Critique of Rank and File Strategy/ Kim Moody/ Solidarity - DSA Build Caucus

There are a lot of ideas buried inside the article below and my commentary where I try to make connections to where things have been and may be going inside the UFT union movement and will be doing a followup using the articles on so-called the rank and file strategy which is what MORE Caucus has and will be operating under. But I will have more to say at another time.

By the way, I'm heading over to the Labor Day parade up 5th Ave today followed by a UFT sponsored barbecue, which is our union leadership's version of a rank and file strategy -- faux organizing by feeding them.

the Rank and File is a strategy document for a socialist organization dedicated to raising class consciousness and building a mass movement. The document is not only relevant to would-be vanguard parties, but also to organizing socialists as a whole....

“Industrialization” was not unique to Solidarity[the Labor Notes Trotskyist org not the caucus]. Many socialist and communist groups (especially those like Solidarity in the Trotskyist tradition) tried throughout the 70s-90s and largely failed. Industrialization sought to place members of socialist organizations into industrial jobs. The goal was twofold: first, to move away from middle-class, college-educated, and counter-cultural recruitment and reorient towards a blue-collar working class. Second, to agitate amongst workers for a radical movement against the bosses and the conservative, bureaucratic unions who protected them. Industrialization was a failure. Employers screened out degreed applicants and long hairs. Those who got hired had trouble recruiting for a revolutionary party when workers’ political horizon shortened, caught up in defensive struggles over pay and pensions.... 
   ... Build/DSA,  https://dsabuild.org/rank-and-file-analysis

The 1% in the UFT - the activists on both sides
The landscape within the UFT for the inside players in the union leadership and in the opposition - the 1% of the UFT - has gone through some changes over the past three years, though to the 99% of the rank and file these changes are irrelevant and if they were aware, somewhat of a joke. And I admit I am part of the joke due to my obsessions as part of the 1% for 49 of my 52 year membership in the UFT.

I've been trying to sort issues out from an academic and organizing perspective within the context of my own history of activism in the UFT which has been my personal focus for the past two and a half decades plus the decade of the 70s. While the experience in MORE has given me insights into the various political forces that operate in unions, I still see many of the ideas worth examining, and not automatically reject them as some colleagues who left or were pushed out of MORE have done. The recent influx of teachers from the Democratic Socialists into MORE could be a new dynamic in the UFT - or not. But I am focusing my attention on this dynamic and also on those who are pushing back against it.

MORE has adopted the rank and file strategy for whatever that means inside the UFT (which was used as an artificial divide in MORE to push out people - especially the ICEUFT who were charged with not supporting the rank and file strategy - which was not true -- ICE didn't support using suspensions and turning over democracy in its implementation.

But there were questions to be raised and I actually tried when I pointed out that the old defunct TJC caucus failed with the same strategy which is an imported strategy not organically grown inside the UFT.

And it is always interesting to watch how a strategy hatched outside the context of our particular union is adapted to our unique situation of being in a union with a massive membership and with a leadership in its most dominant position in 25 years, partly due to either the inherent weaknesses in the rank and file strategy or MORE's incompetent implementation - with the recent failed election strategy being a key - like alienating the non-DSA connected opposition in the UFT is not a violation of the rank and file strategy. But I leave it to interested readers to explore further.

I posted an article on the Rank and File Strategy by Barry Eidlin a key player in the Labor Notes/ Solidarity vapor. And you should read it

• DSA, the Rank-and-File Strategy, and Organizing the Unorganized

A sort of counter group in DSA to Bread and Roses seems to be Build
https://dsabuild.org.

Th article below takes a more critical look at the Rank and File Strategy, which seems to be the working plan in MORE. Rather than break down the Bread and Roses article and this one, I'm posting it without further comment but will take a closer look at segments in follow-ups. The key for me is how it touches on the politics and organizations that have been active in segments of opposition groups in the UFT over the past 50 years. As Arnold said, I vill be back to dig deeper.

https://dsabuild.org/rank-and-file-analysis

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.

BMORE/CEDE Caucuses declared winners in Baltimore by AFT

Two social justice caucuses united to win the Baltimore election against an 8 term incumbent.
Baltimore Movement of Rank-and-File Educators Baltimore Caucus of Educators for Democracy and Equity

I reported on the election:

• Social Justice Activist Ousts Randi Ally, 21-Year Incumbent as Baltimore Teachers Union President - Antonucci
• Why Can't MORE B more like BMORE? - Radical Teachers’ Movement Comes to Baltimore

BMORE is affiliated with UCORE, the national social justice network of union activists. MORE is a charter member but BMORE decided not to be like MORE and actually ran to win and aligned with another group to do so, unlike MORE here in NYC which fundamentally destroyed the opposition to Unity here in NYC.

Frankly, I didn't expect this outcome but it indicates that Randi is covering her flank from the left social justice caucuses inside the AFT. It certainly helps that there in no threat from a social justice caucus in New York to the Unity machine, which is the key element in the entire AFT/NYSUT/UFT structure. In this report Antonucci predicts come stormy weather ahead since Randi ally and eight-term incumbent Marietta English had her appeal rejected. 
“This decision does an injustice to our union,” said English.

Get it how the AFT machine works -- you fall in line or get dumped. (See former NYSUT leadership). English is still president of AFT Maryland and if she causes trouble she might find herself out of that job.

Antonucci reports:

It’s Official: Baltimore Teachers Union Has a New President

The American Federation of Teachers ruled that the disputed election for the presidency and executive board of the Baltimore Teachers Union would stand. Challenger Diamonté Brown will take over as president of the 7,000-member union, replacing eight-term incumbent Marietta English.

“This decision does an injustice to our union,” said English.
AFT judged that while some minor violations had taken place, “We cannot conclude that this activity could have affected the election.”
The election may be settled, but trouble still looms for the union. Brown’s slate controls the teacher positions on the executive board, while English’s slate holds all the paraprofessional seats.

English also remains president of AFT Maryland, which portends a lot of internecine squabbling in the near future.

Baltimore Sun
https://www.baltimoresun.com/education/bs-md-ci-union-elections-20190711-nyl2jv4yr5fy5mlyuf4yztkqf4-story.html

After election review, Diamonté Brown poised to be confirmed as new president of the Baltimore Teachers Union

An investigation into the Baltimore Teachers Union election found that a few members of the newly elected president’s caucus used some school resources to promote the campaign, but ruled the violations were “minor” and didn’t change the results.

The American Federal of Teachers affirmed Diamonté Brown as the winner on Thursday, rejecting losing candidate Marietta English’s challenge and petition to hold a new election. The AFT report, obtained by The Baltimore Sun, cited violations by the Union We Deserve caucus, which Brown is a part of, such as using employer email and facilities for campaign purposes.

In one instance, the report said, a member of Brown’s caucus sent out a notice promoting a union campaign event on her school email. The AFT report also found the that Brown’s caucus sponsored two events on school property. The third violation involved two delegates of Brown’s caucus participating as an observer in the balloting process.

“While the [the Union We Deserve] caucus did commit violations of the election rules,” the report said, “we find that these violations did not affect the outcome of the election.”

The AFT concluded that, “these violations appear minor in their scope."

The report marks an end to a contentious election season between Brown and the incumbent, English, who has held the position for more than 20 years.

English issued a statement before the results were officially announced and called the decision to not pursue a re-election “an injustice to our union.” She said the AFT report “clearly lays out that egregious violations took place during the election process and I strongly disagree with the conclusion that even with these violations a new election would not be held."

English lost the election held in May by a vote of 901 to 839. At the time, she claimed the election was riddled with rules violations and said she could not concede.

In May, the Progressive caucus, which English is part of, wrote to the BTU Nominations and Elections Committee, accusing Brown’s caucus of election misconduct.

The letter included a number of complaints, but only a few were found to be violations in the AFT’s final investigation. The AFT concluded that the other accusations, such as early campaigning, criticizing other candidates and house visits were all permitted under the AFT and BTU constitutions.

'I'm doing this for my students': Diamonté Brown elected next Baltimore Teachers Union president »

 

When asked about how this election would affect her relationship with English, Brown said, “We have a good relationship, and I hope to continue to work with her.”

Brown will lead a divided union. The executive board is split between teachers and paraprofessionals. Her slate captured the majority of teacher positions, but the English Slate took all the paraprofessional spots, according to the preliminary results. The English Slate’s teacher candidates are all also challenging the election results.

“There have been a number of challenges to the election process with each side demanding fairness,” Brown said at a news conference Thursday, “and the challenges reaffirm that we are committed to the democratic process.

“Now we will work together to advance members’ interest,” Brown said.

As the new president, Brown told The Baltimore Sun, her top goals will be to increase membership engagement, fight for equity and increase partnerships between the teaching professions, such as teachers and paraprofessionals.

Brown said her first action will be to speak with the entire paraprofessional slate one-on-one to “listen to what they have to say and use that to guide us toward being a united front.”

“Even if we’re not on the same page, everyone deserves to be heard,” she said earlier this spring. “I don’t think people have to be on the same page to get work done. Everyone has the same goal” of bettering the lives of teachers, students and families.

The 2019 Socialism Conference, sponsored by American leftist juggernauts the DSA, Jacobin magazine, and ISO’s Haymarket Books, features regime-change activists from multiple US government-funded NGOs - The Grayzone

Now that the ISO has disbanded, its veterans can reach into the rapidly growing ideologically diffuse world of Democratic Socialists of America, using platforms like Socialism 2019 to infect DSA’s youthful core with the imperial politics of regime change – but always “from the left,” and always “from below.”   ....The Grayzone

There were estimates that 300 former ISOers were at the socialist conference in Chicago. Here's an article that raises important issues about sectors of the left and how some organized groups operate. Note this excerpt which has relevance to events that occurred in MORE since the leaders of the split came from ISO, Solidarity and people they recruited from the Democratic Socialists.

This March, the ISO voted to dissolve — in a decision some former members joked was the most democratic act ever undertaken by the organization, which had been dominated by an unelected leadership of veteran Trotskyite activists.
The dissolution was prompted by evidence that the ISO’s steering committee mishandled sexual assault allegations. It also came as the ISO’s membership was shrinking and rapidly being absorbed by a newly burgeoning anti-communist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA.
Now that the ISO has dissolved, some of its past prominent members have entered the ranks of the DSA, burrowing from within to inject their anti-anti-imperialist politics into the group.
Because Trotskyites are so sectarian and notoriously incapable of holding together organizations, they are infamous for infiltrating larger, more popular groups and trying to take them over, in a tactic known as entryism.
This is precisely the strategy being used by former members of the ISO — and by another tiny US Trotskyite organization, Solidarity, which was led by anti-Nicaragua regime-change activist and Socialism Conference speaker Dan La Botz, now a leader in DSA.
Democratic Socialists of America is the largest self-described socialist organization in the United States, with more than 60,000 card-carrying members. It is also very heterogeneous, with many internal contradictions and conflicting political views.

I joined DSA and have some hopes they can be a counter force to the Democratic Party machine as I've been reporting. But I don't want to end up in another MORE-like situation where there is a group that is meeting privately out of sight plotting.

The 2019 Socialism Conference, sponsored by American leftist juggernauts the DSA, Jacobin magazine, and ISO’s Haymarket Books, features regime-change activists from multiple US government-funded NGOs.

By Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/07/06/dsa-jacobin-iso-socialism-conference-us-funded-regime-change/?fbclid=IwAR1Zzjwdi5BuokPD1y3l3N0Jc2wxKS4T-IL97_atR81S0IgW_zBpFM2gPmE

  

Socialism is now apparently brought to you by the US State Department.

From July 4 to 7, thousands of left-wing activists from across the United States are gathering in Chicago for the 2019 Socialism Conference.

At this event, some of the most powerful institutions on the American socialist — but avowedly anti-communist — left have brought together a motley crew of regime-change activists to demonize Official Enemies of Washington.

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.

Why Can't MORE B more like BMORE? - Radical Teachers’ Movement Comes to Baltimore

Social-justice teacher caucuses have emerged in cities like Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Seattle, and St. Paul, and now they’re banding together to help those in Baltimore... The Nation

Ed Notes has been reporting on events in the contentious Baltimore teacher union election where an alliance of two caucuses won the election over the 21 year incumbent head of the Progressive Caucus - a Unity like caucus who are contesting the election - but only in the divisions (the classrooms) that they lost. The AFT will make the decision and that there will be a new election is a best bet.

• Baltimore Union Election Update - Randi Talks Trus...
• Baltimore Election Committee Orders New Election f...

The left wing leaning Nation has an in-depth article on the election. Note in the subheadline above the lack of mention of a certain social justice caucus in NYC.

In the fall of 2016 the newly formed BMORE steering committee decided to launch their first campaign—a petition drive to allow absentee voting in BTU elections. That winter, they organized the official BMORE launch party at a local barbecue restaurant, wondering if anyone would even show up. Nearly 70 people did. “We knew then that this type of connection and work was resonating with people,” said Gaber. 

Think of this. A new caucus forms in Baltimore in 2016 and 3 years later they are running neck and neck for control over the union, similar to what happened in Chicago where CORE formed in 2008 and won in 2010 and in LA where a coalition of people formed a slate that won in 2014. In NYC MORE formed in 2011-12 and has gone backwards. Why? We'll address that issue and ask the first of the 4 questions: why is NYC different than all the others?

There may be many lessons to learn from the story in Baltimore about BMORE. That there is more than one social justice caucus is an indication of some sort of division politically even if they combined for this election. For political ed junkies like me this is fascinating stuff.

https://www.thenation.com/article/baltimore-teachers-union/

The Radical Teachers’ Movement Comes to Baltimore

By Rachel M. Cohen

June 7, 2019

Diamonte Brown's win to lead the Baltimore Teachers' Union is by challenged by the nine-term incumbent. (Rebecca Yenawine)

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In mid-May, 37-year-old Diamonte Brown won her bid to lead the Baltimore Teachers Union, defeating Marietta English, who has led the nearly 7,000-member union for most of the past two decades. The shakeup in Charm City school politics marks a victory not just for Brown, a middle-school English teacher, but the Baltimore Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (BMORE), a social-justice caucus that has been organizing since 2015.

Yet English, who was seeking her ninth term in office, says she cannot “in good faith concede” and has demanded a revote—alleging Brown and the slate of candidates she ran with committed a series of election violations, like illegally campaigning on school grounds. Critics say the incumbents have their own campaign missteps to account for, including writing rules that discourage challengers and trying to suppress the vote.

The American Federation of Teachers, the national parent union for the BTU, is stepping in, and plans to hold a formal hearing to adjudicate the complaints next week. The election drama reflects a stark departure from what are typically sleepy Baltimore affairs.
Still, with roughly 500 more ballots cast this cycle compared to the last, observers say the increased interest in the election should not go ignored, regardless of what happens when the AFT concludes its investigation.

BMORE says that no matter the outcome, they’re here to stay, joining a national movement dedicated to using teacher unions as a vehicle for broad social change. This movement first caught fire with the Chicago teachers strike in 2012, an eight-day protest of educators, parents, students, and community members who called for increased funding for public services. Similar radical caucuses have since emerged in cities like Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Seattle, and St. Paul and now they’re banding together to help those in Baltimore.

BMORE’s story begins with Natalia Bacchus, an ESOL teacher who moved to Baltimore in 2013 after teaching in suburban Maryland for nine years. Bacchus was bewildered by the bureaucratic hurdles she encountered at nearly every turn.

“When I worked in Montgomery County, I didn’t know anything about our union, I was just like, I’m a public-school teacher, I’m a public servant, I have a unionized job, that’s cool,” she said. “Then I came to Baltimore, and I was like, wow—everything is a hassle every step of the way. And what do you mean kids can’t drink from the water fountain? And kids have to go to bathroom in groups? All these restrictions that would never fly in Montgomery County.”

Bacchus didn’t know many other Baltimore educators, and didn’t know if she was alone in feeling this way. Eventually she met Helen Atkinson, the executive director of the Teachers’ Democracy Project, a local education-advocacy group. In 2014 Atkinson invited Bacchus to become a TPD fellow, where she would research progressive teacher unions around the country.

The next year Bacchus and Atkinson started traveling to different cities to learn from activist teachers. In August 2015, they went to Newark, New Jersey, for the annual United Caucus of Rank and File Educators conference, and began asking more practical questions about what launching a union caucus might look like.
“I was like this could be big, and Chicago’s social-justice caucus was called CORE and New York’s was MORE—we should call ours BMORE!” Bacchus said.

That fall, Atkinson introduced Bacchus to two other radical educators she knew in Baltimore—Cristina Duncan Evans and Corey Gaber. Bacchus was then working at a traditional public elementary school, Gaber was a charter middle-school teacher, and Duncan Evans was teaching at a specialized high school for the arts. Their diverse experiences struck them as a powerful opportunity.

Together they started a book club, reading texts like How to Jump-Start Your Union, about the Chicago Teachers Union, and The Future of Our Schools, by education scholar Lois Weiner. Later that year they traveled to Chicago, to meet the CORE educators in person. That summer Samantha Winslow from Labor Notes, union-activist media organization, came out to Baltimore to lead an organizing workshop, and five Baltimore educators went to Raleigh, North Carolina, in August for UCORE’s next conference. Leaders describe BMORE’s beginnings as “a lot of slow, but really deep” organizing.

In the fall of 2016 the newly formed BMORE steering committee decided to launch their first campaign—a petition drive to allow absentee voting in BTU elections. That winter, they organized the official BMORE launch party at a local barbecue restaurant, wondering if anyone would even show up. Nearly 70 people did. “We knew then that this type of connection and work was resonating with people,” said Gaber.

Amplifying black leadership and centering racial equity, they stressed, would be at the core of their efforts. They created a closed Facebook group for members, and began holding regular meetings at different schools. By April 2017, they had formally met with their union’s leadership, receiving guidance from Philly’s social-justice caucus on how to approach that conversation. The BTU, they said, was surprisingly receptive to their group.
“Marietta even offered to come to our meetings, but we said no, that’s not how we operate,” said Bacchus. “We’re from the rank-and-file.”

BMORE’s organizing got an unexpected jolt the following winter, with local and national media reports on Baltimore students trapped in freezing classrooms with broken heaters. Some schools never even opened because of malfunctioning boilers, while others sent children home early. BMORE quickly organized and sent a list of demands to the school board and school district CEO, signed by more than 1,500 supporters. The school CEO, Sonja Santelises, wrote BMORE back with gratitude for “fiercely advocating for solutions,” and the school district largely adopted their recommendations. The next month BMORE joined educators in 20 other cities in hosting a Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, demanding things like more culturally competent curriculum and the hiring of more black educators.

Last summer BMORE leaders started discussing running their own candidates in the next union election—something that happens every three years. They decided to team up with another young social-justice group, the Caucus of Educators for Democracy and Equity (CEDE), and run jointly under the banner of The Union We Deserve. Diamonte Brown would run for president, and they’d run additional candidates—including Gaber and Duncan Evans—for the executive board. The Union We Deserve slate would compete against the Progressive Caucus, a slate that included Marietta English and which has held power in the union for years.
The insurgent candidates admit there are some things the BTU already does well. Baltimore teachers have some of the highest salaries in both Maryland and the nation, and their health-care benefits are notably strong. “At a time when people are going on strike over low wages and poor health care, the Progressive Caucus has pushed for even more salary increases and our good health care to get even better,” said Corey Debnam, the Progressive Caucus chair and a Baltimore educator for the last 19 years.

Still, the teachers with The Union We Deserve say they want more than an effective service union, and to prioritize more than just good pay, benefits, and professional development. They want to mobilize teachers into a political force for students and communities—through the ballot box, at the bargaining table, and through direct action.

“I taught American government for nine years, and 6,000 organized voters can really have a big impact on electoral politics when you look at the turnout in some of our races,” said Duncan Evans. Baltimore is a deep-blue city, and in the last Democratic primary for mayor, the winner emerged with less than 2,500 votes.

Whether the new social-justice educators maintain control of the Baltimore Teachers Union will likely be resolved later this month.
Marietta English did not respond to a request for an interview, but sent a statement saying she is glad the American Federation of Teachers is coming to oversee an investigation. “As I have said numerous times, there were egregious violations throughout this campaign process,” she said. “I am confident that this investigation will allow all members to have their voices heard and restore the integrity of our elections.”

Sandra Davis, the chair of the union’s chapter for paraprofessionals and school-related personnel (PSRPs), and a member of the Progressive Caucus, told The Nation that this election is extremely unusual, and that in her 30 years as a Baltimore educator, she’s “never seen anything like this.” If Brown’s presidency is upheld, Brown would serve over a joint-executive board—with the teacher chapter chaired by Duncan Evans, and the PRSP chapter chaired by Davis. “At this point, no one is including us,” said Davis. “We don’t have a clue what’s going on—we’re just in limbo.”

Natalia Bacchus, Corey Gaber, and Cristina Duncan Evans “make it rain” with signed petitions to allow absentee voting in the Baltimore Teachers' Union. (BMORE)

Davis and Debnam said union members contacted them to object to BMORE/CEDE supporters’ canvassing at their homes this past spring. The union’s election guidelines prohibit the BTU from sharing members’ personal contact information, leading some to view the canvassing as a violation of their privacy, even if BMORE/CEDE didn’t get the home addresses from the union itself.
“We have people who are really offended that someone late at night—at 6 or 7 pm—is coming to their home to campaign about an internal election,” Debnam said. “That’s just something we would never do.”

The Progressive Caucus is not just accusing BMORE/CEDE of wrongly canvassing at people’s homes. They also accuse them of illegally campaigning on school grounds. With additional election rules like prohibitions against teachers’ leaving campaign literature in educators’ mailboxes and sending campaign literature on work e-mail accounts, candidates are left with few ways to actually reach prospective voters. Critics say that’s by design, to protect those already in power. Bacchus, who resigned in 2018 and now works with the Teachers’ Democracy Project full-time, said The Union We Deserve’s main goal throughout the campaign was to spread awareness about the upcoming election. “Most teachers don’t even know that every three years there’s an election for BTU leadership,” she said.

BMORE/CEDE, for their part, say the BTU leadership tried to suppress the vote before and during the election, in part by limiting voting hours, removing a voting location, and denying a bulk of absentee ballots. On Election Day, local media also covered complaints from educators who said the ballots on their voting machines were designed in a confusing way, formatted as if to encourage reelecting the incumbents. Debnam of the Progressive Caucus said all candidates had the opportunity to meet with the elections vendor beforehand to see how the ballot would be formatted. “We have no say in how the machine looks, that’s Elections USA, and now there’s this really disturbing narrative that it’s we who have done wrong when in reality we ran a fair and honest campaign,” he said.

Duncan Evans says she isn’t entirely surprised their caucus’s victory is being contested. “The BTU has challenged elections in the past,” she said. “So I certainly knew this was in the realm of possibility.”

BMORE leaders say that if the election results are upheld, then they hope to begin meeting with individual members, to revamp their union website, and to bring full-time organizers on staff.
“I’m looking forward to people understanding more about how a union works, but I think a large part of transparency means us listening,” said Duncan Evans. “This is all long overdue.”

The Borgs: Opposing Unity Caucus is Futile - You Will be Absorbed or Marginalized

So what is do be done? With no organizing goal with the idea of building a counter organization to Unity, what are we left with? Often flailing away and spitting against the wind. Some people love to get spittle in their faces. 

The idea of a real opposition is dead. So what next? Abandon the UFT altogether? Maybe. There are many places to do political and social justice work. Why even bother in the UFT?

There has been a paradigm shift by a number of long-time activists involved in decades of "opposition" to the UFT/Unity Caucus dominance. The state of the union has been a topic of discussion. There is general agreement that the actions of MORE had pretty much decimated hopes of challenging Unity. A faux opposition made up of ideologues with an agenda to use a quasi-caucus as a mechanism to push their ideology will never have a serious impact but will always be a block to forming coalitions.

Some hard conversations about the state of the UFT have been taking place by people I consider as rationalists - mostly on the left -- call it rational leftism. They see the real world, not some idealistic notion. People who spent decades trying to build caucuses and coalitions that could one day challenge the Unity leadership.

I include former opposition who have decided to run with Unity in order to maintain some influence even if vastly diluted. Given the state of the opposition, they felt there was little alternative and didn't want to join the ranters and ravers. I'm not in that camp but don't condemn them for the choices they made. They made a rational decision from their point of view.


Some say they have been Borged - maybe they have.

Maybe I have been Borged when the people running the union seem preferable to some of the people I know who are ostensibly opposition.

You can't sit at UFT Ex Bd meetings and hear all the wonderful things Unity people do and not enter the realm of the Stockholm Syndrome. (a condition which causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity.)

I do see signs even in me when there is no alternate narrative or a group that is serious about analyzing the problems with the Unity leadership and what needs to be done to challenge them.

There are cures -

The rationalists don't connect with the lone wolves bitching and whining on blogs about how bad the union is and why they want to stop paying dues but hide behind anonymity - and use that to cover their own racial attitudes - you know, those poor white guys crying about how bad they have it.

Now don't get me wrong. None of us thought we could ever defeat Unity in an election, especially due to the election rules, the use of retirees and the control over most functional chapters. That would be pie in the sky irrationality - magical thinking.

But we did think that a highly organized group could create a serious challenge at the school levels - to replicate the success in the high schools over the past thirty years - (at least until the 2019 elections when MORE helped blow up even that base. Don't get me started.)

We always felt that we could win the middle schools if we had sources in enough schools. As for the elementary schools, an organized effort at the district level had potential. And once the division levels were won there was an argument to be made that non-teachers were in control of the UFT and that would lead to further challenges. And from 2013-2016, I actually believed there was that potential for MORE to build the kinds of coalitions that could challenge Unity deep into the schools. Stupid and naive me - it became clear that all too many MOREs had no such intention but only wanted to use the guise of a caucus to push their ideology.
 
The 2019 election outcomes proved that point and killed the idea of  imagining a change of leadership in the UFT.

You will still see people blowing  smoke and trying to sell the myth of an opposition.

Beware! They are their own version of The Borg. 

Is there a third way?

We'll explore what may still be possible in a future post --- hint: not much.

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.

Inside the International Socialist Organization’s Dissolution After a Rape Cover-Up

Why did the ISO implode so quickly, especially when the new leadership took many of the right steps to deal with the grenade that was dropped in their laps?

... ISO Leaks, Apr 11

I hope this ISO Leaks person is not taking asyslum in some embassy. Lots of stuff coming in from the left with a lot of insight and providing a deeper understanding for insiders like me as to how ISO operated in MORE.

I've heard long-time leftists wonder why some of the smart people they meet from ISO would chose to be in an organization - in some cases for their entire adults lives (many are recruited in college) which has had the same people on steering committee for 35 years. ISO leaks reports:

As far as anyone knows, the ISO’s last competitive SC election was in 1983 when the group’s founding leaders, Cal and Barbara Winslow, were ousted in an effort driven by the British Socialist Workers Party — then the ISO’s “mothership.” Ahmed Shawki and Sharon Smith were installed in the Winslows’ place on the SC where they (and a handful of close allies like Paul D’Amato) would remain for the next 35 years.

Michael Fiorillo, one of the ICEUFT founders and a life-long independent socialist comments:

it’s the Leninist/Vanguardist thing that’s in their DNA, combined with their bourgeois backgrounds/organizing strategies, which make them incapable/uninterested in actually talking with people who are different from them (as in, working people), the resulting insularity (always an occupational hazard on the Left) and a how-many-revolutionaries-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin kind of scholasticism...

We saw the subversion of democracy in MORE led by the ISO faction which was dominated by white men. Very interesting.

While many left articles give credit for people inside ISO for pushing for reforms, they went along with a top-down fundamentally undemocratic organization which dictated policy from the top which was carried out by the apparatchiks in ISO in their union work which often engaged in attempts to suppress dissent in their caucus work - just as dissent was suppressed in ISO for 4 decades. The leaf doesn't fall far from the tree.

Why is this stuff important? Because the ISO faction in the UFT which has not always been a constant as new people kept showing up as others left, has played a major role in opposition politics. Thus I will be posting many articles and making the links to UFT politics. The refusal to run with other caucuses is directly related to the ISO decision making policy. I will expand in future articles.

ISO Leaks

Apr 11

https://medium.com/@isoleakss/inside-the-international-socialist-organizations-dissolution-after-a-rape-cover-up-b954e354143

Sectarians Connections to UFT current and past history

Sectarianism is circling the drain. Schemes to turn the left into a larger version of a tiny little group of smart alecks are dropping dead. Please stop trying to make it work. And now a moment to reflect on the death of the purest and most successful sectarian of our time, James Robertson, founder of the Spartacist League.

...their [Sparts] arrogance and delight in pissing on their opponents - the old 'political monopoly' fetish that characterized Trotskyism that they made their key ideological feature - was [James Robertson's] gift to the left.

The Sparts consistently have the highest amusement value of any of the sects...

Aren't the Sparts set up and paid just to stir the pot among lefties?

Also, pour one out for the recently departed ISO.

--------Comments on FB on the death of the Spartacists' founder James Robertson.

I've always been on the periphery of the left. Over the decades one of the most sectarian Trotskyist groups has been the Spartacists --- A few were/are still in the UFT at some point but left the Sparts. There has always been some disdain toward Sparts.

There is are some interesting points made about sectarians on the left - and with the breakup of the sectarian ISO (the subject of attacks from the Sparts over the years) in recent weeks, independent leftists have also been posting "good riddance" comments. There may have been a rape but no one died in ISO.

I will continue to focus on the sectarian left because even with the breakup of ISO, the former members still have the same sectarian gene and will bring that to any group they join, especially as they pile into the non-sectarian Democratic Socialists (DSA) and form sectarian blocks. Yes, they also are the major block that intentionally created a split in MORE and took the new DSA people along with them.

I have a lot of stories to tell of the activities of sectarians inside UFT caucuses over 45 years of personal experience. That is one reason there has never been and never will be an effective opposition to Unity Caucus -- not the only reason, but a significant factor. I issue these declarations as a cautionary note to future UFT activists -- I've been fooled a number of times in the past - ICEUFT was formed partially as a block to left sectarianism.

Below is a section of the wiki on James Robertson --- a key note is mention of Max Schachtman a key influence over the founders of the UFT -- his wife Yetta was an advisor to Al Shanker. Yes, Virginia, the UFT was fundamentally founded by people with a deformed Trotskyist mentality - who turned into right wing social democratic neocons.

As you read more about ISO in upcoming posts, you will note the similarities with Unity Caucus and the controls over the UFT they exert.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Robertson_(Trotskyist)?fbclid=IwAR0gu1hDis5vNaVpoo8CQ6uodo
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