The stars aligned when CTU members elected Karen Lewis and her CORE slate to power. Lewis stood for genuine union militancy at a time when previous regimes were considered to be sellouts.
I wrote back then that "Lewis's election may have large implications for the Chicago Public Schools. Her politics are significantly to the left of the machine Democrats who run the city and the school system. 'What drives school reform is a single focus on profit. Profit. Not teaching, not learning, profit,' she said in her post-election press conference."
I believed that Lewis would join a long list of union outsiders who quickly became insiders. I was wrong about that. Oh, she almost did, but she learned that her muscular activism filled a niche left empty by Illinois and national teacher union leaders. She may be AFT's most well-known local president. [OVERSHADOWING MULGREW]
We all forgot - including me - that Karen Lewis and her slate were elected in 2010 by less than 60 percent of CTU members in a run-off, after she managed to unify all the opposition against incumbent president Marilyn Stewart. By all accounts, the members and various union factions have all been united behind Lewis during the strike, but some fissures appeared over ending the strike. An NBC-TV affiliate reported some infighting, but even if the story is overblown, the House of Delegates did not meekly acquiesce to Lewis' wishes, and that opposition had to be organized by someone.
----Mike Antonucci, Education Intelligence Agency.I look forward to Mike Antonucci's take at EIA on things even though I often disagree. But the insights deserve a debate. Mike did a number of posts regarding the Chicago strike, some with a little snarkyness.
He also covered the victory of CORE and distinguished them from the Randi Weingarten crew right away. And he gets that Unity Caucus controls the AFT -- I can't tell you how many local and national ed reporters have asked me to explain.
He gets a lot right and when he is wrong he says so. Mike assumes there were some organized forces behind the resistance to agreeing to a settlement at the Sunday House of Delegates meeting. Interesting point. CORE is selling that as allowing democracy to flourish. Maybe CORE is so democratic it allows for internal debate, something that seems outside the pale for people used to reporting about the control exhibited by strong arming union leaderships. (I was hanging with one national ed reporter at an AFT convention who couldn't quite get how CORE could have its people running both with and against Randi's caucus.)
I do want to remind everyone that of the last 4 Chicago elections since 2001 only one incumbent was elected (Marilyn Stewart in 2007). Remember there were 5 caucuses in 2010. With former reformist president Debbie Lynch retired where does that leave her caucus? What about the Unity-like UPC that CORE defeated? And the offshoots of that caucus? Debbie Lynch lost her 2004 re-election partly due to a much-criticized contract in 2003 by the very people in the UPC who had been signing sweetheart contracts. Would you be surprised to see the UPC remnants that had cooperated with the deformers swing into attack on CORE for not getting enough in the contract?
And I will make this point again and again: every ed deformer and maybe even AFT people want CORE out. Would you be surprised to see a Student First/DFER supported group pop up with loads of money to undermine CORE?
I've had these EIA reports saved for a few weeks but thought it worth sharing, especially since anti-Randi people have been pushing the idea of Karen challenging Randi for AFT president (no way). So let's tackle this one first with this post from Mike's Intercepts.
