Ed Notes Online: Right to strike

Showing posts with label Right to strike. Show all posts

Sunday, March 19, 2023

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH DA - UFT Leadership Separates from Reality - Strikes are for the Wealthy, Sill(y) comments, LeRoy Bombast, Pattern Bargaining is wonderful (for leadership), Arrogant snowflake Unity Leaders Talk Down to Members

Being Critical is Political - UFT Leadership Mantra to critics telling them to STFU
We have seen an uptick in aggressive attacks on opposition voices by some in the UFT leadership, accusing them of playing politics when they raise critical issues. While not a new tactic, used by authoritarians over the decades to paint critics as "the other", recent variations have escalated at the Exec Bd and DA and on social media. "We do the work" is their mantra and when that work is criticized, they take umbrage. Like we know Mulgrew is doing the work - for the city and Aetna. And when union officials ignore and bury complaints from schools, they want a free pass.
In the meantime, the real work continues.
As per Article V, Section 10 of the UFT Constitution, we call for a membership-wide vote for any significant changes to active and/or retired members’ healthcare.
Mulgrew has a weighed vote on healthcare at the MLC using our total members as leverage, as if we actually have a say. Politicians believe him -- that members are OK with these changes. We can force a referendum on health care related changes by using

BRING DEMOCRACY TO THE UFT: SIGN THE PETITION CALLING FOR A VOTE ON HEALTHCARE CHANGES

UFT Leadership to Members: CityMD Copays should be $400; we’re better off without the right to strike. Notes on the 3-15-2023 Delegate Assembly. -- NICKNOTES@NAC

The Unity assassins were out celebrating the Ides of March at the Delegate Assembly with plastic knives. As we speak, union officials are combing through ancient UFT scrolls blacking out the word Strike.
"In 1967, UFT members went on strike extended the summer vacation by two weeks. They did the same by 3 months in 68."
Reminds me of Florida new curriculum where Rosa Parks was not black and was asked to go to the back of the bus because she didn't have a ticket.
HOW DARE YOU TAMPER WITH OUR PERFECT RESOLUTION ON UFT HISTORY WHERE EVERYTHING WE WON CAME FROM BEGGING AND PLEADING, AND MENTION THE DEADED S-WORD --- UFT/UNITY CANCEL CULTURE AFTER CONSULTATION WITH RON DISANCTIMONIUS

NYC Educator on Mulgrew
Ethics-Shmethics--The Mike Mulgrew Story - *Chapter 21--I Scuttle Health Care for Members*

Nick (New Action) and James (ICE) have the DA dope:

UFT Leadership to Members: CityMD Copays should be $400; we’re better off without the right to strike. Notes on the 3-15-2023 Delegate Assembly. -- NICKNOTES@NAC

LIVE BLOGGING FROM MARCH 2023 DA --- Eterno@ICE
If I am not the president, the next president will have a big say in how this is done. Aetna saying they have the best Medicare advantage program in the country. They are excited about it....Michael Mulgrew, Mar. 15, 2023 DA

And UFT members are equally excited about Mulgrew not being president. Is he sending a signal? Let the Unity hunger games begin. Mike Sill made his move at the DA by lauding the history of the UFT, which has never had a strike.

Sunday, March 19

James Eterno called me to say MORE used the old Norm tactic at DAs of amending Unity resos. I used to get the floor by calling out "speaker against" on resos they thought no one would oppose. "I'm against this pablum joint Unity/New Action reso because it sucks." They were shocked. And I was approached by a union official afterwards that Randi complained my scornful approach didn't show proper respect. I had mocked their "we plead" context at Bloomberg goons instead of telling them to go fuck themselves.

I was spared the mahem on Wednesday by staying outside the DA, as usual, handing out a leaflet calling for the above referendum on healthcare issues. I had some interesting conversations. One guy seems to have pretty much bought the Mulgrew line. The perception is that retirees are the ones affected and people don't look too far into the future. Medicare will be gone by the time most of them reach 65, with a plastic knife in the back from Et Tu Mulgrew.

Retiree Advocate had a good leaflet, as did New Action.

And Kate Conners from MORE was handing out info on the NY Health Act. She and I talked about the segment Brian Lehrer did with State Senator Gustavo Rivera who explains how that's the real way to save money, not MulgrewCare.

She said she would raise the issue with Mulgrew and she did by asking him to talk to Rivera. He refused.Mulgrew's commitment to higher costs through privatized healthcare is firm. I hear he made some comment that hinted he may not be running for president again. Maybe that board position at Aetna is looming.

Nick reports:

Kate Connors had an extremely interesting exchange with Mulgrew over the NY Health Act, where he bizarrely hid behind the need for a reso to support it, despite the UFT DA already having passed such resos twice.

Rules, schmules.

It was cold on Wednesday - how are we letting them get away with not letting us give our lit in the lobby like we'd done for decades? Or not allowing us to observe the DA from the 19th floor? So I left at 5 and went into Whole Foods to get some hot soup.

It was only when I got uptown to my apartment when I started reading accounts of the DA. A MORE member used an old tactic I used to use by amending a mom and apple pie reso on UFT history by suggesting the UFT origin story and growth of power were based on strikes and strike threats in the 60s. ( I was on the 67, 68 and 75 strikes - but too young for the 60 and 62. )

Note the vote totals for opening up Taylor Law discussion, despite LeRoy Barr misleading obfuscation.

Here is Nick's report on that part of the meeting.

Michael Sill: Honored to support the resolution speaking in favor of UFT’s anniversary. Asks founders of union to stand for a round of applause (standing ovation). 60 years ago, we faced off with the DOE on contract. That had never happened before. 1960 may seem like an abstract concept. Many teachers we meet elsewhere don’t have collective bargaining rights. They might have consultation rights, but can’t do anything on salary/vacation days. Teacher I spoke to makes 30k; at end she’ll make 35k. She pays a premium for healthcare. That’s life without collective bargaining. Our founders looked around them and saw tons of groups, divided by subject, age, ethnic background, vision. They wanted to bring these groups together. They built a whole wing onto the house of labor. Without them, maybe the Florida teacher might have seen my salary and thought I had it bad. These aren’t mythical creatures. Standing ovation.
James Cole: Rise to make an amendment. Adds one whereas about the key role of the strike, without which we couldn’t have formed. Also resolved to fight for right to strike, now illegal. 1960 wasn’t just a vote that brought us together – there was a strike. And in doing so, we were able to win collective bargaining rights. Over the years, those have been codified in law, but with draconian anti-strike clauses. Strikes brought us real raises – not 3%. Currently there are legislators who are working to amend the constitution. We improve our collective bargaining but winning the right to strike.
LeRoy Barr: Rises in opposition. Acknowledges who were here. With respect to amendment, if case where contract was going to go away, would you go on strike? Gives some other examples. There are reasons we would go on strike, break the Taylor Law. This union was built on the strike we had in 1960. If we didn’t ask to get rid of Taylor Law. Without the Taylor Law, we would have lost the contract. Can romanticize going on strike. Understand what you’re asking for – people will go on strike.

Maggie Joyce: Taylor Law protects our contract. Other districts HAVE to go on strike. Chicago went on strike to get what we have. Remember when we were about to go on strike? My husband can support me, but I have paras who support their entire families. A lot of people here live paycheck to paycheck.
Nick Bacon: speaks in favor. This amendment DOESN’T ask to repeal the entire part of the Taylor Law, just the anti-strike clause. We’ve been affected by this clause. We got an email during the beginning of COVID that we had to go in – not take sick days – or we might lose the automatic payment of dues. That’s the Taylor Law. This reso doesn’t mean we’re going to strike – it just asks the UFT to push for our right to be able to do so if we need to. Others have said that we’d strike if issues were big enough, but right now we have the opposite issue – we’re getting so little (from collective bargaining), such as 3% raises, that our members feel the opposite of mobilized to take actions. Let’s join many other unions in this country in simply having one more tool in our union toolkit – the right to strike.

Question called on amendment. Yeses: 271; Nos: 363; Room: yeses: 37; nos: 148. 38% yes, 62% no. Failed.

Eterno report:

Honor UFT for 63rd birthday.
Mike Sill speaks in support of honoring the UFT on its 63rd anniversary. Honors founders. Look elsewhere in the country to see collective bargaining rights don't exist in many places. Some only have consultation rights, some nothing. Teacher makes $30,000 a year and maxes out at $35,000. Premium for healthcare. That was reality before 1960 in NYC. 106 groups represented teachers. Brought groups together. Built wing on house of labor.
Amendment to add that we went on strike to get those collective bargaining rights and we want to negotiate to get that right to strike back. Strike to get real raises. State assembly and state senate people are working to get amendment passed to legalize right to strike for public sector workers. Honor founders by passing this amendment.
Leroy Barr opposes the amendment. Grateful for what our founders have done and continue to do. There are reasons we would go on strike in spite of the Taylor law if they tried to take away the Taylor Law like if they cut our pay in half or we had to work Saturdays. Another Unity person agrees with that. Hard to get people on board with striking in 2020 with COVID. Says strikes are for the privileged.
Nick Bacon says that there is a problem with the Taylor Law. We are only trying to push getting rid of this part of the Taylor Law prohibiting strikes, a fundamental human right. We have to have the right to strike. We need that one union tactic back to be able to strike. We haven't had a strike since 1975 and this is not calling for a strike.
Vote to close debate on all matters passes.
Vote on amendment:
On Phone 271 to 363 No
In the Room I can't hear numbers.

38% vote for amendment.

38% in a DA often translates into 10% higher with general members. The UFT leadership attempt to distract from any chance to raise the issue is indicative of how they see the Taylor Law anti-strike provision as protection for themselves from even having to raise the issue.

In the meantime, Nick just posted this:

Why doesn’t UFT leadership want us to have the right to strike?

And I saw that Transit Workers are calling for changes in the Taylor Law.

And this from Europe:

PETITION LINK: https://hcpetition.educators.nyc/?fbclid=IwAR1hTyDOdJKYuEcOW1CIUxjsFnFRkqTV-pACb3PHX9mVJ5vjr397YnrSKbU

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Sunday, March 19, 2023

Being Critical is Political - UFT Leadership Mantra to critics telling them to STFU

UFT Leadership to Members: CityMD Copays should be $400; we’re better off without the right to strike. Notes on the 3-15-2023 Delegate Assembly. -- NICKNOTES@NAC

HOW DARE YOU TAMPER WITH OUR PERFECT RESOLUTION ON UFT HISTORY WHERE EVERYTHING WE WON CAME FROM BEGGING AND PLEADING, AND MENTION THE DEADED S-WORD --- UFT/UNITY CANCEL CULTURE AFTER CONSULTATION WITH RON DISANCTIMONIUS

Nick (New Action) and James (ICE) have the DA dope:

UFT Leadership to Members: CityMD Copays should be $400; we’re better off without the right to strike. Notes on the 3-15-2023 Delegate Assembly. -- NICKNOTES@NAC

UFT Leadership to Members: CityMD Copays should be $400; we’re better off without the right to strike. Notes on the 3-15-2023 Delegate Assembly. -- NICKNOTES@NAC

If I am not the president, the next president will have a big say in how this is done. Aetna saying they have the best Medicare advantage program in the country. They are excited about it....Michael Mulgrew, Mar. 15, 2023 DA

And UFT members are equally excited about Mulgrew not being president. Is he sending a signal? Let the Unity hunger games begin. Mike Sill made his move at the DA by lauding the history of the UFT, which has never had a strike.

Sunday, March 19