At a news conference Monday morning, [Acting DFT President] Bailey and other union officials, teachers and parents expressed frustration about conditions in many DPS schools and called for public hearings.... Detroit NewsA WTF moment that exposes how the Randi Weingarten ideal of a union operates. I just heard a report on NPR's Takeaway where the point is made that the city manager is claiming that the union has not sanctioned the sickout and that only a minority of teachers are supporting it.
How different is the destruction of the Detroit school system than the poisoning of the water in Flint?
The NY Times report has the below the lines bias, trying to paint this as an internal union dispute:
No attempt to provide context for Steve's removal. At least they give him credit for leading the sickouts and given the appearance of a DPS FightBack, "union within a union" which says it has no affiliation with Steve - a group promoted by Diane Ravitch, I begin to wonder if they are not a front group set up by the union itself to divert people from Steve. Just thinking out loud.The job actions are tied up in the politics of both Lansing and the teachers’ union itself. The sickouts have been organized by Steve Conn, who was ousted in August as president of the union, and still has an ardent following.Mr. Conn had been a firebrand activist at odds with union leadership — as well as the district administration — until a year ago, when teachers elected him president. Seven months later, the union’s executive board removed him over charges of misconduct.
Previous Ed Notes reports:
- DPS TEACHERS FIGHT BACK! "A Union Within a Union"
- Detroit: Randi Sends in the Troops to Back Puppet ...
- The Wrath of Steve Conn: Wildcat Sickout in Detroi...
Steve Conn, the ousted president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, has been calling for teachers to stay home in protest. “It’s great,” Conn told The News on Monday.Acting DFT president Bailey had more to say:
On Sunday, Conn had told reporters he expected three dozen closures — and added that “an all-out strike will be the only way to save public education in Detroit.”
At Sunday’s meeting, Conn called his Jan. 20 reinstatement hearing with the American Federation of Teachers, which has placed the DFT in trusteeship, “D-Day.” Monday, Conn said that if he’s not reinstated, the Strike to Win committee will pursue a full-blown strike.
“It’s all one thing — the degradation of local control of our schools,” Conn said.
Though teacher strikes are illegal in Michigan, Conn brushed off those concerns Sunday.
“Teachers strikes have always been illegal, but I’ve been through four of these,” Conn said.
Conn was removed from office and expelled from the DFT in August by the union executive board, which found him guilty of internal misconduct charges, including illegal cancellation of meetings and failure to investigate abuse of members.
“The deplorable conditions in our schools have created a serious environmental and educational crisis that is being ignored. We refuse to stand by while teachers, school support staff and students are exposed to conditions that one might expect in a Third World country, not the United States of America,” Bailey said. “The children of Detroit, Flint or any other community should not be exposed to atrocious, environmental hazards.”But no plan of action to fight it other than the usual bitching and call for lame public hearings.
Bailey said health and safety hazards include rat and other rodent infestations, crumbling walls, holes in ceilings, cracked sidewalks and broken boilers and no heat. She also said DPS has 170 teaching vacancies and that some special education classrooms have no textbooks.
In the meantime, it was the actions of deposed president Steve Conn and other teachers willing to make a stand that got conditions noticed and are generating national headlines.
What is DPS Teachers Fight Back?
Then there is this group that I posted about yesterday that Diane Ravitch mentioned: DPS TEACHERS FIGHT BACK! "A Union Within a Union"
Exactly what is a union within a union? I spoke to someone named Kimberley who said Steve Conn had not reached out to them. In the full article below there is no mention of DPS, only Steve Conn. DPS states clearly that it is not affiliated with Steve's political group, BAMN which has run against Randi since 2010 at AFT conventions. Is DPSFB an attempt to separate itself from the more radical Conn? Note that they do not say a word about a strike.
There is a full membership meeting this Thursday and as Steve points out his hearing will be Jan. 22. If Randi's minions bury Steve he may form another union in Detroit and challenge the DFT as the bargaining agent. In the light of Friedrichs coming decision there is a lot to chew on.
DFT, like the UFT, plays a role -- to make sure things don't get out of hand and become too militant in ways that threaten the current power structure in the union and the Democratic political establishment.
Left-tinged social justice unionists with lines into the communities have the potential to cause all sorts of problems with the comfortable partnership teacher unions have established with the establishment over the past 55 years. Throw in the wild card of Friedrichs which will certainly harm the more traditional unions than the radical ones in terms of dues collection.
Just think Chicago, where over 90% of the teachers support a strike, inconceivable here in NYC. I would bet that the CTU will have less problems collecting dues than the UFT.
But also think about the power structure like Rahm in Chicago facing radical, militant unions that can be leaner and meaner than the UFT and not be as vulnerable to government attacks. We found that in Puerto Rico the union was attacked mercilessly and company unions were brought in to undermine them - yet they continue to collect enough dues to keep them alive.
I think the idea of a teacher union out of control begins to sink in at some point and the avid supporters of Friedrichs may end up with many unintended consequences. It is one thing to be a southern right to work state and quite another to have had certain rights in a northern urban city and then see them taken away. But members of the UFT are increasingly asking "exactly what do we have and what value do we put on it?" The last 20 years as our leaders have capitulated to ed deform are a lesson.
Full Detroit News story here and below the fold.
By Ann Zaniewski, Detroit Free Press Education Writer