Showing posts with label Nick Bacon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nick Bacon. Show all posts

Sunday, June 18, 2023

VOTE NO, Unity Caucus Bullying Ramps up attacks on critics, major target Nick Bacon hits the Pentafecta - 5 times heckled in two days

The heckling needs to stop! Educators wouldn’t allow this in a classroom but here in the DA it’s condoned. Whatever, anyway I did buy a car without reading the contract, and you know what it mostly turned out okay!.. Mike M comment on NA blog

Yes, imagine a world where unionists were allowed to speak and honestly debate our contract. Imagine a world where the UFT staff members who we pay to protect our rights didn’t try to tear down working teachers for having even the slightest critical thought. Ha! on your car... BaconUFT: June 14, 2023, DA Votes yes to Send out Contract without a Copy: UFT Delegate Assembly – 6-13-2023 - comments

They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred. --- FDR, 1936 Madison Square Garden speech, what Nick Bacon may be thinking about Unity slime.

I love Nick Bacon --- delegate from MORE exiting the DA

Sunday, June 18, 2023

I was leafleting at the end of the emergency Delegate Assembly on Tuesday as people emerged. After hearing the stories about the two days of Unity heckling Nick Bacon because he wanted to see what he was voting for, I was loudly calling for a "stop the Unity bullying campaign." 
 
Two young female delegates I didn't know asked for leaflets and as they walked away, turned around and said, "we were just talking about the bullying and it was very upsetting to us." Unity is turning Nick Bacon into a folk hero - and providing fuel for his fire.

Unity Caucus is more and more becoming the Trump party of the UFT. And like Trump, they have no shame, which at one time they at least seemed to have. They've reached the stage where for the first time I am doubting they would run an honest election. Their desperation to hold onto all power is calling on them to resort to desperate means. To me, their increasing undemocratic tactics is a sign they feel they are losing control. 
 
As you can see, while the bullying may energize the union hacks, there are independents who are turned off. I heard even some Unity were turned off. The attacks also energize the opposition. I hope they keep it up - they are organizing for the opposition.
 
The Unity Caucus machine has ramped up attacks on critics - not just on the contract, but on any criticism at all. Don't dare say something bad about the tie Mulgrew is wearing. You will be vilified. For some in the opposition, these type of attacks is working to make them somewhat gunshy. But for Nick Bacon, it is fuel.

Now, I loved these attacks when they came at me. It shows they are feeling the pinch. All authoritarian regimes revert to bully tactics when they have no real answer to critics and feel a threat to their control. Just watch the dirty tactics to come in chapter elections next year and in the 2025 general election. 

Nick received an ovation from 25 oppo people on Tuesday when he emerged from the UFT Delegate Assembly at 6PM - he was heckled and booed at the 2PM contract committee, the 3PM Exec Bd and the 4PM DA -- the trifecta. And this after facing the same reaction from the Unity serfs on Monday at the 4PM contract committee and 6PM Exec Bd meetings. Nick set a 2 day record for Unity hatred with this Pentafecta.
 
Nick, a Unity defector two years ago, seems to irk Unity slugs more than anyone in the opposition. Fundamentally, he is being attacked for his outrageous demand to be able to read beyond a UFT/Unity press release on the contract. He asked for the MOU and both Mulgrew and Barr lied and said it was online. It wasn't. 

Nick noted in his notes: when will the MOA even be on the website? I ended up being the only person allowed to speak against, though many other hands were up, and that paragraph is towards the bottom.
 
Nick is purposely being allowed to speak to help make him a target and also to keep him from making his often cogent points.

Here is his full statement:
Sorry to even be in a position where I have to speak against this, but I’m on the negotiating committee, the executive board, and the DA and have not seen this MOA. We don’t even know when it will be on the website for our members to see. You don’t buy a house based on a PowerPoint the realtor showed you, or a used car based on the PowerPoint your used car salesman showed you. You look at the contract. There were issues with the last PowerPoint – not because anyone was trying to lie, but because it’s hard to see fine print in a PowerPoint. We need to see the fine print before we tell our members this is a deal worth voting yes on. *Around now, being heckled by UFT staffers* It’s OK, I’ve been being heckled all day, mostly by UFT staffers. We’ve also mostly heard from UFT staffers about why we should vote for this contract. They haven’t read the MOA either, and they also don’t have to live with the consequences. Working teachers – and other titles – will have to live with the consequences. We need to know what’s in this contract before we vote on it.
Here's where we really miss James Eterno's real time DA minutes because the burden falls on Nick to be active and take notes.

One of the more outrageous comments came from UFT VP Mary Vaccaro, who misused James Eterno's history of opposition to Unity by claiming he trusted the leadership. If not for James' condition, that would be an LOL moment.
 
 Here's an example of James' trust for the leadership re: the 2018 contract:

UFT MISLEADS MEMBERS AS RAISES IN PROPOSED NEW CONTRACT WON'T BEAT EXPECTED INFLATION PROJECTIONS

Here is an excerpt from a UFT bulletin trying to sell the proposed new contract by saying raises will beat inflation.
New salaries: Raises of 2%, 2.5% and 3% produce a three-year compound rate of 7.7 percent, above expert predictions of inflation of 6.2 percent (Federal Reserve Bank) and 6.8 percent (International Monetary Fund)

UFT spin, spin, spin=mislead, mislead, mislead.

Arthur shows how trusting UFT leaders ends up:

 
A no vote sends a strong message to leadership on healthcare. It sends a reverberating message that our rank and file want it improved and not diminished.
 
 A comment from a delegate - corrected-

I was at the DA meeting over the phone. This is what I DIDN'T hear being talked about:
1. Healthcare.
2. Why our raises don't meet or exceed current inflation.
3. Why they added 25 minutes to the instructional workday. It was 6 hours and 20 minutes and in the tentative contract at a glance it says it is 6 hours and 45 minutes. Mulgrew said there were no givebacks or concessions. This doesn't look like what he said.
4. Fixing of Tier 6. I'm tier 4 but I feel for Tier 6 and believe it needs to be fixed.


I already know I will be voting NO.

The UFT bureaucracy’s avoidance of strike-readiness undermines the union’s bargaining power. 
 
Other unions seem to get it:
 
 



More links:

Return to the Bargaining Table with a Strike Plan

Vote "No" on the UFT-DOE tentative agreement, and call on the union to leverage its power for more

 
As expected, the agreement veils pay cuts with sub-inflation raises and non-pensionable bonuses, and improves only a narrow range of non-economic issues. Therefore, I encourage us to send the Negotiating Committee back to the bargaining table. The Mayor sits on enough money to concede more. When they arrive at your school, vote “No” on your ballots. Persuade your co-workers that there’s room to augment the gains in the tentative agreement. Convince them the UFT should renew its contract campaign with transparent demands and a plan for strike preparation, because only strike-ready unions threaten employers enough to grant costly concessions. 
 
 
 

Thursday, March 24, 2022

Nick Brings the Bacon - Filibusters and Fabrications - UFT Delegate Assembly Notes, With Context March 2022

Mulgrew's "report" yesterday took up 3/4 of the meeting and then he claimed the 1 minute of point of order was the reason they didn't get to any of the 11 resos on the agenda. 
  • Today I'm speaking to three lunch hours at an elementary school in Unity territory and should get some read on how the election is playing out. There is a strong Solidarity person in the school. Yesterday a UFC person handing out leaflets to people going into the DA said an elementary teacher wanted leaflets for her school because "everyone is talking about UFC." But I'd bet in some schools there is no clue about the election.
I used to say Putin uses the Unity caucus model of control but hasn’t yet achieved where Mulgrew is at. I guess a little sensitive issue now. But if you look at party in power I can only think of China as a longer running autocracy than Unity and they even had some term limits and more internal accountability than Unity - the longest running autocracy where each of 4 leaders over 60 years hand chose the successor. And yesterday all 700 nysut delegates were told how to vote at the upcoming NYSUT RA convention. Mulgrew used their 6:30 meeting as an excuse to not extend the DA  by claiming they had a meeting at 6 - Nick who is still a Unity Caucus delegate challenged him saying he has the paper that says 6:30 - some think that was the funniest moment of the DA. There is no democracy inside Unity Caucus. Plenty of people are not happy with Mulgrew, which is why they are trying to Hide Mulgrew in Plain Sight. But there is no way to even challenge him without losing their jobs. Maybe one of the reasons Nick Bacon left Unity.
  
When we get honest DA reports we see through the cracks. If Nick Bacon continues his DA reports, they will be a gold mine. And if he gets elected to HS Ex Bd, expect more great reports.

I've always maintained that dry DA minutes without context is like diving without a steering wheel. I don't believe any DA reports are devoid of political influence, so we might as well get a point of view. Are people fine with Mulgrew taking up 3/4 of the time with his practiced report and then claiming they are running out of time because some took 30 seconds to make a point of order? These Unity hacks remind me of the Republican idiots questioning Ketanji Brown Jackson. Unity is fundamentally the Republican Party. If UFC were to win Unity's role would be the same -- to stop anything from being done. A hack is a hack is a hack is a hack.

Finally we are seeing DAs getting covered with context and political analysis as UFC HS candidate Nick Bacon posts notes on the New Action blog. 

The DA outside game: Retiree Advocate was there and will be there in the future




I was outside the DA with over 3000 copies of the hot off the press United for Change leaflet which I shlepped in my famous suitcase and left an hour an a half later with one leaflet. I still have 17,000 in my garage. Reps from MORE and Solidarity and ICE are coming over after school today to pick up for their groups and I'm offering a pizza party to celebrate the UFC alliance. RA was there in force to back the OT/PT rally for the pay they have not gotten, which Mulgrew passed off when asked a question. 

The Inside game  - Nick Brings the Bacon

Filibusters and Fabrications- Thoughts on the March, 2022 Delegate Assembly

The March DA was December all over again, as Mulgrew avoided giving any space to members of United for Change by using every tactic under the sun to silence us, and really all non-Unity members of the Delegate Assembly.

  1. Abnormally Long President’s Report: Mulgrew’s report dragged on for over an hour and left virtually no time for official business. He even invited some speakers to make the report particularly long, a tactic he uses when he really wants to filibuster. That presentation, full of glitches, was about an online system for chapter leaders that could have just as easily been an email. (Keep in mind, most delegates at the DA are not even Chapter Leaders…they’re delegates). It’s worth mentioning that one of the presenters was Unity Caucus’s Maggie Joyce, who Mulgrew suspiciously called on in the last DA too, even as he couldn’t manage to allow a single UFC delegate to speak in either of the last two DAs. Watching the talk, one couldn’t help being reminded of the December DA, when Mulgrew called on a staffer to give a time-share like presentation about how good Mulgrewcare was. Mulgrewcare, of course, was later scrapped after UFC’s own Retiree Advocate (working with some other groups) exposed it for the fraud that it was and won in court. And, despite a pretty interesting question period, with speakers making critical points about things like abusive administration, undelivered vacation days, and delayed payment to OT/PT, Mulgrew’s answers left much to be desired, though he spent tons of time answering them (to avoid taking other questions).
  2. Making up rules: When Camille Eterno tried to make a minor parliamentary inquiry about a mistake on last month’s minutes regarding what she had said then, she was ruled out of order and not allowed to speak. The reason? Mulgrew claimed that parliamentary inquiries can’t be made during the President’s Report. Of course, the Delegate Assembly is deliberative–and as such uses Robert’s Rules. Searching as we have, we’ve found no place in Robert’s Rules specifying Mulgrew’s rules. That leads me to think he may have, you know, made it up, so that he could silence Camille. It’s worth noting that Mulgrew erroneously accused Camille of electioneering, even though she mentioned nothing about the election or about caucuses. Ibeth Mejia, who I’m running with for High School Executive Board, tried to use a point of order to advocate for them to take Camille’s point, stating that it was absurd for Mulgrew to interrupt her with a simple request about the minutes, but was also shouted down.
  3. Not Calling on UFC Members (Redux): We at United for Change are used to not being called on by Mulgrew at this point. Indeed, we haven’t been called on for a new motion since November, and to this day I think I was only called on to read our resolution on healthcare back then because Mulgrew still thought I was with Unity Caucus. This time, when many UFC delegates were amongst the first to shoot their hands up, Mulgrew waited and palpably searched the audience for Thomas Conavoy, so that he could read the inherently uncontroversial resolution on recognizing Diwali. Another non-UFC person was called on after, and this was the last person recognized by Mulgrew. Earlier in the DA, Daniel Alicea asked a point of parliamentary inquiry about needing to rotate between those for and against given motions, and Mulgrew answered that when there is a debate they do have such a procedure, which of course begs the question: why was that procedure so conspicuously not followed in February, when a debate followed Camille Eterno’s motion to appeal the chair. Of course, that ‘debate’ consisted of Mulgrew recognizing the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary, and another Executive Board member, all of whom of course agreed with Mulgrew. Indeed, in that debate, not a single person was called on who disagreed. Not a single person was called on from United for Change.
  4. Not allowing the meeting to be extended: Mulgrew talked for so long during this DA that there was no way we were going to get to any resolution on this month’s agenda. He also prevented UFC from raising an important resolution on mayoral control, as well as another resolution on Tier 6 (which, ironically Unity was also prepared to present a similar motion on…if only Mulgrew hadn’t run out the clock). Peter Lamphere tried to make a motion to extend the time, but was ruled out of order for technical reasons. Mulgrew claimed there was too much important business to conduct right after the meeting, because the UFT members of the RA were meeting right at 6:00. I made a point of order, because I hold the invite, and it clearly says 6:30. He claimed that 30 minutes was needed to prepare the room. So I stuck around after the automatic adjournment at 6:00. When I left at 6:20, the chairs were exactly where they left them. There was no need to end at 6:00 PM, but I think we all knew that. (And by the way, Mulgrew, if you know in advance that you ‘need’ to adjourn at 6:00 PM, why not make your President’s report a little shorter in the first place so there’s no need to make a motion to extend)?

 Also see Eterno abridged report:

LIVE BLOGGING FROM MARCH DA -