Showing posts with label MORE-UFT Caucus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MORE-UFT Caucus. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

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?

Thursday, October 17, 2019

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

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.



Friday, August 16, 2019

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.



Democratic Socialists of America in New York | Getty Images





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

Sunday, June 23, 2019

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
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?


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



Thursday, May 23, 2019

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. 

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

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.

Monday, May 20, 2019

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

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.

Friday, April 26, 2019

UFT Election 2019 - Functional Chapters Based on Halabi Data

Functional chapters (non-teaching) are the mystery ship of the UFT - we address the fundamentals. There are about 40,000 working functionals - non-classroom plus 60,000 retirees and they are lumped together when they vote in UFT elections and get 19 Ex Bd seats. Thanks to Jonathan Halabi's efforts, we are getting some of the data from the UFT elections with his comparisons to previous elections. In this piece he provides info on the often mysterious functional chapter(s).
Actual teachers in the three divisions total over 70,000 so even if a strategy of winning the three teacher ex bd divisions (total- 23 seats) where retirees don't vote was successful, the UFT would still be under Unity control, but seriously threatened if the opposition could gain control of the functionals. Below I delve into why that would be so difficult. Even if the opposition were to win these 19 and add them to the 23 teaching seats the 42 seats would still fall short since there are 48 Ex Bd at-large seats where retirees vote. And in fact retirees vote and run for the functional ex bd seats too so that is how the election is rigged.
9000 non-retiree functional voted in this election out of the 40,000. Unity got 7200, a drop of around 400 from 2016 - maybe due to the OT/PT people. MORE received 824 and New Action 212 while together in 2016 they got 2200. So they lost 50% of the previous vote together but MORE even got less than they did in 2013, which is remarkable since they opportunistically focused their attention on the OT/PT chapter and ran one of the big voices in opposition to the contract as an officer. Let's assume a batch of their 824 came from that chapter.

The surprise was the showing of Solidarity (referring to them as Portelos' clique by Jonathan is disrespectful to the people involved) which got 917 votes, following their trend of tripling their 2016 votes across the board. I assume some of the unhappy OT/PT people went for them too. And secretaries are not happy either. Paras seemed to get some improvements in their contract and I would assume they went big for Unity.

I hear over 21000 retirees voted. (Some MORE supporters are whining about a phony issue where some retirees cut off the ballot in the middle and sent it in - we are addled, you know. And to count those the machines had to be reset. It seems that somehow counting these caused some to start charging it was fraud -- sure.)

In previous posts Jonathan covered the other divisions of the union and also did an overall summation (which we have yet to publish). I've been trying to break down the data with some analysis. Why? Because the past counts no matter how much people want to deny it and the patter in UFT elections is consistent. Yet we will see once again in 2022 caucuses claiming we need to vote in new leadership in the UFT. My goal is to get people to stop wasting everyone's time and energy unless you have built a massive and united opposition going head to head with Unity. That won't happen as long as caucuses see their priority as building their own narrow caucus instead of an opposition united on some basic principles. Let me know when that happens.

Here are my previous reports in reverse order of publishing with links to Jonathan's posts.
Also read Arthur's take: MORE Plans to Fail, Fails to Plan to Fail Sufficiently, and Comes in Second Among Working Teachers

About the functional chapters: 
There were 13 colored ballots during the contract vote for the functionals. The biggest one is the para chapter with I am told 19,000 members. Secretaries were usually over 3000. Guidance counselors and social workers and OT/PT and school nurses and hospital nurses. Others are much smaller.

Each chapter elects its own chapter leader and delegates and an ex bd to run the chapter and Unity makes sure to control this process and make sure the chapters remain loyal and don't go off the reservation. They have been pretty successful in this -- I was in a functional in my last few years in the system - the teacher assigned chapter -- I worked for the district - and I believe Randi opened up a delegate position for me since I was not in critical mode at the time --- I was sort of told that they wanted to be pushed - a little -- but when my pushing went over a line they were not happy.

Functionals help Unity control elections and the delegate assembly
Retirees are a functional and there are 63,000 retirees with 300 delegates to the DA - and add all the other chapter delegates -- like paras etc -- all pretty much under Unity control - so the functional chapters when added to the Unity chapter leaders and delegates in the schools give Unity control over the DA too.

Retirees don't vote for contracts but do vote in UFT elections. But their vote is broken out separately because there is a cap on retiree votes - I think 21,000  - which means if more than 21,000 vote - as I think happened this time -- each vote becomes a fraction. Like this time maybe .95 or something.

The little trick Unity plays with the 19 functional ex bd seats is to lump them together instead of allowing each functional to elect its own member(s) to the Ex Bd. One reform of the UFT Ex Bd to open it up would be stop lumping them. And to manage the retiree issue I would give retirees a bunch of seats on the Ex Bd since they are such a big chapter -- say 5. But I would also cut down on the 300 Unity delegates they get in the DA. And I would also give retirees a seat on the ad com. But they would not vote for the rest of the adcom or at large ex bd. In fact, I would fundamentally eliminate the at-large seats or maybe reserve 10.

Well, I hope you understand more about the UFT functionals. If my plan to win the 23 ex bd teacher seats ever came about, an opposition would have make some inroads into some of the functionals. Ironically, the only chapter with even a semblance of an opposition is the retiree chapter where the Retiree Advocate operates with New Action and some of the former MOREs who are also still involved. We run in the chapter elections and put out a newsletter but of course getting retirees to go against Unity is a useless operation because who are the happiest people in the UFT?


Tuesday, April 2, 2019

My UFT Election Choices: Duke Breaks Bracket, Ex-MORES In Play on Unity Slate - Yes, My Choices are Personal

An ecclectic group for sure:
5 for Solidarity, 4 for Unity, 3 for MORE
Howrilka, Portelos, Sill, Manning, Brown, De Jesus, Lupkin, Prosen, Hinds, Severenson, Zannoni, Diaz - Below, the reasons for why I voted for whom and why I didn't vote for whom - if you dare to wade through the muck.
People have been emailing asking me and others - Gloria has had numerous requests too - for voting recommendations - not for March Madness but for the UFT election. Today is the big reveal. Warning -  it's a long a tedious read. (I will make my final election voting outcome predictions before April 17.)

Duke, the Unity Caucus of the NCAA loses - a harbinger?

Friday, March 29, 2019

Unitymustgo: Here’s why I say no to MORE

Voting in the 2019 UFT Elections
I'm postponing publishing my list of people I voted for to publish this.
Unitymustgo! -- Here’s why I say no to MORE. Currently there are several posts/ads from MORE on my Facebook stream. Not one of them speaks of fighting for me. They all speak about social justice issues. That’s all well and good, but I believe the primary purpose of a union is to fight to improve the working conditions and benefits of the people who pay them. Period. Do I care about social issues? Sure I do. Are there tons of social issues that affect our students? Yup there are. They affect many of our members to. Do I believe a teacher’s union should speak up about the social issues that affect members and students? Yes, yes I do. But, and here’s the thing, if you think, I think, the real issue(s) I have with our union is that Unity just doesn’t focus enough on social issues, well then you are really woefully out of touch with your fellow members. Perhaps, even more so than Unity. Not to go off on a tangent, but I actually think Unity isn’t so much out of touch with the real daily, grinding, piercing travesties members have to deal with. I think they have made a conscious calculated decision not to do much about any of it. MORE’s messaging makes me think MORE doesn’t get the simple idea, that members who don’t vote aren’t not voting because they are just so frustrated that the UFT just isn’t doing enough about social justice issues. Nor, does MORE seem to get the even bigger and even simpler idea that those members who are out there actually seeking alternative leadership are most definitely not doing so because of social justice issues. HEAR ME Unity. HEAR ME MORE, HEAR me anybody that wants my support. I want my union to focus on me. Period. There is plenty to do to improve the working conditions and benefits of our members. Can someone? Anyone? Just do that. ....comment on "UFT Election Update: I Vote Thrice": 
There's one point about MORE and the reason you don't see the kind of angst from them about the way teachers are treated in schools. Most of them have found "safe" schools and they bring other MOREs in so we have a few clusters of people working in some of the better schools in the city - which allows them the luxury to focus on social justice instead of the fight for daily survival.

Yesterday I published another comment from Unity Must Go, a longtime anti-Unity chapter leader who has supported the opposition for a decade - he seemed somewhat reluctantly to decide to vote for Solidarity:  UFT Elections: Solidarity Picking up Defections from MORE

The problem with Solidarity is that its main boast is a web site, not a presence in the schools. Now if people like Unitymustgo who is a CL with his own constituency goes beyond voting for Solidarity, they might yet become a real caucus with real people doing real things.

Fighting Unity requires being in the schools --  as you can see from the ballot they have 750-800 running -- while many are retirees and staffers for the UFT, many are also chapter leaders and delegates and have constituencies in their schools. The total of 3 caucuses is less than 150.

Is there a life for the opposition after this election? Let's see how many people see things the way Unitymustgo does. I heard a rough straw poll in what has been a strong opposition and pro-MORE school until now where there were a number of people who had voted for MORE now voting for Unity, and not one vote for Solidarity with one vote for New Action.

While UnityMustGo resisted in 2013, he decided to run with MORE in 2016.

When I met with him in his school and we went for lunch during the last election he mentioned that in his district CL meetings everyone seemed to be Unity or Unity supporters. I pointed to a chapter leader in his district who had always been an ICE supporter and ran with ICE - he hadn't realized that. I've always maintained that anti-Unity CLs should use the monthly CL meetings as an organizing tool. But that hasn't happened, even among the so-called militants.

In my mind, he is a prototypical rank and filer any opposition would want to organize as a backbone of challenging Unity in the schools. But - and this is not an accident - MORE doesn't want people like him precisely because of what he said in his comment -- he wants a union to fight for HIM, not social justice. And MORE doesn't want these type of people.

I don't quite agree with him since I feel there needs to be a balance of SJ and teacher rights.

That was the essence of the internal struggle in MORE from day 1 when it was organized -- I felt we - mostly the ICE people - we were SJ people too - and some allies - kept some balance between SJ and bread and butter --  but ultimately we lost the internal battle.

And we lost because an non-elected faction of MORE vigilantes decided to take drastic action against what they viewed as the opposition to their plan to morph more away from a broad tent - the ICE core. I still think there are a number of MORE supporters who have no idea what really occurred. But they seem perfectly happy to not have the rancor internally even at the expense of democracy -- an analogy to what we see generally in politics.

--- but Unity Must GO is right about the MORE messaging. It is purposely designed to not attract him or the mainstream of the UFT but a particular slice of young social justice oriented teachers - it's a dog whistle and the entire election for MORE in not running to win anything in a limited campaign was to have the opportunity to put out those dog whistles in the hope of attracting the left in the UFT. And they have been successful to a limited extent with new people who are fundamentally clueless about the UFT - some still call me for info.

A key event for MORE is the monthly happy hours with teachers from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) before the MORE meetings -- this has become the main organizing tool of MORE.

So for those who think MORE may be going away, don't bet on it -- there will always be a left in the UFT who will go along with the program put out by MORE. Expect them to operate the same way in the 2022 UFT elections. The problem with the MORE plan is that it actually makes Unity stronger and gives them even less influence - but they don't worry about that -- MORE is about recruitment, not influencing real change.

I wouldn't be shocked to see the exact same scenario played out in 2022. Which is why I advocate throwing in the towel in terms of a formal opposition to Unity - just don't run in elections. And why I support Arthur, Mike and Mindy for running with Unity where they are at least free to advocate - in a limited manner --- but given the alternative what else is there to do? My problem with them is voting the straight Unity slate, endorsing a caucus that has made Unity Must Go so disgusted - and a betrayal of loyal supporters of our blogs like him. At best it is insensitive politically.

I may organize a post-election forum which I will call: What is to be done? (ref, intentional).

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

UFT Election Update: I Vote Thrice

Hi Norm - I just got my UFT ballot in the mail. I've never received one, and today was perfect timing, because I had it out with someone in the UFT office. They have not responded to my email sent in October, despite me following up every month or so. I may need to start advising young teachers to save their dues for getting their own personal champion rather than have faith in the UFT's ability to even respond to an email within 6 months....
What do you recommend I do with the ballot? Did you have a falling out with MORE?
People have been asking me for UFT voting advice. I am flummoxed. This is where the long-term dangers lie for the UFT - arrogance and ignoring the pleas of people under assault. And I certainly won't tell anyone to vote for MORE. But.....


My teacher friends and neighbors are in California for 6 months and I am taking care of their house and mail. I asked what to do with their ballots -- we forward all their mail - and they told me to decide who to vote for since they usually ask me who to vote for anyway.

This time things are a bit more complicated since there is no slate I would recommend.  However, it does give me a chance to have one of my friends vote for New Action and the other for Solidarity while I in essence toss away my ballot and vote for individual candidates from all 4 slates - Unity too.

Why am I throwing away my ballot? The individual votes are counted -- they have to tear the booklets apart and feed them through the machine and this process delays the count by hours. But they only give us the slate vote totals and that is what gets reported. So those individual votes, which are usually around a couple of hundred people, don't count for much. But this time I have to do it on my ballot.

So, I'm going through the pages of the ballot and voting for people from all caucuses that I like or respect or know. It is tedious work. We have to pick out 48 names from the at-large Ex Bd candidates. Then 750 at most from the AFT/NYSUT convention list - which is easy to do since Unity has 750 running and MORE, Solidarity, New Action COMBINED have less than 150 -- that is why even a combined opposition can't come close to Unity. (The only time I can remember matching them in numbers was around 1980, but I hear from Ellen Fox they did match a few times -- but certainly not close since I became involved in elections again in 2004.)

Well, anyhow -- I will do a follow-up with a list of some of the candidates I voted for and why. I did manage to find a few MOREs that I still like and respect to vote for plus every New Action candidate even if I didn't know them. Plus every Solidarity candidate I know - minus a few that I have had some bad blood with in the past.

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

MORE Fallacies, E4E Inspire Caucus


From Ed Notes at the March Delegate Assembly:

MORE Fallacies: Beg UFT leaders to Organize and Mobilize, divide opposition and run not to win

In the current UFT election the MORE Caucus talks a lot about how much educators have won through striking in red and blue states. They point to the seminal and inspiring 2012 Chicago teacher strike and the recent strike in Los Angeles where the union leaderships organized, mobilized and prepared the membership for strikes, gaining over 90% support of the members. A keys to these strikes were alliances with community forces outside the union which MORE talks about – but only rhetorically.

Can you talk strike when you are not a serious threat to take power
What MORE won’t tell you is that the current progressive social justice oriented leadership in those cities formed broad-based caucuses and coalitions in Chicago (CORE) and LA (Union Power) to oppose the former timid top-down union leaderships and ultimately WON their elections in 2010 and 2014 respectively. If they hadn’t run to win, there would never have been strikes. The Unity Caucus leadership will NEVER strike or be pressured by the rank and file to strike. Only defeating them will lead to a union MORE envisions. And MORE is running NOT to WIN.

The way to change the UFT is to not urge the leadership to change but to present a credible threat to their overwhelming power and control by building the machinery of a massive rank and file movement with deep roots in the schools. UFT elections are only a piece of the mechanisms but they do demonstrate the ability to get support in the schools. In 2016 I helped run the MORE election campaign with a focus on winning a piece of the Ex Bd, which we did by winning the 7 high school seats. The hope at the time was to continue this building process by challenging in the middle and elementary schools. But the faction that took control of MORE blew that plan up.

Instead of following in the footsteps of CORE and Union Power, MORE has chosen an opposite approach of running not to win by refusing to unite with other progressive caucuses and independents and purging and pushing out those who resist this approach, using undemocratic methods and purposely not running divisional candidates where they could actually win. And to build an opposition, demonstrating an ability to win anything is part of the process.

A recent MORE election leaflet proclaimed: Collective Action Gets the Goods! Only a stronger base of rank-and-file teachers, counselors, paras and all education workers, knit together in a common organization that can share strategies and mobilize our coworkers can push the union leadership to alter its approach, and eventually lead the union in a different direction entirely.

I laughed out loud when I read this. As one of the founders of the MORE Caucus in 2011 I’ve watched with sadness (and some amusement) how MORE morphed from what began as an inclusive progressive big tent opposition group to Unity Caucus into an exclusive, divisive, narrow ideologically driven and fundamentally undemocratic organization that has driven out many progressive former members who way outnumber those who remain. There are even three former MOREs running on the Unity Caucus line, two of whom were elected to the UFT Ex Bd as MORE candidates in 2016 but have grown alienated with the actions of MORE. How can MORE boldly talk about knitting together rank and file UFT members when it has done the very reverse? Witness the current UFT elections where MORE’s refusal to knit together a coalition to attempt to make a dent in Unity power has led to a divided opposition where three weak caucuses are running limited election campaigns with 40-50 candidates.

I actually don’t disagree with many of the policies MORE puts forth but cannot go along with the tactics used internally and a program that not only has no chance of moving the UFT in a more progressive direction but by its divisive tactics actually has helped strengthen the control of the ruling Unity Caucus. MORE leaders talk about lack of democracy in the UFT while suspending members without due process and exhibiting a level of control that makes Unity look democratic in comparison. Instead of becoming a serious and inclusive caucus as a threat to Unity, MORE has become an ideologically driven exclusive club of self-proclaimed “activists” with loads of rhetoric but little action.

Still, I expect MORE to finish with the highest vote totals of the three running against Unity because New Action and Solidarity have their own problems. I will have more on the elections at the April 17 DA, the day the votes are counted when I will take a break from the count to hand out Ed Notes.


UFT Election: Inspire, E4E-based Caucus, new kid on the block

You might be seeing leaflets for the independent campaign of Michael Loeb, a CL in the Bronx. Michael is running under the UFT Inspire Caucus line. Educators for Excellence, funded by many ed deformers, has been viewed as an anti-union group but over the years has modified its tone and put forth a strong social justice agenda and through Mike has begun to engage in the UFT, mostly in calls for more democracy. Some teacher unions around the nation have vilified E4E, but not here. There has been some signs of cooperation between Unity and E4E. Is this a precursor of a future E4E caucus that might at some point contend with MORE for the title of THE SJ Caucus? Don’t sell such a well-funded group with full-time employees short. Mike serves on the national board of E4E and I have had some excellent conversations with him about unions and policy. He seems to have helped push E4E in a more positive direction towards unions and has been open to my criticisms. Whereas E4E used to throw me out of meetings, Mike has now invited me. Just in case, I will bring a food taster.

Friday, January 18, 2019

Splainin' the Goldstein/Schirtzer Caucus Decision to Run With Unity

While I (Norm) would not have made the same choice Mike and Arthur did and I won't vote for them, in the context of what has happened to the opposition I fully understand their decision -- I feel better having two allies on the EB who I hope will raise issues of mine and others concerns that would never be put forth if they weren't there......
Arthur and Mike -- the Goldstein/Schirtzer caucus -- have no interest in doing what the rest of the opposition is doing --- wasting 4 months running on the UFT election treadmill to nowhere. ... The reality is that their position on the EB in terms of pushing the union is weaker than it was when they won as part of the opposition defeating Unity in head to head voting..... Norm again
.... the new caucus of Three Unity Water Carriers (try to look independent but kiss Unity's butt all the way).... The Unity water carriers even get the convention trips. They can suck up even more.... Anonymous comment, UFT Election Petition Day at Delegate Assembly


My response: 
In effect, anonymous people who bitch about Unity but don't jump into the waters in fighting them are the real water carriers. Arthur fought them in the open for 13 years and Mike for 6 years. So let them carry some water for Unity while you sit back and do nothing. And don't tell me how afraid you are. They at least have a record of standing up (publicly). 
In his latest post Arthur Goldstein justifies running with Unity Caucus - - Moving Forward.

I want to congratulate Mike Schirtzer and Arthur Goldstein on their election to the high school Ex Bd in the upcoming UFT election ending April 17, 2019. And yes, they will also be going to the NYSUT/AFT conventions where I expect them to be free to take any positions they want instead of carrying the Unity water -- and if I'm there I will be monitoring them.

If there is any sure bet, this one is it, so if you have extra pension money to bet, pony up. The difference in the election in 2016 that won MORE/NA were the votes from Arthur's 300 UFT members who supported him on whatever slate he ran on. While their vote totals will be low, as Unity's has always been in the HS and if we add together the total high school votes of the opposition they might be close, the fact that 3 caucuses are all running alone assures Arthur and Mike of victory.

Some MOREs in 2016 clearly resented Arthur for his independence and tried to paint the victory then as a win for social justice unionism as opposed to the organizing work by Arthur and James Eterno in the Queens high schools, which had the highest voting totals of all the boroughs by far. Even Unity's Howie Schoor agreed with this assessment. (This internal dispute in MORE in May 2016 was the opening shot in the wars to come after the election.)

Over the past year or so, or since the Janus ruling, Arthur has bent over backwards trying not to provide the enemies of unions ammunition that can be used to get people to leave the union. His decision is based mostly on the Janus situation but also slams MORE for helping to push him and Mike into the decision they made.

I can see the point. Once you see no hope for the future of an opposition that can have real influence instead of functioning as a club trying to lobby the UFT leaders, but want to maintain some level of influence, what exactly do you do?

But let's be clear. Arthur and Mike only got on the Ex Bd because a group of us in MORE set up a democratic process for choosing candidates - MORE had 4 out of 7 HS EB and then when New Action could only come up with 2 candidates, we had a 5th - who ended up coming to only 2 meetings before quitting - that's another story altogether.

They would never have had the influence and impact they did if there wasn't a caucus like MORE to put them in a position to win the election. So if I see them acting as if they won the high school seats in 2016 as individuals instead of part of the work of a caucus I smack them down. We might trash the current version of MORE but not the 2016 version. (And I will tell the full story of how we went from there to here after the election.) And I will point out that without Unity Caucus they still wouldn't be on the board. The reality is that their position on the EB in terms of pushing the union is weaker than it was when they won as part of the opposition defeating Unity in head to head voting.

With that option of running to win being closed off and even if they ran with New Action or Solidarity they would still not end up on the Ex Bd, they chose to be on the Ex Bd and still have a voice, even if it is somewhat muted -- no matter what they say.

Some compare their decision to the one New Action made in 2003 to run with Unity endorsement in the 2004, 07, 10 and 13 elections before coming back to the opposition in 2016.

Absolutely no comparison. In 2003, New Action was still the leading opposition and if they had run alone they still would have won the high schools. By 2007, they had lost so much credibility, they could never win alone without joining with the other groups - remember - ICE came into being partly as a response to the NA decision and TJC went from being a fringe groups into an electoral caucus - seeing an opening due to the NA defection.

Now we are in a situation where there is no chance for any of the 3 caucuses running to win anything. MORE in fact is not even going to run for the high school ex bd positions.

Arthur and Mike -- the Goldstein/Schirtzer caucus -- have no interest in doing what the rest of the opposition is doing --- wasting 4 months running on the UFT election treadmill to nowhere. And they look at this election as a holding pattern. If the opposition ever makes sense they will be back there.


And don't forget, Arthur is the chapter leader of a large high school with 300 members. His priority is not to some ideal of opposing Unity but to address the needs of his chapter. So for those of you who want to snipe at him from an often anonymous position, stand up and be counted if you are so opposed to Unity.

Remember - Arthur's blog came into being around 2005 and that contract pushed him into opposition mode and he soon joined us in ICEUFT - he even ran with us once but also made it clear -- he doesn't run to lose and if there is no chance he won't bother running to make a point. That was why I didn't even ask him to run for MORE in 2013 - with New Action on the Unity line I felt we had no chance. The Unity totals came in so low in the high schools that without the 450 New Action totals, we would have had a chance.

Thus, in 2016, James, Arthur, Mike and I hatched a plan to go after winning the high schools even if NA remained with Unity -- a plan that would have failed. But the other part of our plan was to woo New Action into an alliance -- we had seen lots of signs their deal with Unity was fraying. And our plan, despite some internal opposition from some MOREs -- the very same people who have taken control -- we executed the plan.

Mike, who will be issuing his own statement soon which we will publish, is a newer recruit to the opposition -- since the beginning of MORE - he wasn't part of the planning group but was on board from the beginning. His politics didn't quite mesh with the rest of MORE's often didactic and rigid reactions to organizing and ideologicalizing. (Word is my creation.) They were clearly nervous about putting Mike - and Arthur - on the Ex Bd since they knew they couldn't control them. But the democratic process in MORE won out. This time MORE came up with a better way -- just have a small group choose the candidates without democracy.

The campaign in Mike's school, Leon Goldstein, whose chapter leader Kit Wainer, has been a 30 year oppositionist as a member of TJC and now MORE, will certainly be interesting. The school has been a long time bastion of the opposition - at least the TJC wing --- a sure bet if there is one to vote anti-Unity. And I bet it still is. But Mike, who Kit brought into the movement, will be campaigning in opposition to Kit and MORE this time and things may get sticky. Kit is one of the leaders of the recent moves MORE has made in a new direction, aligning the group along the lines of the old TJC positions. Mike pushed back against this move even before he left MORE.

While I would not have made the same choice Mike and Arthur did and I won't vote for them, in the context of what has happened I fully understand their decision -- I feel better having two allies on the EB who I hope will raise issues of mine and others concerns that would never be put forth if they weren't there.