Did you see this twisted, deceitful, ad hominem attack on the Unity website? It deserves an exposé showing what fucking liars and manipulators they are. ... UFT retiree Sheila
It is such a mess Norm! I've been thinking a lot about your posts over the years since this all went down. Mulgrew refused to do anything for us and proposed the revote himself! The whole thing felt like begging for a plea deal .... Rank and file therapist no associated with opposition
Melissa Williams, Uncensored: "The game is rigged. It was rigged for two years. We are only now seeing the full force of the abuse of power in a union with one-party rule."
Melissa Williams, shares her experience as chapter leader for occupational and physical therapists under Michael Mulgrew's Unity - the partisan patronage caucus machine that controls UFT leadership.
Friday, August 11, 2023
Unity Caucus is the gift that just keeps giving. It has used its blog to engage in an assault of OT/PT Chapter leader Melissa Williams. Her is her eloquent response explaining the rational for resigning from a chapter that has been divided and undemined by the Unity leadership is below the parody.
The above comment from someone I've known since she was in high school and has never expressed political views on the UFT shows how their assault is backfiring.
Their recent post was exactly as Sheila characterized it: twisted, deceitful, fucking liars and manipulators.
Their attacks remind me of how the actions of Trump help energize the base of the Dems to vote against him. Sheila's reaction is an example. I predict that the Unity attacks on the opposition will have the same effect in future elections because the overwhelming majority of members either don't give a crap about them because they have not led and in fact have allowed working conditions to deteriorate. So their bombast calls for this type of parody - and is so easy to do. I may start a blog just to parody Unity. I will do a deep dive on Melissa's response soon. Note she is visiting family in Korea. I suggested she visit North Korea to get advice on bringing democracy to the One party Unity control of the UFT.
Unity, Caucus of Knifing OT/PT Chapter in the Back
When Unity caucus members were elected to ‘lead’ the UFT they promised to organize with an eye on the 2023 contract.
In the year that has followed the only “organizing” they’ve done is a “vote yes” campaign, with little foresight or strategy. They told people to vote yes and will turn their back on their members when the actual repercussions and consequences of the contract became apparent. Makes one wonder if these so called "leaders" were amplifying the voices of their members or driving their own Unity Caucus agenda regardless of their union members needs.
Case in point:
60% of the OT/PT chapter voted NO on the 2023 contract, as they did in the 2018 contract, rejecting their Unity Chapter Leader's urging them to vote yes. Makes you wonder. Those who cannot lead, don't.
In the 2021 chapter election, the OT/PT voted down this misleadership and elected new leadership.
Nurses, Audiologists, and Supervisors of Nurses and Therapists demanded to be separated from the OT/PT chapter in 2018 and were promised that would be done at an Executive Board meeting in late 2018 but that was not done. They voted yes for the contract but their votes were drowned out by the no votes of the OT/PT chapter. Why were they part of the bargaining unit with the much larger OT/PT chapter in the first place and why was their request to be separated ignored then? Where was democracy for them?
For the 2023 contract, the demands of nurses, audiologists, and supervisors of nurses and therapists found themselves still in the same bargaining unit and facing the same undemocratic process as they did in 2018. Where is the democracy and who is at fault? Clearly, those in Unity Caucus, who claim to lead but cannot do so.
In 2018, there was not a revote but a proper renegotiation of the contract with the DOE which was voted up by the OT/PT chapter in February 2019.
Yet, in 2023, the UFT leadership found an excuse not to renegotiate but instead to overturn the democratic vote of the OT/PT chapter, an unprecedented action. Where was the democracy in that?
What is the difference between 2018 and 2023? The loss of control by Unity of the chapter leadership and a two year assault on the leadership of the chapter by the Unity machine with the goal of using this revote to recapture control of the OT/PT chapter by unprecedented attacks on the current chapter leader.
Unity claims they have received over 1,500 emails from rank and file members of the OT/PT Chapter and other UFT liaisons expressing that they were sold a fake bill of goods from their chapter ‘leadership’. They claim the members of the Chapter, have asked for a revote. Unity has offered no proof other than some expressions of disgruntlement from the minority of YES voters and non-voters. Their virulent campaign will probably result in may of those who voted NO originally to refuse to honor the revote campaign by voting again, thus giving the disgruntled minority their opportunity to reverse a landslide democratic vote.
At the first sign of rough waters Mulgrew abandoned the OT/PT members and is asking them to vote again for the same contract 60% rejected just a month ago.
Seeing that their agenda was not the will of the chapter, UFT President Michael Mulgrew has thrown a tantrum and blamed chapter leader Melissa Williams, taken their renegotiation ball, and gone home by asking for a revote.
Case in point 2:
When Unity led an assault on retiree health care, with thousands of complaints from retirees being forced out of Medicare and into a privatized Medicare, first Emblem and then Aetna, Advantage plan, those pleas were not only ignored, but mocked as fake news. Yet so far a judge has supported the retirees and these nefarious plans to reduce retiree healthcare as a way to save the city money, have come to naught.
Makes one wonder – what’s more important to those in these in the leadership: the members or undermining or the interests of the leadership of our union in kowtowing to the DOE and Mayor Adams?
Makes one wonder – is this how the leadership will handle dealing with management and the membership of our union should they be entrusted with leading it in the future? What will they do when the stakes are higher? Surely they don’t believe that it’s their way or the highway? What kind of democracy is that?
Those who can, lead.
Leadership isn’t for the fragile.
VOTE UNITY OUT IN FUTURE ELECTIONS
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See below the break for the Unity twisted, deceitful, ad hominem attack. I hope I exposed what fucking liars and manipulators they are.
