Unity Caucus Favors Co-Pays: NYC Educators Penalized for Retiring - Sign the Petition

Tell Michael Mulgrew and Unity to stop charging retirees premiums while claiming our health plan is premium free. Let’s send Unity a message to respect us. Let’s tell them we demand what other unions have. The UFT Welfare Fund is sitting on over a billion dollars. Let’s tell them how we’d like it used. Let’s tell them that the very worst time to impose premiums on us is when we retire. Let’s tell them if other unions can better support retirees, we can too. DC37 doesn’t charge members for prescription insurance when they retire. Firefighter and police unions don’t do it. Sanitation, and other unions don’t do it.... Arthur Goldstein

 Sign the petition. 1,575 have signed in 24 hours -  let's hit 5k.

Imagine a world where UFT would fight like the Nurses Union. Those nurses don’t play around. They are standing on business!! I love it....Anon. FB quote 

ABC's Leah Lin tells it all: Paying more in retirement just doesn't make sense.  

Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026

 

I just finished 3 months of physical therapy for my knee, twice a week, at $15 co-pay a pop -- that's $30X12 weeks = $330 for my "premium free" healthcare. Plus all the other doctors I go to --- It's probably close to $500 given visits for my cancer and diabetes (due to removal of over half my pancreas). Listen, I can handle it all financially at this point, but for many NYC retirees these co-pays are a real burden. I've even heard stories of people who expected to retire are forced to hold off. 

 

I'm proud of my colleagues at ABC are at least making a stink of this while other supposedly opposition groups are fundamentally silent. My sense is that the non-Unity leaders of the RTC, many of whom defended the new healthcare plan, seem reluctant to be openly critical.

 

Today is an RTC Executive Board meeting and I'm looking forward to some action beyond a lot of whining over Mulgrew not calling on them at the DA. I detect a hint of fear that if they are too publicly critical of  the Unity leadership and Mulgrew, who has elements of Trump-like vindictiveness, he may turn off the lights and heat to their offices at 52 Broadway. I'll bring candles.

 

Arthur Goldstein authored a summary cross posted on the https://stopchargingretirees.org/ site: Should NYC Educators be Penalized for Retiring? Do you want to pay at least $180 a month, forever, when you retire? If not, please sign and share our petition. Please sign our petition demanding UFT stop charging retirees, some of whom are already struggling to get by. Please tell your friends to sign and share widely.

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Here's a message from on the new PPO Plan. I logged on and found that one of my diabetes meds is not on the forumulary as a 1MG but is as 2 MG. We were promised the new plan would not result in changes. 

 

York City Municipal Employees & Retirees

 

January 1st the new NYCE PPO plan was implemented for all active workers, and Pre-Medicare Retirees.   In a few weeks, we will roll out a survey to see if you are having any concerns that need to be addressed.  

January 1st also began the new Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) for those in the NYCE PPO plan, or those who are on the City Drug plan, the optional rider.  The new PBM is "Prime Therapeutics" - no longer Express Scripts.  They are the MANAGER...   Think of them like the middle man to your drug access.  A simple way to understand their job - they get you access to the drugs..   You have the drug manufacturers, the PBM and the Pharmacy.  

 

 

 

 

This was prepared by Bob Pfefferman as a briefing report prior to a meeting with newly elected City Council member Virginia Maloney. He invites questions and comments. 

 

Briefing paper, January 7, 2026, V3

 

The unions’ claim that they can negotiate for current retirees is specious for all of the following:

 

·      There is no such thing as a collective bargaining certificate for retirees.

 

·      Except for UFT retirees, we have no say in electing the union leadership. Even then UFT retiree votes are capped at a certain number.

 

·      To my knowledge, neither OLR or the MLC have cited a specific section of the Taylor Law that 1096 violates.  Any legal memo the city or the unions have is not public so no one can comment. Would you accept an unsupported allegation like this in a high school debate class?

 

The unions don’t mean this as a policy discussion. It is meant to intimidate any city council member that asks too many questions and threaten with a primary challenge.

 

·      When a union does negotiate, at least in my local, 371, AFSCME (DC 37), the members approve the collective bargaining demands. No such vote was held.

 

·      The results of any collective bargaining from an AFSCME entity holding a collective bargaining certificate must be approved by the membership. No such vote has been held.

 

·      Christopher Marte’s office has cited a US Supreme Court ruling Chemical Workers V Pittsburg Glass, 1971, in which it ruled that retiree benefits are not negotiated by a union

 

·      Marte also points out that in the past DC 37 and the UFT have supported city council legislation protecting retiree health care and never cited the Taylor Law. Because unions cannot bargain for retiree health care, the city council must pass legislation to change it.

 

Status of Lawsuits (Brentkowski case; I don’t know how to spell it)

 

·      Marianne’s group filed a lawsuit in September 2021 saying that the city cannot only offer one health insurance plan for retirees and must offer traditional Medicare and a wrap around. They cited 12 “causes of action” why the city could not do what they wanted.

 

·      The trial judge ruled “irreparable harm” and issued a TRO. He only ruled on one of the 12 causes of action. The city appealed and four years later, the Court of Appeals overturned the trial judge’s ruling and sent it back to the trial judge for ruling on the other 11.

 

·      Should the city and/or the unions (one entity for this purpose) be so reckless as to try this again, the trial judge would likely issue another TRO and the city and the unions will be wandering in a judicial morass for another two or three years with an uncertain outcome.

 

·      Retiree will not accept a Medical Advantage Plan as the only option for health insurance. We will fight this politically and legally. The city council has already seen what we can do. Do you really want to try it again?

 

The Comptroller’s Audit

 

·      The audit confirmed what retirees have been saying since 2021: that the fund was knowingly misused by the MLC and OLR and lacks transparency.

 

·      OLR tried to cover this up by submitting false annual certifications to the Comptroller’s Office, asserting in writing that the Fund is in compliance with Directive 27 requirements, that Fund balances are accurate, and that the Fund will be used for its stated purposes.

 

·      The audit also found that HISF lacks transparency and has inadequate governance and decision-making capacity. HISF does not maintain meeting agendas, materials distributed at meetings, or records of discussions held at meetings—such as recordings, minutes, or notes—and stated that it relies on HISF’s monthly reports which include only the Fund’s revenue, expenses, and cash balance.

 

·      Furthermore, while the $600 million would have improved HISF’s financial position somewhat, it was not sufficient, on its own, to keep HISF solvent

 

·      As detailed in Table XV in the audit, OLR and the MLC did not report significant HISF liabilities as required by Comptroller’s Directive 27 and GSAB Statement No. 54.

 

Garrido Speaks Untruths

 

·      In February of 2021, Henry Garrido reported to his delegates (I am one) that he was shocked, absolutely shocked, to discover that the HISF was bankrupt and retirees would have a new, improved health plan.

 

·      I spent almost two years plowing through federal legislation and virtually nothing he said checked out. The HISF did not suddenly go broke, and the new plan was only better in the warped minds of Garrido and Michael Mulgrew.

 

·      For example, they touted free gym membership but never reported on how many retirees not currently belonging to a gym would enroll. I believe that the number would have been miniscule and almost everyone who would enroll would drop out after a few months of basically not using it. And which gym? Not Equinox.

 

The Management Benefits Fund offers gym reimbursement but it is capped at $50 per month. Someone claiming such a benefit has to keep records and file a claim.

 

·      I then discovered that the new plan would be administered by a for-profit private insurance company accountable only to its shareholders. The newspapers over the past year or two have been bursting reporting on the fraud riddling these plans. In the 2006 amendments to the Medicare Act (best known for creating Medicare Part D), it was an experiment to see if private for-profit companies could deliver high quality health care and have cost-savings as well. It’s no secret that this experiment has failed.

 

·      Unanswered is why the union leadership was comfortable consigning retirees to a fraudulent system where the profits depended on denying care recommended by medical professionals.

 

·      Garrido got one thing right: the HISF was created to cover health insurance expenses for actives and retirees. I incorrectly thought it was created only for retiree health care.

 

·      I have an incurable but treatable neurological disease and I go three times a month for infusions. The price per infusion for the uninsured is $45K. Medicare pays about $7K. You can imagine the lack of enthusiasm that a private for-profit insurance company will have for such treatment.

 

Other reasons we need 1096:

 

·      The initial number cited by the city and the unions was $600M, however that was calculated. Henry Garrido reported to his delegates in the spring that because of DC budget actions that number was now $300M, however that was calculated.

 

·      Assuming that $300M has not vaporized further, we know from years of reports delivered to his delegates by Henry and from other sources that whatever number is being conjured by the MLC’s consultants, was going right back into the same slush fund bankrupted by the city and the unions.

 

The Thieves Have a Falling Out:

 

·      Now there is a falling out among the thieves over an alleged $4B, give or take $1B, in health care savings that the parties failed to generate in allegedly contractual commitments.

 

·      Henry Garrido has publicly and privately reported that he has in writing that the unions have been relieved of any commitment to save the $600M (or $300M. Or whatever number they are flying this week) by forcing retirees into a Medicare Advantage Plan. So the current $$$B squabble has absolutely nothing to do with retirees and we will not take the fall.

 

The Thieves Open The Backdoor

 

·      Frustrated by their unsuccessful attempt to steal health care directly from retirees, they have resorted to slapping $15 co-pays on every medical interaction after the deductibles are satisfied. This piles fees on top of one another so prevalent that retirees cannot afford them; you can’t tell where one stops and another starts.

 

·      The “lucky” ones have incomes so low that they are dual eligibles (Medicare and Medicaid) if you are callous enough to call being living in poverty “lucky.”

 

·      The rest of us have to pay deductibles that are not reimbursed, Rx drug co-pays that are not reimbursed, transportation, vision above what is reimbursed, dental above the cap, and front $2430.80 for 12 months’ premium before being reimbursed. This comes to about $5,000.

 

·      The 27% of city retirees who exist on pensions of $15K or less (even with a reasonable amount for social security added) simply can’t afford it. The 57% with pensions of $35K or less, with an appropriate amount for social security, aren’t doing so great either.

 

·      The contract for the wrap-around, currently GHI/Emblem Health Senior Care, will be re-bid this year. I an working on a table, not straightforward, showing how devastating the co-pays have become. I will forward when ready later this week.

 

·      I, personally, begin the year with 86 co-pays: 36 for the above mentioned infusions and 50 for weekly psychotherapy. That’s $1290 (minus the deductibles.) Now, I’m in physical therapy twice a week. This is a heavy hit. There is no indication that the unions will reduce the out-of-pocket in the bid document. I wonder who they think they represent: the taxpayers or their former members.

 

They have no shame:

 

·      DC 37 ought to be ashamed.  Most low-income retirees are their former members. They are stealing money from those who can least afford it to subsidize taxpayers. (If not for the co-pays, the premiums paid by the city likely would be higher.)

 

·      While DC 37 and other unions’ welfare funds provide an Rx benefit (with co-pays), many other retirees have to purchase city of New York Rx Part D with a 2026 monthly premium of $180 (some of which is reimbursed by the city or various union welfare funds). They also may face a Part D surcharge that is not reimbursed.

 

What can the city council do?

 

·      Enact 1096 which will end any discussion of a Medicare Advantage Plan or co-pays.

 

Bob

917-733-0925

 

The UFT, Biden, Bernie, Warren and Labor 4 Bernie

Biden's speech was meh and didn't elicit much enthusiasm ---- an audience member at Teacher Union Recognition Day, Oct. 20, 2019

We were clear that because Biden was available it no way means we are endorsing him. This in no way means we don’t

want others to come. As soon as we can get them here, we will. ... Leroy Barr at UFT Ex Bd

Right. Biden just happened to have a day free. When I saw that Joe Biden was going to address a thousand teachers (most of them from Unity Caucus) at Union Recognition Day, I felt that was clearly sending a message to the members. If the UFT had Bernie at an event like this I would be shocked. I believe the UFT/AFT would fundamentally sit the election out rather than support Bernie Sanders because of its long history of anti-leftism going back to its founding.

The AFT/UFT will be putting up some bogus "democratic" process, unlike last time when they endorsed Hillary before anyone could breathe and took some heat for it. I know how they operate. Randi will make the choice again and then work backwards to make it look democratic. 

Is there any doubt that Bernie has consistently been the most pro-union politician while the Democrats caved on union support for decades?

MORE Slammed for Undemocratic Actions - Education Notes

I am publishing this excerpt from Arthur's blog in the hard copy of Ed Notes which I distribute at Delegate Assemblies. I didn't agree with his entire blog post and will comment on those aspects in the future. But I agree totally with his analysis of MORE and myself was the victim of undemocratic acts when I was suspended for 6 months for daring to repeat something that happened at a MORE meeting. My suspension is supposedly over but I'm not going back to that hot mess.

Former Member Slams MORE on Undemocratic Actions

By Arthur Goldstein, CL Francis Lewis HS, Ex Bd Member

Excerpted from http://nyceducator.com/2019/10/two-unions-in-puerto-rico-and-only-one.html

I've been observing union and union leadership pretty closely for a few years now. No one's perfect, and there are flaws in every organization. There are some UFT employees I like more than others. MORE, though, has crossed lines in ways that go far beyond the pale. A group of us worked very hard to have our voices heard within the UFT. We planned and schemed, and then we put our plans and schemes into action. We won Ex. Bd. seats. This was remarkable.

However, a group within MORE considered our victory "a disaster." I've seen them refer to us as "right-wingers" in writing. Evidently, that's what you are if you don't subscribe to their particular philosophy, whatever on earth that may be. They were horrified when I brought a resolution supporting smaller class sizes to the UFT Executive Board. Why didn't I run it by the Steering Committee, which they controlled?

When this small, self-important steering committee found themselves term-limited, they took a page from Michael Bloomberg and tried to remove the limits. For whatever reason, they failed in that effort. Once they were replaced, they moved to dump all their replacements. They couldn't be bothered with their own by-laws or anything, did whatever they wanted, and managed to lose 80% of their support in the next UFT election. I'm very comfortable determining they don't appear to believe in democracy. They fractured opposition so decisively I determined it to be a waste of time.

I saw a real vision in what was left of MORE, and the vision was this--we do whatever we want, however we want, whenever we want, and if we lose elections by a landslide because we alienate the overwhelming majority of our former supporters, we're good with that. Hey, if they only want to mix with people who buy their particular brand of socialism, or whatever they call it, that's fine. But if you want to reach UFT members, if you want to organize and change things for working teachers, you need to be willing to talk to everyone. You need to be willing to have conversations with people who aren't limited to your particular ideology, whatever it may be.

I'd argue that people who can't tolerate opposing points of view, who won't mix with those who have differing points of view, who blindly condemn those with whom they likely have more in common than not are fanatics. A lack of tolerance like that is not likely to accomplish a whole lot. I'd rather work with people who can and will make change. In 2019, on this astral plane, that's the UFT leadership. In fact, as opposition, the only way I ever got anything done was by working with leadership.

2019 -- Politico's Big Joke: MORE Wants to take over UFT - by not wanting to win Elections

What's left of MORE prides itself on being intolerant and insular. It does not wish to deal with viewpoints that vary one iota from theirs. As for what that viewpoint may be, I have no clue. I only know that whatever it is shuts me out as a "right-winger." .... If I'm a right-winger, so is a good 95-99% of UFT membership. What's left of MORE represents what's left of MORE, and little else.  .....NYC Educator:  Blithering Baloney from Politico on MORE {Updated Sunday, Aug. 18, 2019, 1:30 PM}

Oh, that's just great,  and makes the Gods of Irony laugh: unions in legitimate need of reform (if the UFT is at all representative) are to be shaken up by naive Democratic Socialists acting as cat's paws for the Trots[kyists] ..... Former MORE leftist member, a founder of purged ICEUFT.

Democratic Socialists look to take over New York's powerful labor unions screamed the headline from Politico.

Another target is the United Federation of Teachers, a nearly 200,000-member union representing teachers, social workers, secretaries and other school employees. “UFT is the largest local of one of the largest unions in the country. It has the potential to be extremely influential in electoral politics,” the group wrote. “It is extremely internally undemocratic, but there is a reform caucus, MORE, which has many active DSA members.” MORE refers to the Movement of Rank and File Educators, whose website leads with a July post criticizing the union’s internal election process and calling for voting reforms. The union “fails to exercise the full potential of its power” and ends up backing centrist or conservative Democrats, the group added.

Did the authors check out the outcome of the last UFT election which was won by Unity with one of its highest vote totals in history while MORE's vote totals dropped by 75% and they finished behind a ghost caucus? Or read about the way MORE is no more democratic than Unity Caucus? Or that there are way more ex-MORE members than current MORE members?

The funniest quote in the article was a quote from a MORE statement on the election as if to blame the UFT election process instead of their own ineptness and poor judgement where they could claim, "at least we didn't finish last."

“With more DSA teachers, we could bolster and significantly support the internal movement for democracy and militant organizing within the union but it will likely take years to reform the UFT,” it concluded.

Note they say they want to reform the UFT which cannot be done without creating a credible threat to Unity which MORE killed in its divisiveness. They also lodged a protest over some of the procedures in the election with the UFT, some of which were out right funny.

One thing it does is reveal the MORE strategy, since the faction in control has not been able to make inroads into the rank and file even in their own schools, they have used an old tactic on the left and right: Seeding – Bring in activists to form a cadre - a woke vanguard who will lead the unwoke rank and file. There's more than a little arrogance in this concept.

Actually, the UFT was organized using similar tactics – remember, Shanker and other founders came out of the Socialist Party - the very anti-communist cold warrior wing. One of the founders who had been in a middle school which became the organizing center of the future UFT in the late 50s purposely left to go to a high school where he was able to organize inside the high school teachers association, the most militant segment of the union - he used the term "salting" when I spoke to him.

But they had no Unity Caucus to contend with - and it is that factor that is missing from all the training MORE does along with Labor Notes. In the future I'll get into why the current MORE strategy that took us away from the concept of a broad based opposition will fail and for every cadre MORE brings into the UFT and MORE, an equal number will leave or drift away.

The Democratic Socialists members approved zeroing in on six of those labor groups during a January meeting and have since begun pursuing the effort.... Politico

Funny how the MORE steering committee came out of the witness protection program in January 2019 to suspend me for 6 months for revealing the misinformation at the MORE election meetings to get people to run in the election not to win and alone in the fall.

James Eterno, another former MORE member (there are way more formers than currents) calls them out on the ICEUFT blog in his excellent piece on the same story: SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA TRYING TO PENETRATE NYC UNIONS

If the Democratic Socialists of America want to be taken seriously inside the UFT, they should work on having their people live up to that democratic part of their name. ... MORE voted against working with any other opposition group in 2019. It appears they are more interested in pushing their political views than in changing the UFT. It is impossible to defend MORE's indefensible lack of fairness. While I can still work with members of MORE on individual issues like opposing the contract, it is very difficult to support their candidates for union office under these circumstances. I don't want my union to be run like this caucus....

Here is another quote on the story from a former MORE member:

Honestly, I'd like to burn every single Bread and Roses flag I see. But from my vantage, this memo was a leak from DSA and, after reading the quotes from the union presidents, I think they may have angered the better part of all 151 of them. (The last time all the city's unions were on the same page, they pulled the rug out from under both Cynthia Nixon AND the entire WFP.) I don't think this is going to go unanswered by the union heads and I'm curious who to sympathize for here.... Former MORE  member.

Now to be clear - I joined DSA and like the work they are doing generally. The organization as whole is broad tent socialist unlike the MORE wing which is sectarian. DSAers who are teachers are wasting their time with MORE since DSA has so many other options for organizing and social justice work. Spending your time at meetings to "learn" how to organize your colleagues to do exactly what? When you could join one of the numerous DSA committees on housing, working for progressive candidates etc can actually lead to results?

Here is the full Politico story - tell Sally and Janaki to do some research.

https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2019/08/14/democratic-socialists-look-to-take-over-new-yorks-powerful-labor-unions-1141206

Democratic Socialists look to take over New York's powerful labor unions

Sally GOLDENBERG and JANAKI CHADHA08/14/2019 05:01 AM EDT

NEW YORK — A left-leaning political organization that publicly backed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her insurgent victory last year was also quietly plotting to penetrate another New York City power source — labor unions.

The New York City branch of the Democratic Socialists of America presented its members with a strategy last year to gain entry into some of the city’s most powerful labor organizations and ensure they are adhering to the “militant” principles that the group felt had been diluted over time. POLITICO obtained a previously unreported, 37-page memo laying out a follow-up plan that identified 10 unions to target.

Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy - How they differ - NY Times

...if you ask five self-described democratic socialists what the term means, you’re likely to get five different answers... no federal official or Democratic candidate advocates communism.

At the other end is social democracy, which is common in Europe. It preserves capitalism, but with stricter regulations and government programs to distribute resources more evenly.
Ultimately, though, Sweden isn’t what democratic socialists like Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin magazine, a quarterly socialist journal, are looking for. “We come from the same tradition,” he said of democratic socialists and social democrats. But generally, he added, social democrats see a role for private capital in their ideal system, and democratic socialists do not.
.....NYTimes

These exceprts are from a June 12, 2019 NY Times article on socialism that tried to sort out the various aspects - I thought it was one of the better pieces and included talking to the leader of Jacobin and the leader of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), people who do not get quoted in the mainstream press. I've tried to write about the same subject but often get it muddled -- even my wife, who occasionally reads my columns in The Wave commented how much clearer this NYT piece was than mine.

I heard last week on NPR attempts to define differences between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren - she supports capitalism and the market based system but wants it tightly controlled - she would say that our current system is a distortion of capitalism. Bernie is an an avowed socialist - but what brand?

The NY Times has done some hits on his history trying to pin him to support for socialist regimes in the past that were not democratic socialists.

Mayor and 'Foreign Minister': How Bernie Sanders Brought the Cold ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/us/bernie-sanders-burlington-mayor.html

Bernie Sanders Calls His Brand of Socialism a Pathway to Beating ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/us/politics/bernie-sanders-socialism.html

Jun 12, 2019 - 1:49Sanders Presents Vision of Democratic Socialism in Speech.

What the article below does is try to articulate the differences between social democrats (regulated capitalism and markets and democratic socialists (capitalism nyet.) I joined DSA without understanding this --- DSA is a broad-based open tent for socialists of every brand but after a few meetings it seems clear to me that social democrats who believe in regulated capitalism don't really fit in. There are no debates over this in DSA -- the assumption is that you are there because you believe in socialism where the means of production are not in private hands. They call themselves "democratic" socialists because they think this can be brought about by democratic means and governance under socialism will be democratic. I have my doubts.

My experience in MORE has taught me a lot about the left and socialism. MORE has fundamentally become an arm of the DSA NYC labor branch. As for bringing about change through democratic means, the DSA people in MORE, many of whom are aligned with the ISO faction, gave us a very bad example -- they couldn't bring about change in a tiny irrelevant caucus with less than 20 active people without tossing out democracy. DSA as a whole is really trying to do things democratically, but that is as long as people are on the same page - roughly -- just wait until the spitting and splitting begins. I'm still a member but not active.

What Is Democratic Socialism? Whose Version Are We Talking About?

By Maggie Astor

• June 12, 2019
• 
  

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/us/politics/democratic-socialism-facts-history.html

Members of the Democratic Socialists of America gathered in New York in May. Because a binary view of “liberals” and “conservatives” dominates American politics, ideologies to the left of mainstream Democrats tend to get lumped together.

UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE the Biggest Loser drops by 75%, Solidarity Beats MORE for Second Place and Stays Alive, Whither New Action - Ed Notes at the DA

On Wednesday I was going into Manhattan for a 3020a hearing (what a trip that has been) and a meeting later that night so I might as well go to the Delegate Assembly. But can I disappoint my many fans and not hand something out? No way.

So I cobbled this quicky together in the morning and beat my printer with a whip to wheeze out 300 copies. And since MORE seems to have been in the witness protection program since the election and just in case some attendees still take MORE seriously, why not beat a dead horse? They were snapping this up.

UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE the Biggest Loser drops by 75%, Solidarity Beats MORE for Second Place and Stays Alive, Whither New Action

These results make me think Unity came in second – and those with an interest in promoting distance between the members and the union – our enemies – came in first… Jonathan Halabi, New Action, member of UFT Ex Bd.

The triennial UFT election ended with the usual victory for Unity Caucus, which has been in control of the UFT since its inception in 1962. Mulgrew received over 85% of the vote, with retirees being the largest voting block by far with 24,000 out of the 47,000 votes returned, with 89% going to Unity – yes, retirees are the happiest people in the UFT, maybe in the world. Over 197,000 ballots were sent out – about 25% returned overall. But the return from working UFT members was dismal.

Other than retirees, the turnout from working UFT members bordered on embarrassing. In the 20,000 member high school division, 3260 teachers voted. Without an effective opposition, the high schools, the only division where Unity has been weak, went for Unity by 67%, one of the few times Unity won a majority of high school votes over the past three decades. Unity got around 2100 high school votes, the same as in 2016 when they lost to MORE/New Action – and MORE’s insistence on running alone this time turned into a disaster as MORE received 550 high school votes and New Action 250, and Solidarity 375. In 2016 MORE/NA had over 2300. A lesson on divisiveness.

Unity won 75% of the middle school vote with 1200 votes out of 11,000 middle school teachers. They did even better in the elementary schools with 85% - 6,000 votes out of about 37,000 elementary school teachers. But the returns from the 3 teaching divisions is a sad commentary on how little UFT elections matter to working teachers. Jonathan’s point is right on.

Between the almost 70,000 teachers in elem, middle and high schools, Unity gets 10,000 votes. In the non-teaching functionals Unity received over 7,000 votes out of the 10,000 cast. 20,000 retirees voted for Unity. Is the UFT stronger or weaker when retirees are the most interested segment of the union? Read a detailed election analysis on ednotesonline: https://tinyurl.com/y6epxjub

A decimated opposition, with the sectarians in MORE being responsible
One of the reasons for the dismal results for the three opposition caucuses was their inability to form a united opposition. The rough order of total votes were Solidarity (7%), MORE (5%) and New Action (3%). As a longtime activist in the opposition, I shudder and question whether it is even worth participating in UFT elections, a waste of resources and time. In my final days in MORE I urged them to either take the election seriously and run with everyone in a united front or don’t run at all. I feel they have made a mockery of UFT elections and now a very weak Solidarity can claim the mantle of the only caucus that shows signs of growth, even if minimal. They finished second by outpolling MORE by a thousand votes a surprise since they have such a small base in the schools as was the poor showing of MORE Caucus with a bigger base. They bear the major responsibility for the debacle through divisive tactics internally and externally. Three key former MOREs ran on the Unity line for Ex Bd but maintain they will act independently of Unity. They no longer felt welcome in MORE. This puts Solidarity in the titular position of the opposition with the most support but it is a hollow "victory." Sadly, it seems that New Action has faded into possible oblivion. New Action was founded in 1995 as a merger of two caucuses and had initial success but as their leadership aged out into retirement they lost their base in the schools – plus the disaster of the alliance they made with Randi Weingarten and Unity Caucus in 2003.

In 2016 MORE/New Action had almost 10,600 votes and Solidarity had 1400. That’ was 12,000 votes against Unity. The total opposition vote this time was less than 7,000.

Solidarity beating out MORE is a big thing in the tiny world of the opposition inside the UFT. Showing some growth is essential but it was clear they didn't have enough of a base to make much bigger gains. The real race was to beat MORE and claim the mantle of the leading opposition - and Shockingly they did. I expected MORE to lose thousands of votes - but MORE dropped so drastically by 8000 votes. Think of it - in 3 years MORE, founded in 2012 as a merger of ICE and TJC, lost 8000 votes. from 10,600 to 2,600. The MORE leadership purged the ICE faction and some of their supporters voted for Solidarity.

MORE declares victory for not finishing last.
The MORE spin: One leader of MORE posted that they finished third, not last. The spin is that they didn't really try and purposely ran not to win and that the drop from almost 11,000 votes to 2600 shows that they still have a base to organize for their platform – sure, just like they organized the 10,600 last time. All the years of building the opposition and it all went crashing against the rocks of sectarianism. At the end of the day, the opposition in the UFT is decimated and Unity Caucus is more empowered than ever. Nice work. The faction in control of MORE ought to write book - how to destroy a union opposition and empower the ruling power. MORE missed an essential point. In the UFT the goal is to battle the Unity machine which controls the UFT, NYSUT and AFT with all forces at hand, not use elections to push an ideology. MORE has become a boutique caucus or a members only club.

Norm has been a UFT member for 52 years. He helped found ICE in 2003 and MORE in 2012. He is now a free agent. 

CORE Wins in Chicago, Supporters Express Concerns

I wrote about the Chicago union election last week -- Chicago Teachers Union CORE Caucus challenged by Members First.
CORE won the election but internally there are some serious concerns, as this excerpt signed by some key CORE people indicates:

...we recognize that many members are concerned about the direction of our union under the current CORE leadership team. We share many of those concerns. We are deeply sympathetic to members who feel that their working conditions, which are our students’ learning conditions, have been getting worse for years. As active rank-and-file teachers, clinicians, PSRPs, and school workers, we have experienced the bullying, the disrespect, the micromanaging, and the intense pressures and workloads personally.... it’s our contention the current leadership has made a series of mistakes that have deepened the defeats and taken us off the road to fighting back. One of the most concerning was the top-down decision of this leadership to call off a strike in 2016 accepting what we consider a weak contract. We also believe our union has not done a sufficient job defending members and our contract in the buildings and that leadership has become too far removed from the everyday abuses we experience. In addition, we are in deep disagreement with our leadership’s turn towards funding Democratic establishment politicians.... letter from CORE Supporters, including some founders

Sound familiar? The above, printed in full below, comes from a dissident faction internally within the CORE caucus - some of whom I have spoken to over the years and when they expressed some of their frustrations within the CTU. I spent a couple of days hanging out with some signees and other CORE people in Los Angeles back in July 2009, a year before CORE won. I heard from some of them as far back as 2012 and 2014 at AFT conventions. Some of them were among the top leadership but have left the leadership to go back in the classroom.

You won't read about these concerns from leftist social justice activists within CORE in the often fawning leftist press over CORE.

These dissidents are somewhat similar to the former dissidents within MORE - mostly people associated with the ICEUFT wing of MORE who have been pushed out by people with similar ideologies to the leadership of the CTU --- many of the people in ICEUFT do not cede the SJ interpretation to the ideologues. What is clear, it that since similar issues are being raised in other caucuses, this is a fundamental political disagreement and not personal --- which is often raised by people who want to hide the politics. I think what happened in MORE is happening in other places too.

Former ISO member: Stay the revolutionary course

Leadership of the wrong kind — but what were the causes?

After four years or so, I had a lot of unresolved questions about ISO’s program. In addition, it turned out that some of the people in leadership could be downright nasty, and I didn’t like that at all.

In a personal example, I was called a dilettante by one of the prominent NYC organizers because I occasionally volunteered in a soup kitchen.

At an East Coast conference, a national leader once berated a comrade who was studying law. She did it from the podium, in a room with more than a hundred people. It was shocking to hear her say, “You want to be a lawyer? Go ahead and be a fucking lawyer!”

Only years after leaving the ISO in 2002 did I understand that the lack of democracy, the unaccountability of leadership, and the rejection of feminism were fundamental flaws which led to such abhorrent behavior.

I'm publishing articles about ISO due to the influence ISO has had in MORE and still has. The non-ISO leftists in MORE - independents from DSA should take a hard look at how these people operated and still operate. The critiques of ISO as a sort of cult and undemocratic and issues related to race and feminism seemed to infiltrate in MORE. Like the people in control are mostly white males. (Which is funny since they used surrogates to attack people like Mike and I as being white and male- at least I think we are.)

Here's a former ISOer who is now in another Party and reveals his point of view. I don't know enough to agree or disagree other than what I saw in MORE. He ends with: Some former ISOers will no doubt regroup and form yet another organization.
MORE is not yet free from the plague.

May 16, 2019

Stay the revolutionary course: a former member’s thoughts on the collapse of the International Socialist Organization

DAVE SCHMAUCH | MAY 15, 2019

As a former member of the International Socialist Organization who is now a member of the Freedom Socialist Party, I take ISO’s recent implosion seriously. As a revolutionary, my biggest concern is whether those comrades who invested some part of their political lives in the ISO will remain radicals or instead be lost to cynicism, despair, or … the Democrats.

ISO’s extraordinarily rapid decision to close up shop came about through a somewhat dubious process — an online poll and then a phone call involving several hundred of its members. This course was precipitated by revelations about ISO leaders’ mishandling and cover-up of a 2013 rape charge against a member who, six years later, had just been elected to ISO’s highest leadership body. Members heard about the suppression of the case on March 11 of this year; by the end of the month, the ISO was no more.

Of course this is hardly the whole story of why the ISO fell apart. There are lessons to be learned by examining its politics, structure and leadership, all of which were fatally flawed.

At the same time it is necessary to defend the work that ordinary comrades did, based on an earnest desire to build an organization that they saw as instrumental to winning a better world.

The high of having all the answers

I was in the ISO from about 1997 to 2002. That is to say, from the time of Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright’s murderous sanctions and bombings against Iraq, until shortly after some of my closest comrades split from the ISO to form a now-dissolved group called Left Turn.

I participated wholeheartedly in the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, went to summer school in Chicago (which later became the annual “Socialism” conference), and eagerly sold the Socialist Worker newspaper. I gave an educational for the Harlem branch on the life of Che Guevara. It was a privilege to read the newly reincarnated International Socialist Review magazine, and to be responsible for its distribution in New York City. It was exciting to think of being part of a group of young, smart people who wanted to change the world.

There is a euphoria that comes from being so confidently busy and knowing that you’re so right about everything you do, about every opinion you have, and about every political statement you make. It leaves you with very little time to question or understand the possibility that not everything might be so perfect.

But certain things came to bother me. One was the tendency of my branch to drop one area of unfinished political work to pick up something else. Another was an avoidable level of organizational sloppiness — for example, frequent running around at the last minute to secure a venue for a regular weekly meeting.

I began to wonder about the correctness of ISO supporting Ralph Nader for president in 2000. Why did we vote for a pro-capitalist “left” celebrity? Why not for other socialists?

And could it be true that white privilege really does not exist, as ISO claimed in those days? And what was up with the ISO’s longstanding, explicit hostility to feminism? Was feminism really by nature “bourgeois”?

My comprehension of the bigger historical issues was limited. For example, the slogan “neither Moscow nor Washington” went along with ISO’s stance that the Soviet Union was “state capitalist” — but what did that really mean? Much later I came to understand that this position (like the endorsement of Nader) was opportunist — that is, convenient rather than principled. The roots of the ISO are in a political grouping that was unwilling at the beginning of World War II to take the “unpopular” stand of defending the USSR against U.S. aggression.

Leadership of the wrong kind — but what were the causes?

After four years or so, I had a lot of unresolved questions about ISO’s program. In addition, it turned out that some of the people in leadership could be downright nasty, and I didn’t like that at all.

In a personal example, I was called a dilettante by one of the prominent NYC organizers because I occasionally volunteered in a soup kitchen.

At an East Coast conference, a national leader once berated a comrade who was studying law. She did it from the podium, in a room with more than a hundred people. It was shocking to hear her say, “You want to be a lawyer? Go ahead and be a fucking lawyer!”

Only years after leaving the ISO in 2002 did I understand that the lack of democracy, the unaccountability of leadership, and the rejection of feminism were fundamental flaws which led to such abhorrent behavior.

Even more recently, I learned that some members were increasingly questioning the official antagonism of ISO leadership toward autonomous organizing by female comrades and comrades of color. It makes sense that it would be the women and people of color who were ultimately going to expose the internal contradictions which had existed for decades, and which eventually unraveled the fabric of the organization in late March of this year.

From these political deficiencies arose problems of the organizational culture.

A longtime West Coast leader, Steve Leigh, had this to say in a written contribution about the crisis: “From the beginning, modesty and a sense of humility was part of the DNA of the ISO.”

This is a most telling example of how the lSO as an organization had long insulated itself from reality.

What really existed was the opposite: a general hubris prevailed. ISO members were taught never to back down from an argument. This meant that members knew everything, that nobody in the organization would ever say to a non-member, “You know, I never thought of that. You might be right.” This arrogant mindset also bears responsibility for the fact that ISO was rarely involved in coalition work unless it, as the “largest socialist group on the Left in the U.S.,” could call the shots.

At a Trotsky Conference in the Bronx, the same national leader who publicly berated the comrade studying law offhandedly responded to a lunchtime conversation about sexism and the necessity for a socialist feminist program by saying, “We don’t have those problems in the ISO.”

What had developed was an organization whose leadership, and until recently much of the membership, actually believed themselves immune to the social prejudices in capitalist society in general. In other words, sexism, racism, heterosexism and so on were not problems inside the ISO. Therefore only theory was needed, and then only for the world outside of the organization, because the body itself had already been purged of these problems.

Pressured by the resurgence of women’s activism via the MeToo movement and the matter-of-fact acceptance of feminism of many of its newer and younger members, the ISO of late began to head in the direction of socialist feminism. It is ironic that people who joined in the last year or two were largely unaware of its traditional rejection of it.

Feminism: not the problem but the solution

After leaving the ISO, I wanted to avoid three things above all: to drop out of revolutionary political activity altogether, to go back to the Democratic Party, or to become bitter and even hostile toward serious party-building. I saw at least two former comrades eventually reject the need for a vanguard party along with the ISO’s distorted, bureaucratic organizational norms.

As I shopped around for another political center of gravity, I found that only the Freedom Socialist Party had a program and practice that was both proudly feminist and truly revolutionary.

Socialist feminist theory is as simple, profound and obvious as the theory of surplus value: that for the emancipation of women to become a reality, women have to be in the leadership of the revolutionary process. Same for the leadership of Blacks, other people of color, and all the specially oppressed who have suffered the worst that the capitalist system delivers.

Simply stated, feminism is not the problem, it is the answer. Only socialist feminism can correct what Frederick Engels called “the world historic defeat of the female sex.” It is not feminism but sexism which is divisive. ISO had this tragically and fatally wrong.

One of the most satisfying episodes of my ISO experience was promoting and attending several productions of Howard Zinn’s play “Marx in Soho.” Marx comes into the present for an hour or so, to clear his name and explain why his ideas are still relevant.

In one section he mentions the collapse of the Soviet Union, and explains why it’s wrong to equate Stalinism with communism. He says: “Socialism is not supposed to reproduce the stupidities of capitalism!”

The ISO would have done well to consider this statement as it reproduced yet another top-down, undemocratic, macho structure which was bound sooner or later to collapse.

In retrospect, it seems that it would have been so easy for ISO to consider programmatic feminism as necessary political fabric, instead of issuing reams of tortured and twisted arguments against it! But bureaucratic leadership insulated the group from correction until it was too late.

Anyone who wants to see a human society based on cooperation rather than competition, where people get what they need and can finally live lives that are their own, needs a revolutionary political home. There is no antidote to pessimism more powerful than organizing along with people with whom you passionately agree! That’s why people joined the ISO. That it turned out not to be what it appeared is no individual’s fault, but a result of something deeper.

Some former ISOers will no doubt regroup and form yet another organization. I hope that others might at least find my journey from the ISO to the FSP interesting enough to inquire more about what I consider the original socialist feminist party.

Email the author at daveschmauch@hotmail.com.