UFT COPING Very well

I get email from people telling me they withdrew from COPE. But clearly the major UFT effort to push their CL's to get people to sign COPE checkoff cards is paying off.

Anna Philips at Gotham reprises Kim Gittleson's July 20 piece. Anna raises the golden question: "It’s unclear where the sudden infusion came from and what the union plans to do with it."

I can tell you that the membership will have zero say in where this money goes.
 

August 2, 2010

Teachers union’s political funds grow and some migrate south

by Anna Phillips

New York City’s economy is still suffering, but the teachers union’s political coffers have grown, as have union members’ donations.

An analysis of the United Federation of Teachers’ political activities, done by Kim Gittleson, shows that contributions from union members to the union’s political action committee are at their highest level in 10 years. The amount of money in the fund, called COPE, has increased from an average of $124,000 in the earlier part of the decade to $1.35 million in July of 2009. It’s unclear where the sudden infusion came from and what the union plans to do with it.

UNTIL WE GET A VOTE, SAY NO TO COPE!

Updated 9pm

I've heard calls for people to start refusing to give to COPE for decades and have generally not gone along. Some people think that even if the Unity/UFT machine sucks, there is still a need for some political action mechanism even if they use it in a fucked up way. I of course don't agree and have never given to COPE (except for that quarter I flipped at my Unity chapter leader so he could get one of those funky awards they give out for 100% COPE contributions.

Besides. getting out of COPE is harder than pulling King Arthur's pulling Excalibur from the stone.

But maybe the time has come.

Elizabeth Green (where have you been?) posted the item below at Gotham. Very intriguing that she would help promote the withdrawal from COPE movement. The person who wrote the email says to contact him for the withdrawal form. By the time you get that processed by the UFT - they tend to lose these forms - we will have 92% of a teacher's rating be due to test scores. Numbnuts Klein's secret goal to top Mulgrew's vote total.

I have a better idea. Tell your local Unity hack you want to change how much you are giving to COPE. Then turn it in with a nickel listed. It will cost you about a buck a year and will have just as much an impact as total withdrawal. Though it will keep your Unity chapter leader eligible for the 100% contribution awards.

UPDATE from a correspondent.....

Change the nickel per pay period to one cent. That will make the year's contribution 24 cents. Not even enough for a phone call. For that you just need a BLANK cope card, not the pre-printed ones. If a thousand folks did that, it would result in a 10 buck per pay period gain in cope. a stinging message.



Posted at Gotham:

One educator’s trash, another’s treasure
by Elizabeth Green

Earlier this week, a source sent us the following e-mail, topped with the subject line “going around the school system.” Funny how one group says “THE END OF TEACHING AS WE KNOW IT!” and means crisis, while another says essentially the same thing and means progress.

Here’s the e-mail:

THE END OF TEACHING AS WE KNOW IT!

Michael Mulgrew (The Antichrist of teaching)

The following are two paragraphs directly from the UFT/NYSUT press release:

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said, “The current teacher evaluation system doesn’t work for teachers - it’s too subjective, lacks specific criteria, and is too dependent on the whims and prejudices of principals. We worked with the State Education Department to create a more objective system that would apply across the state, with strict limits on the role of standardized tests.”

Under the proposed system, teachers and principals would receive one of four ratings: “highly effective,” “effective,” “developing,” or “ineffective.” The evaluations would play a significant role in a wide array of employment decisions, including professional development, tenure determinations, selection for leadership opportunities, supplemental compensation based on a career ladder, and termination. The goal is to construct an evaluation system that can be customized to the professional development needs of every teacher.

It’s quite clear that this will lead to a “merit pay” system.

Now he’s agreed to end the Rubber Rooms(making it far easier and quicker for the DOE to fire teachers) and we will have a new evaluation system that will CLEARLY lead to “merit pay.”

What did we get for all of OUR giving? Nothing. We have no contract, no extra pay and we didn’t even vote on any of this…some union! Every other NYC union and even the MTA got 4% raises over the current 2-year period.

The only feasible way to fight this is to end your COPE payments. If you want the form see me.

UNTIL WE GET A VOTE, SAY NO TO COPE!

Follow-up comment from a vet Chapter Leader:

I would caution ANYONE to get the form from the cope office. For a number of reasons.
1. It spreads panic if there are a lot or a steady stream.
2. You get the authentic form ( I think it is the "B" card)
3. As it will take a bunch of pay periods to go into effect, there is less of a chance for screw ups. I always believe in going to the horse's mouth.

I cannot stress enough that the card should be gotten from the cope office.

A Call to Boycott COPE

I have a suggestion that will really get UFT and RW's attention, organize a COPE Boycott. Distribute COPE termination cards at your school and urge teachers to opt out. This will hit the UFT where it hurts them the most, their bottom line. We have paid millions of COPE dollars over the years to influence New York's politicians. Randi has not been using this political capital to change mayoral control. She has completely ignored the will of her members. She is secretly
supporting the re-authorization of mayoral control. This will be her grand finale before she leaves for Washington.

Hit the UFT where it hurts the most by organizing a COPE boycott in your school. Its the only real power that the average member has.
----Posted on the ICE listserve.

Getting into COPE, the political action arm of the UFT, is easy. But it is like a black hole and almost impossible to escape - at least as I remember the difficulty people had when I was chapter leader. They would fill out the removal cards and somehow they never got processed.

This is not the first time this has been suggested and the opposition parties in the UFT always seemed reluctant to go along, fearing they would come under attack for undermining the union. (Remember: the opposition supports the union but opposes the leadership.)

Mainly, that the concept of COPE is a good one and the struggle is to get the money used in the right way. But these internal struggles are very difficult in a union that is totally controlled and manipulated and there's a sense of increasing frustration as the UFT has not only been unable to oppose the ed deformer polices, but has actually aided and abetted so much of their program, from merit pay to closing schools to charter schools and beyond.

I personally am more inclined to take another look at this issue (I speak as an individual here and not as ICE - you know how the Unity hacks will take a statement from Ed Notes and try to make to ICE policy.) There is no question the money is used to further the narrow ends of the leadership, with the rank and file coming last. Do you see the UFT using the money to end mayoral control? Or force class size reductions? Or reduce the power of the principals?

I would look at this in another way. Get people to withdraw from COPE but set up an escrow fund that will be held as a means of forcing democratizing changes in the union structure. Send a message to the leadership: Make the union more democratic or the money will be released to opposition groups to organize. Who would run this escrow fund and how it would be managed is beyond me at this time but it is an idea worth looking at.