Why Stay? Anthem for UFTers - Should I stay or should I go? - The Clash

If I go there will be trouble, if I stay there will be double... The Clash

I'm a fan of The Clash and Should I stay of should I go is a good theme song many UFTers are facing. Try it out. (See lyrics below). The line above is interesting because if those who are most agitated about leaving due to what they consider a weak UFT in defending themselves stay they could be a thorn in the side. Thus my theory that the leadership doesn't really mind if its most vocal critics left. Remember that 12,000 UFT members voted for the opposition in the last election in 2016, a serious number of unhappy people with Unity.




https://youtu.be/BN1WwnEDWAM

With right wing groups organizing people to leave the union - see this NY Post piece - https://nypost.com/2018/07/05/group-wants-to-teach-workers-how-to-stop-paying-union-dues/

I predict these campaigns will backfire and lead to exposing the attacks on teachers and give some clarity to the motives to destroy the profession as they tie into the same people supporting the anti-union charters. (I still maintain that the school privatization movement represents as big a threat to teacher unions as Janus.

In response to the people on the ICEUFT blog who ask why they should pay in response to my comment about the problems with the UFT leadership, here is my response:

Why pay union dues? Good question. Let's just focus on the local not the big union aspect -- the union in your own school.
I would pay just on the basis of showing solidarity with my co-workers who do pay. For the sake of school wide unity - small u.
Your biggest enemy is not the UFT leadership but most likely some of your supervisors and their enablers at the DOE.

Even with the union it is so hard to fight back against these people.
Try to imagine a divided school where the principal can use the wedge against you all. It could also go the other way where some principals support the idea of a union and punish those who leave -- but I don't see this as the norm.

So an anti-union principal encourages people to leave the union -- devastate the chapter so there is no pushback at all and also no place at all to go to complain -- even if the UFT is poor in responding -- just the fact it exists can be a factor.

Now the other reason is that in a state of having to cater to get you to pay dues the UFT/Unity become more responsive and maybe even willing to fight. Don't hold you breath -- but if people actually banded together - say in a school with an abusive principal and threatened to leave the union en masse unless there was some action -- but you would give them time -- like a year.

Now imagine a whole bunch of schools banding together -- and also saying they will stay in the union but organize people to seek out other representation unless the union reforms democratically.

I've been paying dues voluntarily for 16 years since I retired because I support the concept of unionism and want to stay involved.

James Eterno just retired and is covered under his wife's health plan and could walk away but he is passionate about staying involved.
What is interesting is that the Unity crowd ignores that some of the most passionate support comes from its internal critics and Unity sectarianism means people like us will never be allowed to actually go into schools and support people.

We could mobilize a group of retirees who are not Unity in a second and I believe out critical view of the UFT would allow us to be able to really talk to people the way we do on our blogs instead of going in like a used car salesman to sell fluff.

On the other hand I could understand Unity not wanting to send in people associated with opposition caucuses, fearing they will misuse their access to organize against the leadership -- a valid point and something I've been grappling with in my developing theories of the uncaucus --- what is the point in working in opposition when there is little chance to topple Unity? (But more on this in the future.)

Look deep into the lyrics. People want to stay but it's always tease, tease, tease --- one day its fine and next its black

Lessons from ISIS for UFT/Unity in the Age of Janus

In a terrorist version of the “broken window” school of policing, the Islamic State aggressively prosecuted minor crimes in the communities it took over, winning points with residents who were used to having to pay bribes to secure police help.... the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, was willing — even eager — to get involved in the messy details of people’s day-to-day lives, and conversely that hundreds of people trusted them to fairly resolve their issues, no matter how trivial.... NY Times,The Case of the Purloined Poultry: How ISIS Prosecuted Petty Crime

I'll admit that I'm making a weird comparison here, but read on. The UFT leadership must win points with the members which is one reason some members view the Janus decision as a good thing --- putting pressure on the union leaders to address the major concerns of the members.

In some ways they may be trying. Parental leave was a direct response to the Emily James' 80,000 sigs petition, which after Mike Schirtzer brought her to a UFT Ex Bd meeting, Mulgrew seemed to get on the stick. There is also the seeming move to two evaluations a year despite the union's constant defense of the 4 evals -- this may have been one of the major push-button unhappiness issues in the rank and file.

But, look at the comments on various blogs about the lack of service and response from the UFT/Unity leadership on many issues - note especially the issues with the massively flawed grievance process that the leadership has not attempted to redress - even having weakened it in the 2005 contract.

Now, there are some effective people who work for the union. I was wondering that when they have to cut staff, will these be the people retained or will those who suck up effectively survive? Or will the loyalty oath prevail?

A dew weeks ago we ran into an old UFT/Unity party member who held a position who castigated Mulgrew and the few leaders who hold sway on their refusing to listen to even other Unity people who want to see some change as necessary -- it is just not in their DNA.

There are some interesting lessons in this NY Times piece on how ISIS won some level of support from the populace - by taking care of fundamental disputes. Think of this on the level of issues that arise in schools and the UFT is looked to for some assistance. Now of course ISIS had a few arrows in their quiver to enforce their decisions. But I am focusing on the fact that they were aware that gaining support is not only about top down rule but in providing some service.

Justice was swift and efficient, mostly because no one wanted to risk punishment at the hands of the militants. Yet the fact that hundreds of civilians filed complaints, including against ISIS fighters who had wronged them, suggests that at least some Iraqis believed the terrorist group would do right by them.

Even residents who suffered abuses at the hands of the militants gave them points for their policing, saying that for nonreligious disputes, they were not only fair but also willing to wade into problems that might have been brushed off by most authorities.

Would the Iraqi government have pursued the case of a stolen chicken?

“They wouldn’t have even heard this complaint because it was only for 4,000,” or $3.50, said Mr. Imad’s younger brother, Alosh Imad. “You have to have wasta — a connection to someone,” for the police to take your case under consideration, he explained. “As far as justice was concerned,” he said, “ISIS was better than the government.”

Solution to abusive principals

OK, so we don't have the power to behead abusive principals. Can we get that in the next contract? 

Or will we one day see certain people in a shrinking UFT/Unity Caucus being led to the guillotine along with their pal superintendents and principal and the leaders of the abuse supporting CSA?

School Scope: The UFT and Janus – Would a More Democratic Union Keep People from Leaving?

Union leadership will use the Janus decision to shut down internal critical voices. If we let that happen, we are abrogating our responsibility to build a better union by trying to force changes (and believe me it will take force) and we are also helping the anti-union forces who are using the impregnable union hierarchy against them. I expect the slings and arrows to come my way but I have my shield ready.

I wrote my column Monday, June 25, when we were still guessing about Janus outcome. It should be in The WAVE - on June 29, 2018, www.rockawave.com when it will be a bit outdated. It is about democracy in the UFT and whether that would be an issue in decisions to leave the UFT. Though this comment on the ICEUFT blog mentioned democracy.

Bronx ATR said...
This decision is not the end of unions. It doesn't even weaken strong unions. The strength of unions is not their bank accounts. but their willingness to fight and stand up for its members. The UFT's lack of democracy and its intentional creation of an apathetic rank and file has it rightfully concerned.

BronxATR is one of the few who mention democracy and my conclusion is that democracy is basically a non-factor for the overwhelming majority of UFT members. Democracy in the UFT only seems to be a factor to the tiny fringe opposition.

We recently watched MORE shunt internal democratic functions onto a side rail by overthrowing a steering committee a faction didn't like and violating so many by-laws we lost count. (See Why We Choose to Leave MORE)

So, even the supposed opponents to Unity (and I no longer consider MORE a serious opponent to Unity) don't seem very interested in pushing back on the issue of democracy in the UFT.

Yet, unless the ruling Unity Caucus party considers offering dissidents a role in reforming the union, Janus will make them bleed deeply unless there are some fundamental reforms. But I don't have much hope this will happen as the Unity DNA means maintain ironclad control even in a shrinking union.

THE WAVE: June 29, 2018

School Scope: The UFT and Janus – Would a More Democratic Union Keep People from Leaving?

By Norm Scott

Democratic norms seem to be slipping away all over the world. But there are alternate views as to exactly what constitutes democracy. We would have to define these norms first – which would require too much of my limited brain power. So I’ll leave it to you readers to define democracy on your own terms. Suffice it to say, I don’t take a traditional view of democracy.

Some UFT members may think the UFT is a full-fledged democratic union. So I imagine the state of democracy in the UFT won’t affect their decision on whether to keep their union membership or not when the Supreme Court most likely rules in the Janus case that no one can be forced to pay dues even though they may continue to accrue the same benefits as those who remain union members.

Without getting into the weeds let’s talk specifically about democracy in the UFT, which I have been a member of since 1967. In UFT elections the almost 60 year ruling party, Unity Caucus (a caucus is similar to a political party), always wins almost every one of the positions up for election with roughly 75% of those who vote. But almost three quarters of UFT members do not even vote and almost half of those who do are retirees, of which 85% vote for Unity. Thus, to a large majority of classroom teachers, a vote in a UFT election is basically irrelevant. Technically, this is still democracy – majority rule, even if only a relatively small minority of the total number of UFT members. Now, it may be that with a sure Unity victory, there is not much at stake, but that is the way our country seems to view democracy – a majority of a minority is still a majority -  though given the way things have been working out there are more and more calls for serious reforms.

The Unity party controls the 200,00 member UFT with a minority. Using this power base it also controls the NY State union with 600,000 members which in turn controls the national AFT union with 1.5 million members.

In the last election in 2016, a coalition of opposition groups won 7 out of the 100 Executive Board seats, none of the 12 officer positions and none of the 750 delegate positions to the New York State and national teacher conventions. That’s a worse winning percentage than even the METS. Those 7 seats were all from the high schools. In fact, various opposition parties have won the majority of high school votes in most UFT elections since the mid-1980s. Admittedly, the vote totals are low. In 2016 the opposition won the high schools with about 2350 votes while Unity received about 2150. There are almost 20,000 high school classroom teachers in the UFT. Even though our side won, we did so with less than 15% of the high school teachers voting for us. But that was the majority of those who did vote. Our side often claims that high school teachers as a whole do not get enough representation in the UFT, since a majority of those who do vote have relatively little say over UFT policy. The 7 non-Unity reps are only 7% of the Executive Board and they get voted down all the time. The argument that this disenfranchises  20,000 high school teachers, even if it makes the case for our side, is also an iffy one.

Let’s just say that the issue of a democratic UFT is a marginal one and when people chose to stay or leave the UFT post-Janus, the question of democracy will play little or no part.

Having thoroughly confused myself (and you) on the nature of democracy in the UFT, I will go back to blogging at ednotesonline.com where I may just blog about food.

Mulgrew Comments on Janus and NY Law Offering Cover

UFT President Michael Mulgrew talked about the Janus case at the June 20 Delegate Assembly. One of the reasons the DA was postponed from last week was the hope the decision would be out in time for the delegates to be informed on union plans.

I usually don't go up to the 19th Floor to listen to Mulgrew's reports but since I've decided to temporarily suspend handing out materials at the DA I headed up after schmoozing with people downstairs. I wasn't going to go to the DA but  I went to help a parent activist hand out leaflets about a bad principal at Port Richmond HS. (See video: Oneatha Swinton Follow-Up: Video and Links

You might want to read this article I posted a few minutes ago:An Odd Twist: Might a Response to Janus Make Adjunct Organizing Easier in New York State? - New Labor Forum

Mulgrew said that there are 20 cases still to be released and they can keep them coming until the end of June. (Some of us have speculated that they are holding this case until school is out as a way to mute teacher union response.)

He talked about the law passed in the state legislature to have our backs -- the one pushed by Cuomo that allows unions escape from having to provide lawyers to those who leave the union.

Two NYSUT members, undoubtedly backed by anti-union forces, have already filed a law suit against the law. Mulgrew said they tried to make the law fool-proof against such suits. We'll see.

The law gives more access to unions to workers.
Mulgrew said the city hires 4000 every year -- the state law gives the union access. The first batch of 800 met and the UFT had access and signed up every one - in fact he said they ran out of cards. Here are some pertinent points in the law:

Within 30 days of employment or “reemployment” (or transfer into a new bargaining unit), the employer must provide the representing union with the name, address, job title, employing agency, department or other operating unit, and work location of the employee.[viii] Within an additional thirty days, the employer, “shall allow a duly appointed representative of the employee organization that represents that bargaining unit to meet with such employee for a reasonable amount of time

From Arthur Notes at the DA: http://nyceducator.com/2018/06/uft-delegate-assembly-june-20-2018-we.html

We have had two NYSUT teachers who’ve sued against anti-Janus law in NY State. We knew this was coming. We kept it quiet so it wasn’t scuttled while negotiating it. Similar suits in  NJ, PA and others. We expect to win lawsuit but opponents have unlimited funds.

This is why it’s so important to have a union in the first place. People were frustrated because we didn’t have it. Grassroots pushed this up. If there’s momentum we can do it. That’s collective action. If we had to wait, it would be part of our next negotiation, and we would get worse deal.

On Charters: Remember when charters said only certain ones could certify their own teachers? They lost. We sued them, and they lost.

Broad Discussion on Implications: After Janus, Should Unions Abandon Exclusive Representation? | In These Times

Chris Brooks: The way I see it, right-to-work presents two interlocking problems for unions. The first is that unions are legally required to represent all workers in a bargaining unit that the union has been certified to represent, and in open shops the Duty of Fair Representation (DFR) requires unions to expend resources on non-members who are covered by that contract. This is commonly known as the free rider problem and it gets a lot of attention, for good reason.
The second problem is that open shops also undermine solidarity by pitting workers who pay their fair share to support the union against those who do not. This is the divide-and-conquer problem.

Shaun Richman: I had an article published in The Washington Post... trying to amplify.... the strongest argument that AFSCME is making, which is that the agency fee has historically been traded for the no strike clause and if you strike that there is the potential for quite a bit of chaos. So I wanted to put a little bit of fear to whoever might potentially have the ear of Chief Justice Roberts, as crazy as that may sound. But I also wanted to plant the seed of thinking for a few union rebels out there. If the Janus decision comes down as many of us fear then the proper response is to create chaos.

----- After Janus, Should Unions Abandon Exclusive Representation?

This is a must read piece on the post-Janus landscape - Michael Fiorillo posted it on the ICE listserve that is the most in-depth piece I've read on all the possibilities -- though the UFT is such a special case due to its size, outreach, the depth of its political  machine - Unity Caucus, its alliances with politicians, etc.

The article deals with the requirement that unions must represent everyone --even those who leave - though we have so many examples of the UFT not exactly doing that -- or only paying lip service to do so. Like abusive principals or schools being closed. (Judge in PS 25 Win Asks: Where's the UFT support? “doesn’t the UFT care that the teachers will be put into ATR or the rubber room?” “doesn’t the UFT care that the teachers will be put into ATR or the rubber room?”)

When the sole bargaining agent, as is the UFT, a union must represent all workers, even non-union members. So what if they don't have sole bargaining rep rights?

Here is another excerpt (the entire article is below the break):

If we lose the agency fee, some unions will seek to go members-only in order to avoid the free rider problem, and that's a lousy motivation. I'm not encouraging that, but I think it's also inevitable. Once you have unions representing these workers over here but not those workers over there, it's also inevitable that you wind up with competitor unions vying for the unrepresented. And the first competitor unions are going to be conservative. These already exist. They're all over the South and they compete against the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA) in many districts and they offer bare bones benefits and they promote themselves on “we're not going to support candidates who are in favor of abortions and we'll represent you if you have tenure issues.” That's also bad but also inevitable.

There are so many excerpts I could post, so read the entire article. But first a few thoughts of my own related to our own situation in the UFT.

One of the issues that have come up in the red state teacher revolts - all right to work - is the low union membership and an element of competition between AFT and NEA for members even though they are nominally working together. One West Virginia teacher revolt leader who is in a school predominantly NEA told me that when he suggested working in partnership with AFT people the county NEA people were not happy.

This brings us to the issue of sole bargaining agent, which I wrote about in last week's WAVE: School Scope: The Janus Right to Work Case - How Bad Will it Be For the UFT? 

I went through a brief history of how the UFT won an election to become the sole bargaining agent in 1962 (in a 3-way race) for all UFT teachers and how that might be up for discussion in the wake of Janus when all states become right to work - and how that might lead to threats to the UFT's sole bargaining rights.

Say 10,000 people leave the UFT and organize an alternative and get enough signatures to call for their own bargaining by bringing in another union -- unlikely since this would be looked at askance by the labor aristocracy - but if those leaving the UFT weren't just looking to save money but were doing so as active organizers. Very unlikely but if the same kind of red-state militancy catches hold, the group most likely to organize would be the most disaffected from the union leadership -- pro-union people but anti-Unity Caucus.

Now I am not endorsing this concept but an intriguing idea that has been put forth is that since the high school teachers vote the opposition for most of the past 30 years - by a slim margin, albeit, what if the needed number of high school teachers singed up to call for an election in the high schools to select their bargaining agent? Now this is scary stuff since splitting the UFT does not look like a good idea - on the surface.

Last summer Mike Schirtzer and I ran a MORE summer series event that attracted 35 people to a bar and there was a lot more interest in the idea of a move to separate high schools than I expected -- I find a lot of resentment from high school teachers towards elementary school teachers who give Unity a seeming unassailable majority in UFT elections. 

As James Eterno often points out, when there was a high school teachers association - pre-UFT- its militancy helped drive the formation of the UFT itself.

We can never know what will happen post-Janus and where a rising up here in NYC might take place and who those leaders might be. I bet right now they don't know that they may end up leading some of these. actions.

So here is the very long article - which I still have to read in depth as it gets into so many interesting areas with different opinions and especially covers the right wing attacks trying to undermine unions even when they are couched in worker interest terms.

And by the way, can an argument be made at this point to actually jump on board and support the UFT and its Unity machine given these attacks?

Especially when there is no meaningful opposition in the UFT, with MORE seriously thinking it won't run and the recent turmoil in MORE that amounted to a purge of those who don't agree with the policies of one faction - so Unity like.

Are the 2019 UFT elections worth sitting out? More on that in future posts.


After Janus, Should Unions Abandon Exclusive Representation?

BY Kate Bronfenbrenner, Chris Brooks, Shaun Richman

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/21168/janus_unions_exclusive_representation_labor_right_to_work_supreme_court

Will Janus Decision Be the End of the Democratic Party?

...a study....  finds that private-sector unions in right-to-work states tend to become less influential in national politics precisely because they must allocate scarce resources to internal organizing.

The political consequences of this shift can be dramatic. The authors estimated that right-to-work laws resulted in a 3.5 percent reduction in Democratic presidential vote totals per county. 

Four key midwestern and midwestern-adjacent states went right-to-work during the five years before the 2016 election, and all four — Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and West Virginia— went for Donald Trump. The president may therefore owe his victory to the same right-to-work movement that eagerly anticipates its likely victory in Janus.... Politico, https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2018/02/25/supreme-court-public-unions-2018-midterms-423436?__twitter_impression=true

There's some truth to these conclusions. The ties between the UFT/AFT/NYSUT complex and the Democratic Party goes deep. If the UFT loses 30% of its dues payers, it must cut staff and maybe cut salaries, though I doubt that. Those 6-figure salaries will have to be pried out of Unity's cold, dead hands. For the staff, which had as its highest priority to push

And when they say that dues doesn't go to political actions, well, maybe not technically. The arguments being used - check the next cases following Janus where a conservative teacher may feel the very act of collective bargaining violates his/her rights.

In fact Leroy Barr at the UFT Ex Bd yesterday said that the arguments in Janus yesterday did attack the collective bargaining rights like happened in Wisconsin. The West Virginia statewide strike is an interesting addition to the debate since WV is right to work but teachers still have bargaining power. How did they pull off closing every school? You know the answer to a strike this? Charters and privatization so there are no public schools left to strike. I believe the charter/privatization movement is a greater threat than Janus et al.

Here's a story in the NY Times yesterday about the conservative money coming in to attack teacher unions especially, punishing them for their marriage to the Democratic Party. Interesting is that the left wing in the unions has been very critical of this marriage for decades.

Behind a Key Anti-Labor Case, a Web of Conservative Donors - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/business/economy/labor-court-conservatives.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness&action=click&contentCollection=business&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

Here is the complete Politico piece: https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2018/02/25/supreme-court-public-unions-2018-midterms-423436?__twitter_impression=true

MORE Urging "Stay Union" Campaign - Are There Alternatives?

Roseanne McCosh left a  comment on my Oct. 20 post "ATRs to UFT - It is About Dignity, Don't Tell Us We Should Be Happy to Have a Job...": I'm a bit torn because to ask people to stay in the union with no concessions by the leadership is bound to confuse some people. Notice that MORE is not yet putting forth a detailed reform program to create a more democratic union to go along with its Save the Union campaign. A major flaw in its strategy when Save the Union also equals Save Unity Caucus. So Roseanne's question resonates with me.

A call to arms to support our union in the form of voluntary dues enables UNITY to continue to ignore teachers like Karen [Sklaire]. This is why I am having such a hard time getting on board with a post Janus support of the UFT. What will motivate them to change their ways if they keep raking in our money? I have no easy answer but I can't accept the argument that a bad union is better than no union. This behavior of UFT leadership needs to change yet I don't see them even considering a change. Norm, you've been involved forever and have been fighting the good fight.... any addditional thoughts on this?????   ----------Roseanne McCosh

I'm glad Roseanne asked that question at this time as I was preparing a piece on this very issue after MORE affirmed at its Oct. 14 convention that it would make a Stay in the Union campaign a priority for the caucus.

Excuse the meandering in this post - I began writing it over 2 weeks ago and keep modifying it and flipping around like a flounder on dry dock.