anticommunism has been used to kneecap American labor with laws like the
Taft-Hartley act. It is dishonest and rabidly anti-worker, Michael
Mulgrew should be deeply ashamed of this idiotic red baiting.”
Mulgrew has proven time and again he has no shame.
The problem is that tons of teachers support RA but absolutely abhor MORE for their communist and social warrior agenda. It is a bummer that RA did not align with ABC caucus instead. However, as a teacher who is one year away from retiring, I am leaning toward ARISE due to the fact that RA is with them.
ReplyDeleteI read the flyer, the politico article and the DSA memo. To my eye it seems like the issue isn’t about socialism it’s about another organization actively trying to recruit into our union to have influence. But the bigger issue seemed to be calling attention to the rebranding attempt by MORE. Can’t change logos and expect all the baggage to vanish.
ReplyDeleteHey John Q - As a member of the 11 person RA organizing committee, I disagree. RA at this point is nothing more than we 11. RA did great organizing in the election last year by sticking to the health issue and now are entangled with two other caucuses with baggage - in some ways the 12 year NAC alliance with Unity is as heavy as the MORE baggage. Many retirees are moving to ABC and Marianne's people certainly lean that way. But if you want to run with both groups go ahead. You might win free trips to the AFT conventions. I think ultimately you will see that a vote for ARISE is a wasted vote because they cannot win. ABC chances may be slim but they are not none.
ReplyDeleteMaruannes's crew is leaning towards ABC? That is interesting. I'll need to look into that. I'm not running with any group. I ran with UFC last election and am retiring in a year. Thanks for info!
DeleteMore than leaning - which is why Unity is attacking her -- they fear ABC because of the leakage of Unity people who are ready to give up jobs to run with ABC - and also attract people who used to run with Unity - people who will never vote for ARISE. You should consider running with ABC -
ReplyDeleteMarianne has done everything but endorse ABC. I wonder if the Unity attacks are making her back off or ABC itself being careful to keep some separation which I think would be a mistake. Go full steam ahead if you really want to win. Their arguments against her will only pull retirees in her direction and get ABC votes.
ReplyDeleteI thought that RA was Mariannes's baby? Why would she abandon it and secretly endorse ABC? I'm confused. I really wish she would speak publicly about where she stands on who she is supporting.
DeleteRA has been around for 30 years. We have run in every RTC election for decades. We teamed up with her for the last election but she wants no connection to More. Neither do her many retiree supporters and they are signing up with more. We knew that going in to this which is why we tried to convince people in more to just run with us as individuals which would have been ok but without the more label but more wants that label to try to use the election even if they can’t win to grow their caucus. Same with nac. RA is not trying to do that so openly. Maybe behind the scenes.
ReplyDeleteSince Norm has mentioned my name in connection with DSA, I would like to take a moment to be completely transparent. Norm is correct that I was a member of DSA, but that only skims the surface.
ReplyDeleteI was a full-time leader of DSA, its national field director, when it was founded in 1982, and after that, a member of its National Committee. For fifty years, I was a member of it and one of its predecessor organizations, the New American Movement. I was a member of DSA while I was a UFT Vice President, and was open about that fact. I have always felt that if one is going to run for elected office, the electorate has a right to know about your political views, and I have tried to be transparent in that regard.
But I am no longer: I resigned from DSA in November 2023, because of it's unacceptable response to the Hamas attacks of October 7th and because of the ultra-left attacks on AOC, Jamaal Bowman, Summer Lee, Greg Casar and others being launched from its ranks. The reasons for my resignation are provided in this letter: https://newrepublic.com/article/176781/open-letter-why-leaving-democratic-socialists-america
I continue to consider myself a small d, small s democratic socialist in the tradition of A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther, Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and MLK; my view is that DSA has abandoned that tradition.
I do not think that the leaflet question can be considered "red-baiting": it does not attack DSA for its politics, but for its attempts to intervene in the internal politics of the UFT.
As a former member and leader of DSA for forty years were you seeking to interfere in union politics as this is their “stated” purpose?
DeleteDid they just start wanting to interfere as of 2024 or did you not say anything to them about interference in the UFT for the past 4 decades? Did you write about their stated mission of UFT interference somewhere?
Since you only left recently based on their positions on Israel and Palestine, this mission to interfere with the UFT never caused you to leave? Why not?
Leo. None of this passes the smell test.
The Unity flyer quotes a 2019 Politico article that says DSA’s mission is to infiltrate unions like the UFT while Unity also maintains they are an interference threat.
Deletehttps://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2019/08/14/democratic-socialists-look-to-take-over-new-yorks-powerful-labor-unions-1141206
Yet you, Leo, still paid dues and were a prominent leader within their ranks for 4-5 more years AFTER.
How? If this Unity propaganda campaign is remotely true, can we say you were an integral part of their campaign to interfere only until recently?
Do you not see how these purity tests and political witch hunts work? Of course, you do. You help in their machinations.
One last historical point. It is my understanding that Shanker hired Sandy Feldman on the recommendation of Bayard Rustin, not Yetta Schachtman. Sandy was part of a young cohort of YPSL members, playfully nicknamed "The Bayard Rustin Marching and Chowder Society" by Michael Harrington, that provided crucial organizing support for Rustin's civil rights organizing -- most prominently, the 1963 March on Washington.
ReplyDeleteCome on Leo - Every left party, faction, tendency or whatever I've seen with an interest in the UFT has had their finger in the pie with the intention of changing UFT policy - including the party behind the UFT founders - SDUSA. At every DA there are groups pushing their agenda and their reps do the same. Remember the beloved Derek Pearl and his group PL? They were pretty open about their intentions to influence UFT policy. His May Day resos always got him a guarantee Randi would call on him. DSA is probably the least ideologically pure groups. ISO was instrumental inside MORE and was counterbalanced by the ICE people until they recruited from DSA and gained enough support to push us out. But take a look at the UAW and the level of DSA influence there. The Dem Party can make the same claim -- that DSA is looking to "infiltrate" them - and so they are - but why not?
ReplyDeleteI hear one of the major rifts in ISO that led to their demise was a split over how deeply to get involved in Dem party issues through DSA. Now the ISO crowd piled into the DSA with nowhere else to go. In terms of MORE I think the demise of ISO has probably been a good thing for MORE -- a caucus within a caucus that doesn't admit to being a caucus within is a problem. Talk about infiltrating. Many people in MORE were clueless about the role ISO was playing. And many probably still are clueless about the DSA role. But do the DSAers meet outside the group to decide policy for the group like ISO did? I doubt it. DSA is not a disciplined party like ISO. So I think the infiltrating idea about DSA is totally off base. There may be many DSAers in MORE. but are they an organized force? You know DSA better than me -- are they really a capable organization to be able to manage that? There are still factions in MORE even after the purges -- when there are 3 members of an organization you will get 4 factions. There will always be factions including a strong group that thinks MORE shouldn't be running in the election with other groups like NAC and RA that don't hold their values.
Norm, Leo - don't forget the late Marjorie Stamberg and her group Class Struggle. They are still at every DA with a leaflet or resolution. They had one in immigration last week, Where are the accusations against them as outsiders even when one or two are UFT members? The people handing out the leaflet were not UFT members but that happens with other groups. The attack on MORE was due to UFT elections. If they weren't running there would be no such leaflet.
ReplyDeleteThis shit is just too complicated to follow. I was a retiree. I will vote for whoever Marianne recommends. Stick that up your ass, Mr. Mulgrew.
ReplyDeleteI wrote originally to clarify about my own relationship to DSA, since my name and membership in it was invoked. Norm and anonymous are using my clarification to make new suggestions about my membership which are not correct.
ReplyDeleteLet me completely clear that during my time as an active NYC public school teacher and UFT officer, close to 30 years, DSA did not function as a faction in the UFT. There were people in and around the UFT who were members of DSA; I won't name others who are still alive; that is their choice. But since both Jack Schierenbeck and Mike Hirsch have passed on, I will say that both were members. I discovered Jack and Mike were DSA members in passing conversations with them. We never met as a group, we never acted together, in consort; we did not intervene in a disciplined or collective way in the union. We acted as individuals, in the same way that UFTers who are also members of the NAACP or the Stonewall Democratic Club act in the UFT. It was very different from how the CP, ISO, Solidarity, PL, Internationalist Group, WSWS, etc. functioned in the UFT.
Until recently, DSA was just not the type of cadre organization that acted in that disciplined way, as a faction in other organizations; it understood itself to be an organization that respected the independence of unions. What is true of me was also true of DSAers who had important roles in 1199, in DC 37, and other major NYC unions.
At some point after I went down to Washington DC to work at the Shanker Institute, that changed, as part of a shift that included entryism from various (mostly Trotskyist) sects, the development of ultra-leftism, destructive attacks on Bernie, AOC, Bowman, Casar, Lee, etc., and the terrible response to October 7. I was not active in NYC DSA at this time, and so played no role in what happened. The caucus that I helped organize and lead in national DSA until my resignation adhered to the old norms about respecting the independence of unions, so it was not an issue there.
I do not know any details about DSA's functioning as a faction in the UFT. I don't ask friends or comrades who are still DSA members to tell me about it; I would rather not know. Given the political developments since the election, I certainly wouldn't publicly name anyone who is a member of DSA. I decided long ago that I would always be public about my own politics, as necessary to functioning in a democratic fashion, but that is a choice everyone must make for themselves. What I know about what DSA does inside the UFT is what everyone who reads public reports such as the Politico article knows.
I did not know about the leaflet in question before it was distributed. But I think it is quite clear that it does not attack DSA's politics, and so the charge of red-baiting is simply wrong. What it talks about is DSA acting as a faction inside DSA, and that is a legitimate point for criticism..