New Action: No Action on Social Justice, But Lots of Talk

New Action claims that "action" is talking about something. They were the "first to call" and sometimes they "repeatedly call" for action, as if "calling" is action.  Hey, I call for world peace. I'll wait a few minutes to check if it worked. Maybe I should try doing it repeatedly.-- Ed Notes

I recall members of New Action enthusiastically supporting the creation of the UFT Charter School.  I was alone in my negative vote. I oppose charter schools and so does MORE because they take precious public resources away from the public schools. -- James Eterno, ICE blog

I can't tell you how much glee the MOREs are having with these New Action posts: The crew that actually MADE a movie defending public education and teacher unions. Or the crew that has not only "repeatedly called" for people to go to closing school and charter co-locos and PEP meetings, but ACTUALLY went and spoke and leafleted.

If you haven't read it yet see my post from yesterday with links to wonderful NYC Educator posts.

New Action Seeks Free Pass on Mulgrew Endorsement While Giving Cover to Unity on Lack of Democracy

The funniest is their claims on mayoral control when ICE took on that issue in the process of formation in 2003 because no other caucus even mentioned it. And I will point out that Ed Notes went after Randi for supporting it as far back as pre-ICE 2001, as James Eterno points out on the ICE blog today.

I was sitting behind James when Randi raised it at a May or June 2001 meeting and I watched NA dictator Mike Shulman run around to the NA Ex Bd members telling them not to oppose it (according to one NA EB member at the time) because Randi would be mad at them. I was yelling in the ear of James and NA's Bob Dehler, who turned around and told me how good mayoral control would be.

Here is James today on the ICE blog on mayoral control:

New Action states that they have opposed mayoral control from the start.  I remember it a little differently. While on the UFT Executive Board, I seem to recall the subject of mayoral control first came up around 2001.  The Unity majority brought forward a school governance recommendation that supported giving the mayor the majority control over the Board of Education.
Norm Scott showed up at the Executive Board and schooled me quickly on how it would be a disaster. Chicago was already ahead of New York on mayoral dictatorship; there were already horrible consequences for teachers and students.  I spoke up and voted against supporting mayoral control that night but I don't remember some of the other NAC members of the Executive Board voting with me. NAC had no position on the subject at the time. {James doesn't remember but NA member Bob Dehler turned to me at that point and said mayoral control is a good idea. --Norm} 

I also recall members of New Action enthusiastically supporting the creation of the UFT Charter School.  I was alone in my negative vote. I oppose charter schools and so does MORE because they take precious public resources away from the public schools.

I'm glad James brought up the enthusiastic support New Action gave to the UFT charter co-location of 2 public schools -- and note that issue is absent from their literature, probably because Mulgrew told them that was a no-no. ICE took a strong and immediate stand against the UFT Charter with Michael Fiorillo leading the way at the DA.


James and MORE and ICE members Lisa North, who left New Action to form ICE in 2003 after their dirty deal with Unity, and Gloria Brandman take apart the New Action claims at the ICE blog. James starts it off.

AN INSIDE LOOK AT NEW ACTION CLAIMS

New Action is supporting Michael Mulgrew for President in the UFT election. Ballots will be mailed today so now it is up to members to decide who will lead our union. The only caucus running an opposing presidential candidate is the Movement for Rank and File Educators (MORE).  MORE is running Julie Cavanagh for UFT President as most readers of this blog already know. This blog endorses Cavanagh/MORE.
Unity and New action are the two longest running caucuses (political parties) in the UFT.  Unity has run the UFT for five decades.  New Action opposed Unity for years.  I was a member of New Action from 1995 to 2003.  I was elected to the UFT Executive Board three times while in NAC. 

In those days they were a genuine opposition group that actually ran a candidate for UFT President.

When I was a new Chapter Leader in 1996, NAC co-chair Michael Shulman spent a great deal of time teaching me about the job and was a valuable resource as was NAC's Ellen Fox.  Therefore, it was very painful to leave NAC in 2003 after they decided not to oppose Unity's Randi Weingarten for UFT President, but it was necessary. Camille Eterno, Ellen Fox, Lisa North, Chris Ash and others have not looked back since we defected although I do miss my New Action friends.

New Action in its current form basically exists to confuse members into thinking they are still the main opposition group within the UFT.  They put out literature that looks critical of the leadership but they do not run against President Mulgrew; instead they endorse him.  In exchange they are given ten candidates for the UFT Executive Board that the majority Unity Caucus is cross endorsing so they are pretty much assured of victory.  NAC maintains this arrangement gives them a voice inside the UFT much like the Unity leaders say they have a voice at the table with Bill Gates and others. What good does that do us?

NYC Educator correctly points out that supporting the other party's candidate for president would be akin to the Democrats in 2004 saying they are the main opposition party and then supporting Republican George W Bush for president.  You wouldn't think that is much of an opposition, would you?

NAC is running for these seats and others based on their record.  However, a look at that record shows that some of what New Action is taking credit for is a little far fetched.

Currently, New Action is making many claims in their literature where they take credit for their accomplishments within the  UFT. Former NAC member (now running with MORE) Lisa North comments on what they do.

I'll interrupt James for a second. Lisa and Gloria have worked with the UFT social justice committee and pushed for many of the issues NA is trying to take credit for. I always told them not to waste their time there because NA would take credit for all the work they did. And so it has come to pass. But they are so socially conscious that won't stop them.


On the disappearing black and Latino educator, every activist in the city knows that ICE founding member and current MORE member Sean Ahern has been the leading voice on this issue since the issue first emerged. As a matter of fact I'm not sure the issue would have emerged if not for the work of Sean.

Defense of the Puerto Rican teachers
Give me a break on this. Angel Gonzalez who is as close as anyone can be to Rafael Feliciano who led the PR teachers, came to ICE, not NA for help in putting the issue before the DA (that's how I met him). And we supported him on the blog and at the DA. See if NA was writing about this issue in 2007 and 2008. In fact, Ed Notes was writing about the Puerto Rico teacher story and their withdrawal from the AFT all along. (Angel then joined ICE and he and I and a few others founded what became GEM in Jan. 2009.)


Stop and frisk
ICE/MORE's Jeff Kaufman, a former cop and lawyer, has been an activist in opposing Stop and Frisk, along with James Eterno's brother John, also a former policeman. They speak all over the state on this issue. MORE took an early stand on this issue and MORE people have worked with and supported the amazing work Teachers Unite does on so many related issues.

On the anti-war issue
Gloria and Lisa were the key people in keeping this flame alive and ran the UFTers to Oppose the War listserve since its founding. 

Well, I'll let James, Lisa and Gloria continue (and my message to Gloria is: these guys are the enemies of union reform and prove it every day.)

"While it's true that NAC proposes some resolutions on important issues at Executive Board meetings, they do little or NO organizing!  It was MORE people who held meetings, sent emails, had rallies, circulated petitions, passed out fliers, contacted other community groups for support, etc. New Action is just like UNITY....pass a resolution and DO NO ACTION to organize to make a real change happen.  

 

Gloria Brandman sits on the UFT Social Justice Committee along with Lisa North.  Here is her critique (in italics) of New Action:

New Actions says they are: The only caucus to repeatedly call for action on the disappearing Black and Latino educators-   

Reality: This issue was originally brought to the Social and Economic Justice Committee (which is co chaired by a NAC and a UNITY person) by MORE's Sean Ahearn with support from Lisa and Gloria, Sean and other MORE people. Teachers Unite, and CPE worked on this issue even before it was brought to the UFT.

New Action says they initiated a resolution in Support of Puerto Rican Teachers Federation Leadership- 

Reality: Not sure if this is true but whenever Rafael Feliciano who was the President of the PRTF came to NYC, he spoke at many events in NYC, none of them organized by anyone in NAC.  It was GEM (Grassroots Education Movement) people who took leadership in supporting the PR Teachers and members of GEM who organized speaking engagements, forums  and fundraising events for  President Feliciano.

{IT IS TRUE GLORIA}

New Action says they called on UFT to support the April 9, 2011 anti-war demonstration. 

 

The Whole Story: This is positive but resolutions without actions do little to make change. It was members of ICE who are now MORE members that formed UFTers to Stop the War. UFTers to Stop the War brought anti-war resolutions to the DA as well as worked to make sure all high schools had information about opting out of military recruitment. NAC supported some of this work, but they did not do the organizing to bring any of it about. It was MORE people! And for the anti-war demonstration in Washington, DC on Jan 27, 2007 it was MORE members who requested and got the UFT to provide two buses, and Lisa and Gloria were the bus captains on the buses. One or two NACs may have attended as well. 

New Action says they achieved: 

 

Bipartisan Social and Economic Justice Committee passes rent control resolution
Bipartisan Social and Economic Justice Committee gets resolution passed  on Reducing the Environmental Footprint. Calls for an end to plastic bottles at UFT and for recycling bins. 

Reality: Not Bipartisan- There were people from three different caucuses at these meetings. 

(Bipartisan =including members from two parties or factions) I will say that getting rid of the plastic bottles at the DA is probably the most concrete and successful  action that has come about due to this committee!  

New Action says they exposed SESIS as a “nightmare.” Called for help for our members. 

Exactly how did they expose this? Most of them have never even seen SESIS as they are retired.

New Action says they won bipartisan support in solidarity with Chicago teachers

 
The Whole Story: It was MORE that brought teachers from Chicago here, wrote and circulated petitions, organized and participated in meetings, rallies and a march that started in Union Square.

New Action asks the UFT to join NAACP suit on selective school entrance exams
MORE actually proposed a resolution at the DA which was combined with the Executive Board's resolution and approved

New Action called for support for Seattle teachers who refused to administer standardized tests.
The Whole story: It was a MORE member who brought a resolution to DA.  it was combined with the Executive Board's resolution and approved

Back to James.

One final point: New Action met with some people from MORE last fall and NAC says there was an agreement that MORE would not attack them.  Kit Wainer from MORE was at that meeting and says no such agreement was ever made.  I know Kit and I will stand up 100% for his integrity.  I will be diplomatic and say that apparently there was a misunderstanding.

I am not so kind. They are lying skunks, and I hate to insult skunks.

Now here is the New Action attack on MORE's claim to be the social justice caucus of the UFT.

The Social Justice Caucus? Action vs Words

Published March 25, 2013

MORE Coalition- The Social Justice Caucus?

The MORE group has highlighted their commitment to fight for social justice in recent election material. They call themselves the social justice caucus.

On the other hand it is noteworthy that New Action/UFT has been in the forefront of the struggle for a non-racist, just society. While focusing on all the issues affecting educators in the schools, from the attack on veteran teachers, the attack on probationary teachers, the insanity of SESIS, abusive administrators, the fixation on standardized tests, and blaming educators for all the problems of the education system–New Action has taken action on ALL of the following–

The first to call for disaster relief for Haiti
The first to call for justice for Trayvon Martin
The first to call for an end to Stop and Frisk
The first to call for the defeat of Mike Bloomberg and support for Bill Thompson
The first to call for the defense of the fired leadership of the Puerto Rican teachers
The only caucus to repeatedly call for action on the disappearing Black and Latino educators
The only caucus to petition to end mayoral control
The first caucus to pass a resolution against gun violence
And New Action spoke up for organizing home care providers

MORE would like to have a record to match New Action but it’s not there yet. 

When the MORE coalition matches its actions with its rhetoric–maybe then it can wear the mantle of the social justice caucus!

 Let me just add one more thing.

Among the lies and misdirection from New Action, there is purposely calling MORE a "coalition" instead of a "caucus", a word branded all over everything MORE does, from the blog to the email to every single leaflet.

Why? Because a coalition is a group of groups, a notably unstable and often temporary alliance, which is the impression New Action is trying to give. about MORE. MORE is a caucus where individuals but not all members from many groups have joined.

There is an important difference and New Action, which itself formed as a caucus, not as a coalition between Teachers Action Caucus and New Directions where both those groups disappeared as entities. (TJC has disappeared and while ICE continues as a discussion group most ICEers are working inside MORE.)

Note that TAC was formed out of  Teachers for Community Control after the 1968 strike --- and where has that idea gone with New Action? They want to end Mayoral control but say precious little about local control. Some social justice caucus. And a reason why Ira Goldfine in my post yesterday pointed to how the early leaders of TAC who opened up schools in 1968 must be turning over in their graves.

New Action Seeks Free Pass on Mulgrew Endorsement While Giving Cover to Unity on Lack of Democracy

It's pretty obvious that New Action is independent of Unity...... Unity and New Action are running independent slates, but have cross-endorsed several candidates. Among the at-large seats, Unity has cross-endorsed 7 New Action candidates. They will appear on the ballot as New Action/Unity. And in the high school division New Action has 3 candidates cross-endorsed by Unity, and Unity has 4 candidates cross-endorsed by New Action. In addition, New Action cross-endorsed Michael Mulgrew for President.
---- Jonathan Halabi, New Action Chair

How does New Action look at themselves in the mirror? Ann Filardo (former TAC* Pres candidate) would turn over in her grave if she saw what Shulman is doing. I'd rather go with Unity than this scum..... Ira Goldfine, retired teacher, former coordinator of Coalition of School Worker election campaigns along with Teachers Action Caucus in the 70s and 80s. {*TAC is one of the 2 groups that merged in 1990 to form NA and Shulman came from TAC.}

It's oh so "obvious" that New Action is independent, it can blow your mind. It did NYC Educator's today.

Let's see -- Halabi claims independence from Unity while being dependent on Unity to win ANY ex bd seats. Does that work for you?

New Action is in a tither over the fact that MORE has linked them to Unity Caucus despite the fact that 10 New Action candidates are running on the Unity line, the only way they can win any executive board seats, thus giving Unity cover over the fundamental lack of democracy. Unity controls 100% of the executive board.

As example: in the 2010 election ICE-TJC received 1360 high school votes while New Action alone got 750 but since their candidates also ran on Unity they added the 2600 votes from the Unity coat tails.

By the way, if New Action had renounced its dependency on Unity this time and considered running a joint campaign with MORE I have no doubt we could have won a bunch of Ex Bd seats but New Action wants no MORE person on the EB as much as Unity doesn't.

[In a dream sequence, both New Action and Unity high school vote totals fall below 3000 and MORE breaks 3000 to beat them both -- hey gang, there are 19000 high school teacher votes out there -- get them out for MORE and make NA and Unity eat crow.]

In an email to the New Action troops, Halabi made this laughable comment:

MORE has shifted its campaign - from attacking Unity to attacking Unity/New Action. We weren't really expecting this, but it's not a great surprise either. (Even though they assured us a few months ago that they would not do this).  Looks like they panicked when they saw how widely our literature had gotten out. 

This is so funny. In fact MORE has barely mentioned New Action while they have used this occasion to attack MORE, which is a threat to their phony attempt to appear to be an opposition while being used by Unity to create confusion amongst the voters who are not aware of New Action's dirty deal with them. New Action having been around for 23 years may still carry some weight while the year old MORE is in the process of branding itself. Watch the MORE action and No Action over the next few years to see which group actually does stuff. (Have you EVER seen a No Action presence at a PEP meeting?)
  
I'll deal with their lie about MORE assuring it would give them a free pass --- did they think for a minute I and other ICEers would allow that? But they were worried Ed Notes would go after them and figured the MOREs had corralled me, something they never would or never could do. In fact, NYC Educator, not a MORE member or candidate, has done a much better job on exposing New Action than I have. See today's great post:  UFT's Fake Opposition Hates Being Called Fake Opposition.  Also see Neutered Action.

They are crying on their blog that Kit Wainer cannot control bloggers like NYC and me. Boo-hoo.
 
Is MORE in a state of panic over NA's distribution of literature? MORE has bigger fish to fry. NA always gets their literature out since they are massively loaded with retirees who spend an enormous amount of time going to schools, plus there is some evidence that Unity district reps are "assisting" especially in schools with MORE people running.

One way I know that MORE is far ahead of where ICE was in 2010 is that ICE retirees did so much of the distribution while this time I relatively have little to do other than picking up from the printer and delivering to distribution points. Meaning: we finally have many more activists in the schools than retirees doing this scut work.

When I was at the drawing of candidate ballot positions as a MORE rep with Unity's Bob Astrowsky -- one of my favorite Unity people -- (Shulman from NA didn't show) I was shocked to see how many retirees NA had to use to fill its Exec Board at large slate. In MORE we could have run without any retirees on the 48 member EB at large slate and only included the 5 or 6 retirees who were most active in MORE. In fact New Action could not fill the 19 slots on the functional EB and only filled 12. That was because they had to use their retirees to fill the at large EB positions. In addition, NA could fill only 10 of the 12 officer positions. (MORE filled 11 out of 12, the only seat we didn't fill since it is for a non DOE employee and would have meant someone like a charter school teacher running -- we have one in MORE but it wasn't the time.)

I know, this is arcane useless stuff for many people but it indicated the weakening condition of NA and the threat that MORE presents to them even more than to Unity. Until NA is totally irrelevant, an opposition will not be able to get traction in an election. I just have to convince my fellow MOREs of that.

Halabi continued: 

We haven't responded, at least not yet. We don't think too many people will be fooled.  It's pretty obvious that New Action is independent of Unity, supports them when they are right, opposes them when they are wrong, and tries to point them in the right direction when they are in between. 

Love that "pointing them in the right direction" thing. Like Mulgrew gives a crap about anything they say, knowing full well they have no where else to go. What I think is that some people will be fooled by the New Action phony attempt to present itself as independent of Unity when as I've shown they are totally dependent on Unity to win ANY exec Bd seats. Really, there comes a time when Halabi should hang his head in shame.

Now note this little cutesy point from Halabi:

The UFT Executive Board is up for election. TJC is dissolved into GEM into MORE and ICE is supporting MORE also (that’s a lot of names for one
caucus, er coalitioner whatever.)

er - next time you see Halabi ask him when the next New Action open meeting is taking place. Have you ever even heard of a New Action meeting? While MORE has struggled in monthly open meetings (which some New Action people have attended) to create a democratic organization the antithesis of Unity, New Action has endorsed in spades Unity's continuous violation of democratic principles in every aspect of the union. And functions not much differently than Unity. [Thus note the outrage above of my pal Ira Goldfine].

Here Halabi he saves the coup de grace for last.

Unity and New Action are running independent slates, but have cross-endorsed several candidates. Among the at-large seats, Unity has cross-endorsed 7 New Action candidates. They will appear on the ballot as New Action/Unity. And in the high school division New Action has 3 candidates cross-endorsed by Unity, and Unity has 4 candidates cross-endorsed by New Action. In addition, New Action cross-endorsed Michael Mulgrew for President.

Ooooh! IN ADDITION. An afterthought of sorts. Shhhh, don't tell anyone.

Given all this and the fact that the majority of teachers have no idea of what MORE or even New Action is about -- they would have to read deep into the NA lit to find they support Mulgrew, a number of anti-Unity people will be fooled into voting NA and giving Mulgrew another vote without intending to.

We will all be in the same room watching the results on April 25. I'll bring my NA repellent.

In a future post I'll take on the NA claims of being first in everything -- like did they forget that ICE ran against them and Unity in 2004 over the mayoral control issue? And ICE was first on testing? Jezz, they are like the FOX Faux News.

Corrected: Whither New Action: Mulgrew Tops New Action Slate as 10 NA Candidates Run on Unity Slate, Including 2 co-chairs Shulman and Halabi

Historical correction sent in by Ira Goldfine:

In 1977 and 1979 we ran together with TAC and we called ourselves UNITED FIGHTBACK - in 1981 we formed NAC (the N for New Directions, A for Teachers Action Caucus and C for the Coalition of NYC Schoolworkers) and ran a full slate of 675 people with Pessin as the presidential candidate. We took nearly 30% of the total vote and over 35% excluding the functional chapter.

You won't see these facts stated anywhere in New Action literature as they play their
decade-old assigned role of trying to confuse UFT members into voting for them and dividing the forces opposed to Unity. It always wasn't this way.

From 1990-2001, New Action which formed as a result of the merger of two caucuses (Teachers Action Caucus and New Directions*), was the major voice of the opposition, not always the strongest voice (as Ed Notes began pointing out when I started publishing in 1997) but the major place people opposed to Unity were able to go. They were able to garner over 10,000 votes and win the 6 or 7 (depending on the year) high school executive board seats in every election except one during those years. In 1991 they also won 6 middle school seats, thus giving them 13 EB seats, the most an opposition in the UFT has ever had.

It was directly due to this challenge that Unity, after beating back NA in 1993 when Unity regained 100% of the EB, took the opportunity to remove the divisional vice presidents from being voted on by the members of the division to make sure the opposition never gets to be one of the 11 officers (now known as the AdCom). In other words, if the high school teachers voted NA the HS VEEP would still be Unity. Which is exactly what happened in the 1995, 97, 99 and 2001 elections.

Then Randi, in what is perhaps her most brilliant move, made an offer to New Action which was worried about losing the high school seats in the 2004 elections (Unity pushed through a change from 2 to 3 year terms). She would not run ANY Unity candidates for those seats if NA wouldn't run anyone for president against her.

New Action bit and thus was born a collaboration that has turned NA into a shell of what it once was (check the vote totals as they dropped to an afterthought over the past decade.)

But proving the old adage that lemonade can be made out of lemons, the actions of NA spurred 2 other groups into action. Readers and supporters of Ed Notes, which had been critical of New Action for its tepid role as an opposition even before they did the dirty deal, formed the Independent Community of Educators (ICE-- one of the major forces behind MORE today). They were joined by key defectors from New Action: James and Camille Eterno, Ellen Fox and Lisa North. ICE, founded in late 2003 and just a month old, decided to run a slate in the 2004 elections.

Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC), a decade old advocacy group in the UFT, also decided to run for the first time in the 2004 elections. Both groups ran a joint slate for the high schools directly opposing the New Action slate, which without Unity running at all for these 6 seats, assumed they would win. New Action didn't, which pissed Randi off to no end.

The ICE-TJC slate won those seats and put people like James Eterno and Jeff Kaufman on the Ex Bd. For James it was a continuation of his years as the NA rep but now combined with Kaufman, the two of them raised hell with the Unity agenda, challenging them in a way they had not been before. One can imagine how people like NA dictator Mike Shulman felt sitting and stewing at EB meetings watching James and Jeff do their thing. And plotting with Unity how they could remove these thorns in both their sides.

And remove them they did in the 2007 and 2010 elections when they made sure a mix of New Action and Unity controlled the high school seats by running 3 from each caucus on both the Unity and New Action slates. In addition, New Action was given 5 more EB seats at large, including Shulman, who as a retiree finally made it on to the board.

In both elections, ICE-TJC almost doubled the NA high school vote but when their totals were added to the Unity total that shut out ICE-TJC which got no seats on the board.

A look at the 2010 HS slate voting totals: Unity 2600, ICE-TJC 1350, NA 750. A total of roughly 5000 votes out of a potential of almost 20,000.

In the 2013 elections with the rise of MORE, Unity needed New Action more than ever and has rewarded them with 10 EB seats. Thus if you look at the ballot you will see 10 New Action (and 4 Unity, including Mulgrew) running on both slates.

When you see your ballot you will notice that there are only 2 presidential candidates. Julie Cavanagh for MORE and Mulgrew with Unity/New Action next to his name. Thus there are only 2 real choices in this election, not 3.

And if you are a high school teacher you will see an interesting mix of EB candidates for your division. 7 MORE people and 7 mixed New Action and Unity. These are winnable seats if high school teachers come out to vote and vote for MORE, thus giving a real opposition a beach head in the exec bd. Thus it is crucial to get out the vote from the 25-27% in the last election which would give MORE a chance to defeat the NA/Unity combo.

In an upcoming post I will tell you about these 7 MORE people.

-----

*A history of the roots of New Action: Teachers Action Caucus (TAC) and New Directions (ND)

In 1990 the 2 major caucuses in the UFT merged into one caucus with a lot of promise.

TAC was founded in 1968 as an outgrowth of Teachers for Community Control (TCC), which consisted of people who had been associated with the old left Teachers Union which had disbanded in 1964 after suffering from years of persecution from the Board of Education over their ties to the Communist Party. (The very founding of the UFT was part of this anti-left push, but that's for another time.) TCC supported the community against the 1968 UFT strike and when they formed TAC they were branded scabs for many years by the UFT. Despite that they ran campaigns in UFT elections and found a following among teachers on the left, many of whom entered the system in the late 60s. Some were with what was termed the "New Left" and internally there were struggles between what was termed the "Stalinist pro-Soviet" old left and the mostly Trotskyist New Left.

As a non-leftist I entered into this world in the fall of 1970 in my 4th year of teaching. I was associated with a group of left-oriented people who were in neither camp but willing to build alliances. We tried initially with TAC but found that organization locked in its own narrow frame of politics and could make no headway moving policy changes. So we left and formed not another caucus but an advocacy group called the Coalition of NYC School Workers. We had no intention of running in elections but spent a lot of time analyzing and writing on policy and we attracted a large group of followers, including many from the New Left/Trotskyist groups who had no where else to go even if they were unhappy with some of the direction we were heading in.

Sometime in late 1975/early 1976 they split the CSW in half and formed New Directions which was aimed at running a slate in the 1977 UFT elections directly against Unity and TAC. We were adamantly opposed to doing that and formed an alliance with TAC to run together in the 77 elections. I believe we called ourselves New Action Caucus. ND ran its own course, but in some irony they threw out the Trotskyists that had fomented the split from us. (The trots formed a new group that never was a caucus that was called "Chalk Dust" and it lasted until the late 80s.)

It wasn't until around 1980 that New Directions began to join with us to run in elections throughout the 80s, even winning the high school vice president seat for Mike Shulman in 1985, an event that shook Unity. (Some irony here and an entire story how Unity sued themselves that the election was unfairly run and forcing another election, thus keeping Shulman from being seated for almost a year).


Sometime after that, ND had another purge, tossing out their leader Marc Pessin (I could write a book on him) who was apparently obstructing a move to merge with TAC, which had been a bitter enemy and would never have joined with ND as long as he was involved. ND had moved steadily to the right in a sense in that it ignored almost all social issues. Which was interesting and seemed to pave the way for a merger between the old left TAC which had been branded as scabs for breaking the 68 strike and more right ND.

The idea of Unity making a deal with anything to do with TAC was inconceivable until both Shanker and Feldman were out of the picture given their history of ani-communism. Even people like me were preferable and I had quite a few conversations with some of the upper echelon Unity people who loved my critiques of New Action, who they considered spineless. And so they turned out to be.

When Randi made the deal with New Action in 2003 there was just a bit of churning and turning in the graves of the old UFT right wing social democrats. The old guard was not happy, but there was such turnover in Unity, there was no real resistance.

The Ultimate Sellout: New Action Election Flyer Doesn't Report That Mulgrew Heads Ticket

They tell you what they oppose in Unity policy without telling you that Mulgrew is running on the New Action and Unity line and that 10 of their candidates are running for the Exec Bd on the Unity line in addition to New Action, which guarantees them those seats. So if Unity said NO to the New Action claims, why are they running Mulgrew as their presidential candidate?

New Action was an enthusiastic supporter of the UFT charter school -- except for current MORE candidate for UFT Exec Bd James Eterno, who when he was with NA on the Exec Bd was the only one to vote against the UFT charter, for which he got yelled at by Randi.

New Action Attempts to Distort Reality

New Action in their mailer to chapter leaders made references that they were ONLY opposition caucus. Every reporter talking to MORE people have said that Mulgrew/Unity/UFT have refused to discuss or give a comment on MORE or the election. We wondered what their strategy would be. Mostly, they are just trying to pretend that we do not exist.
--- a MORE member

In the UFT elections members will see three caucuses on the ballot but only have a choice of 2 presidential candidates since New Action is endorsing Mulgrew, claiming if they win he would be a better president than he would if Unity wins. You really can't make this stuff up.

Last spring Halabi contacted a MORE member asking for sit-down between MORE and New Action and such a meeting did occur in the fall. It seems he has amnesia/

Gotham linked to a JD2718 blog post where he discusses James Eterno's recent blog post with these comments:

James Eterno, a leader of the ICE caucus,...I don’t usually link an opponent caucus (I support New Action), but James’ speech, on the ICE blog, is worth reading.

James is a leader of the MORE caucus and is running for high school executive board in which he would replace Halabi if MORE wins those seats. But why not use a little distortion, which is New Action's purpose -- toe confuse UFT members. ICE has done nothing as an oranization at any UFT event in years while MORE has been incredibly active.

I left this comment at Gotham:

Is Gotham joining the JD2718 and New Action/Unity attempt to blot out the existence of MORE, (certainly John Gambling recognized MORE in his interview with Julie Cavanagh -- and note no Gotham mention --- listen to the interview to see MORE is real -- http://www.wor710.com/player/?mid=22943474&station=WOR-AM&program_id=johngambling.xml&program_name=podcast)

Really, if Gotham is going to link it should do some basic fact checking. Maybe tell JD2718 that ICE is no longer a caucus as he claims in his post. But then again he must have forgot that months ago he as a leader of New Action requested a meeting between New Action and -- what is that new caucus again -- oh yes, MORE. Amnesia must be at fault given that it has been blasted all over the place that ICE, TJC, NYCORE, GEM and others have all come together to form MORE.

But why give any credence to a real rival to his caucus, New Action, which will be endorsing some guy named Michael Mulgrew in the upcoming UFT elections in exchange for some guaranteed seats on the UFT exec bd, thus leaving UFT members with 2 choices for president: Julie Cavanagh or Michael Mulgrew. A vote for New Action will be a vote for Mulgrew. The choice is obvious -- except to JD2718 and other New Action members, even though some of whom have cast their lot with MORE in this election. Guess the message didn't filter up the New Action food chain. Or more likely an intentional attempt to distort reality. Too bad Gotham goes along with this sham.

Does internal union democracy help organizing efforts? What to tell charter school Teachers being organized by the UFT/AFT?

Leo Casey, who threw around terms like "Trotsky" and "Rosa Luxemberg" in his usual red-baiting attempts to taint those who disagree with the UFT leadership, is possibly the single most intellectually dishonest person in their entire operation - and even his colleagues know it.

Lack of UFT/AFT democracy will retard charter school organizing

I attended a Left Forum panel headed by Leo Casey last Saturday where he and and an AFT charter school organizer talked about how essential it is to organize charter school teachers. I agree. But left unsaid was the Godzilla in the room: what do you say to charter school teachers about the state of democracy, or lack thereof, in the UFT/AFT?

I won't go into the gory details here. But I will say that Leo's fellow panelists congratulated him for sitting through the assault those of us in the opposition put him through. They loved the debate. But where is that same debate taking place within the halls of the UFT? Not at the highest level, the AdCom. Not at the Executive Board where every single member (including the 8 New Action) were endorsed by Unity. And certainly not at the Delegate Assembly.

And not in most of the schools that are controlled by Unity Caucus chapter leaders (see the signs of how some district reps are attempting to undermine Fight Back Friday because they perceive the organizing efforts of GEM, NYCORE and Teachers Unite as a threat. (Isn't it interesting that the "official" caucuses ICE and TJC have laid back on this even though many of the individual members are involved?)

But then again, Leo Casey, who threw around terms like "Trotsky" and "Rosa Luxemberg" in his usual red-baiting attempts to taint those who disagree with the UFT leadership, is possibly the single most intellectually dishonest person in their entire operation - and even his colleagues know it.

So it was with some interest that I came across this item at Gotham:

The Times’ labor reporter is taking questions about unions and labor law. (City Room)

With this excerpt from Steven Greenhouse:

Does internal union democracy help organizing efforts? 

There are those who, perhaps with a cynical view of life, contend that internal union democracy hurts unionizing efforts because one needs a tough, forceful union leader, perhaps like Jimmy Hoffa, to take charge and push people to organize. But I disagree. I think internal union democracy is needed to show potential union members that unions are democratic, responsive organizations, that they listen to union members and their wants and needs. Besides, internal union democracy is vital to help stamp out union corruption. Repeated eruptions of union corruption have badly embarrassed the labor movement and of course made it harder for unions to recruit new members.

So, yes, I support the idea of organizing charter school teachers. But the UFT/AFT efforts will go nowhere until the leadership democratizes the union. See the ICE 2010 platform for a list of 16 suggested reforms. (It could be 50). Part VI: For a militant, progressive, democratic UFT

Oh, and it would really be nice to see New Action, once the major voice in calling for a more democratic union, come back to their roots. But then again, that might jeapardize their seats on the Executive Board, which is precisely our point as to why the UFT/Unity Caucus is a one party system in control for 50 years.

Now just watch the Unity slugs claim I should just be quiet because the charter school operators and ed deformers will use the undemocratic nature of the UFT/AFT to defeat organizing efforts. I even noted that E4E made these points on TV.

So, the answer is in this Feb. 18 Ed Notes blog:  
Mr. Mulgrew, Tear Down This Wall



AFTER BURN: THE RIGHT SAYS WE HAVE THE HIGHEST CORP TAXES IN THE WORLD. WHAT WORLD ARE THEY LIVING IN?

But Nobody Pays That
G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether
By DAVID
KOCIENIEWSKI<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/david_kocieniewski/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
Published: March 24, 2011

General
Electric<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/general_electric_company/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,

the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1
billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2
billion.

UFT Election Back Stories

Gotham Schools' Anna Philips has a report on the upcoming UFT elections (ballots go out March 7 and must be returned by April 6 - count is April 7 and is open to UFT members). I left a comment.

The reason Randi got 74% in her first election was that New Action, the main opposition at the time, was still a force and able to pull a quarter of the votes. Now they have sunk to below 10%, with many of those coming from retirees.

For a comparison of voting patterns over the lst few elections, see a spreadsheet we prepared 3 years ago at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pgxRf3gM4qtyBFmTshSW1fQ&hl=en

You wiil note that Randi's % dropped in 2007, but her vote total really dropped from 42,000 to 35,000 between 2004 and 2007 while the number of retirees voting for Unity remained constant at over 18,000 votes. Can it be that half if Unity's votes come from retirees? It's late and my eyes are bleary. But here's the skinny on the HS vote.

Elaborating on the high school executive board seats and why they are up for contention:

First of all, our 6 great candidates.

From ICE
Arthur Goldstein, CL of Francis Lewis HS, who you all know very well from his writings on Gotham.

Michael Fiorillo, former CL and current delegate from Newcomers HS who has also commented very astutely on many issues at Gotham.

John Lawhead, CL of Tilden, a soon to be closed school. John used to be at Bushwick HS which also was closed, so he is an expert on the politics of closing schools. He is also has been an expert on the high stakes testing issue for many years and has taught many of us in ICE the implications of the high stakes testing game.

From TJC
Kit Wainer, CL from Leon Goldstein HS, who headed the ICE-TJC slate in 2007. Kit has been a long-time activist and is one of the founders of TJC.

Marian Swerdlow, FDR HS, also a long-time activist in UFT politics and a former delegate.

Peter Lamphere, CL of Bronx HS of Science, who has been active for many years.

Some facts about this particular piece of the election

These 6 high school seats have been Unity's problem for over 20 years (the high school vote always split around 50/50), as they consistently lost them to the opposition, which used to be New Action.

But in 2003/4 New Action started making deals with Randi - they wouldn't run against her if she wouldn't run Unity candidates for these 6 seats, thus ceding them to New Action. Many New Action members also got part-time jobs at the UFT.

This dirty deal led to the formation of ICE (many from the Education Notes circle) for the 2004 elections and an alliance with TJC, which had been around for a decade but had never run in an election before 2003. Both groups had a lot to learn and had to build a new infrastructure from scratch.

With Unity not running candidates for these seats, the direct confrontation with New Action led to ICE-TJC winning those seats, which placed people like Jeff Kaufman and James Eterno (who has been on the EB as a New Action rep but left them over the Unity deal) on the EB. As someone who had been attending the EB meetings for a while, they brought a breath of fresh air to the meetings over their 3 years on the board, forcing Unity to address many issues, including the rubber room (Kaufman's short trip to the RR as an Ex Bd member made some headlines and his experience there and support for his colleagues, plus his legal background, brought many issues into the light.) Their voices were loud and strong in fighting the disastrous 2005 contract.

In order to still these voices, in 2007 Unity guaranteed New Action 3 of the HS EB seats by co-endorsing - which means a Unity vote counted for New Action- and took 3 seats for themselves. ICE-TJC got 36% of the vote and could not top the combined New Action (12%) /Unity (51%) totals, though ICE-TJC outpolled New Action in every division of the union except retirees. (Since New Action sold out their vote totals have dropped consistently amongst working teachers from the mid 20% to single digits in 2007). To make it clearer. New Action got 3 HS EB seats while getting only 521 votes while ICE-TJC received over 1500 votes and got no seats. UFT democracy inaction.

You can see a vote comparison of the 2004 and 2007 elections at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pgxRf3gM4qtyBFmTshSW1fQ&hl=en

New Action also received 5 additional EB seats for a total of 8 as a reward for keeping the independent voices of ICE-TJC off the Board.

We assume that a similar deal will be in operation in this election. If ICE-TJC can increase its vote in the HS to 50%, not an impossibility given the conditions, then the 6 people mentioned above, although an extreme minority out of 89 EB seats, would serve on the Board and give voice to a large group of disenfranchised teachers, paras, secretaries, etc.

And it would further drive a stake through the heart of New Action's bogus claims to be an opposition. If they lose, will it threaten their jobs at the UFT? Probably not, but if you detect an air of desperation on the part of New Action, you know why. Unity will probably offer a similar deal like last time and hand them additional seats in order to make phony claims of bi-partisanship. If ICE-TJC does win these seats, just watch New Action EB members line up on most votes with Unity.

Unlike ICE/GEM people, New Action has been absent from the line of fire of closing schools and charter school invasions (they supported the UFT charter school invasion of 2 public schools in East NY). Will the rank and file be aware of these differences? While the word has been out about New Action to some areas of the UFT, we theorize that a batch of New Action votes come from people who still believe they are the old New Action.


You can follow the UFT elections at the new ICE blog: http://uftelections2010.blogspot.com/

EXTRA! EXTRA!! GET YOUR NEW ACTION HAT

At last week's Delegate Assembly, I got one of the biggest laughs in a long time. There was a crew from New Action, the faux opposition bought and paid for by Unity Caucus - ask unctuous NA leader Michael Shulman to show you his office sometime - and they were giving away New Action hats to people who signed up to run in the UFT election with them.

Now, there's a hat I want to be seen wearing. In the Ed Notes spirit of fellowship for our friends in New Action, we have added our own line of New Action hats. But if you want one you have to wait as most are sold out.