History of the UFT, Part 2 - The 80s and 90s -TODAY, WBAI (99.5 FM), 1PM - Norm and Bruce Join Daniel

We explore and analyze the history and political highlights of our city’s teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers,  today with part 2 of what is to be a three part series.

In July, we had Leo Casey and Norm Scott, two iconic union activists, on this show to share with us what they thought were some of the highlights of UFT history and politics for the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Today we are joined by two lifelong and beloved UFT union activists and leaders, Bruce Markens and, once again, Norm Scott, as they take us through a decade by decade overview of the significant historical and political developments within the United Federation of Teachers union and how these impacted public education of NYC schools. 

The Discussion: 

Today’s discussion: 

Inside UFT politics and history: How The Nation’s Most Powerful Teachers Union Impacted NYC Public Schools 

Part 2, today, will take us through a decade by decade overview of what our our guests perceive as the most significant events within the UFT from the 1980s to the year 200- … we’ve invited Bruce Markens and Norm Scott.  And Part 3 will likely be broadcast in September.

Nation at Risk - 83

Feldman taking over for Shanker -85

Shulman election 1985 as HSVP

District Rep election 1991

1995 contract

NY State charter school bill - 1998

Rise of Randi. 

1991 oppo wins 13 ex bd

1994 constitution change Re adcom veeps. 

 

Bowman/Engel/Etc - Epic Battle for Soul of Dem Party, UFT Leaders Back Engel Against Progressive Educator, Warren/Bernie Vs Hillary/Cuomo/Randi

The UFT is not backing the progressive educator in the Bowman/Engel battle who is not in favor of all the ed deform stuff that hit teachers right in the face. But let's delve into the details of why at another time.

Election Day - I voted remotely. After months of fundamentally being in isolation I'm venturing out today as a volunteer - a distance volunteer. I'm picking up and dropping off literature for the Shaniyat Chowdhury campaign for Congress against incumbent Gregory Meeks in Southeast Queens and Nassau County. Shan is a progressive and hasn't gotten the publicity other challengers have gotten. Shan was in the marines for 6 years, a grad of Infotech HS in Queens and also a NYCHA resident. Meeks is a long-time rep out of the Dem machine and he's black, so Shan as an East Asian makes this an interesting race demographically. Here's hoping Shan wins but if he doesn't he has an excellent future in politics as he is only 28 and if he engages in the grassroots type of campaign to challenge the local Dem machine I'm all in. Of course the UFT is backing Meeks the incumbent with the more important issue to the UFT leadership is to stay true to Dem Party central - or as we on the left refer to them as CORP DEMS.

The hot race locally and nationally is the Jamaal Bowman challenge to Eliot Engel, along with the open primary event in Kentucky between Schumer and Corp Dem backed Amy McGrath against progressive insurgent Charles Booker - McGrath has attracted 40 million from Trump resistance Dem backers.

The race between Engel-Jamaal (who I've known from the anti ed deform battles over the years) has gotten national attention. He is not from the standard AOC brand and there was a guy in the race who was to the left but dropped out. Not getting noticed are two other candidates - I saw them in a debate with Bowman last week. I imagine they will draw a few votes from both Bowman and Engel - maybe more from the latter. If Bowman doesn't win look for him or another progressive to challenge Engel next time and he might choose like Nita Lowey (who retired in the face of a primary) to retire also. Justice Democrats have their eye out on this and I even know a NYC teacher who they are interested in having run at some point. By the way - that race has a chance of seeing a right wing Dem win over a gaggle of others - there are some progressives in the race.

The other race I'm interested in is the Lauren Ashcraft challenge to Carolyn McCarthy - I met her and her partner at a Bernie watch party and have given her money - she covers west Queens and midtown Man - my other home even though I am registered here. The problem is there is another progressive in the race.

And of course I support AOC - and imagine in 2018 how the UFT backed Crowley - I wonder if there is the same enthusiasm for her as an incumbent as there is for Engel? _ Tongue in cheek

There's so many issues on the table in these Democratic internal battles and how our union leadership on all levels - AFT, NYSUT, UFT - so totally line up with what is being called the Corporate Democrats who control the party and were especially successful in killing the Bernie Sanders insurgency and promoting Joe Biden.

What is clear is just how tied the UFT -which is the tail that wags the dog in the AFT - is under Randi control still and how our leadership is tied up hook line and sinker with the Dem Party Central -- and only a movement from below in the AFT will force change from being part of the fabric of corp dem which fundamentally is anti-worker and union.

Why is the UFT/AFT/NYSUT leadership so anti-progressive? You'll have to wait for a follow-up for that bedtime story. Hint: It's in their DNA.

Here are a few interesting links for the stories above.

Krystal Ball BLASTS Dems, Black Caucus for propping up white corporatists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOpO_OdJSJU

On the Kentucky race:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/us/politics/amy-mcgrath-charles-booker-kentucky-senate.html

On Bowman-Engel

ICEUFT Blog

ENGEL AND BOWMAN ON EDUCATION -

James comments:

Bowman is backed by the Justice Democrats, the CSA, the New York Times, the Badass Teachers Association, The Sunrise Movement, The Working Families Party, AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others in a kind of a Who's Who of the progressive wing of the party. A quick look at Bowman's education plan shows there is much to like.

https://prospect.org/politics/eliot-engel-down-double-digits-new-poll-jamaal-bowman/

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/10/jamaal-bowman-eliot-engel-democratic-party

Should MORE be LESS? The Key to Organizing Opposition in the UFT is to Decentralize

I've attended a few MORE meetings. While I was very impressed overall, they did not seem particularly interested in the issues of micromanagement and harassment that go on in many elementary schools, which is what keeps those teachers too busy, preoccupied and exhausted to get more involved politically. Also, a lot of our younger teachers are not aware of their union history -- in my school (which you know, I believe, in District 14) the vast majority of newcomers had no clue. There were also many TFAers - don't know if that's the case in the district as a whole, but the TFA fellows frequently don't stay in the profession, and therefore are not interested...

Comment from Leigh on Facebook, Talking About UFT Elections - Double Oy Vey! -
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/…/talking-about-uft-elect…

Leigh raises some good points. Before responding, let me digress a bit. History is important and Ed Notes tries to handle that issue - but maybe we need study groups.

Since Shanker the concept of a strong leader/personality has been the norm -- the UFT has had only 4 presidents since Shanker took power. And often the opposition caucuses have had clear leaders and personalities. My goal in helping form ICE was to dilute the leadership - everyone should be encouraged to lead. It didn't always work out that way because we didn't attract enough people willing to take on these roles. I'm pretty happy with the direction MORE has been going -- since we started 6 month steering committee terms we have had almost 30 people take part. If I asked someone to name the leader of MORE they would come up with a dozen names - some may be louder than others - but we have successfully gotten more people involved than I could have dreamed of - and the key is that so many are in the 6-15 year teaching range and in their 20s and 30s - a new wrinkle in the opposition since the 70s.

But there are also inherent problems in a diffused leadership situation - sometimes people wait for others to act - someone has to pick up the ball. That is the essence of what Leigh is saying - sure people are concerned about these issues but the mechanisms to address them - are not yet in place. 

I would also point out that on the other side MORE is open and flexible enough for Leigh to come in and take over that aspect and lead the way in the battle -- people would jump on board. I think MORE's failure has been to make it clear that this is possible - meetings are often so centrally managed.

My recent thinking is decentralizing so people are empowered to act - to organize. To make it easier for people like Leigh who want MORE to tackle an issue to jump in.

I see the upcoming UFT elections as a way to establish some ways of doing that. There may be resistance from some who see that a centrally managed campaign is essential - and aspects of that do need to be taken care of. But if MORE

Here was my response to Leigh on facebook.

Norm Scott  
 -- your comment has given me some food for thought. This system is too big to crack without decentralizing -- and one of my goals is to get MORE to function with that mentality. Many of us have never been entirely happy with MORE meetings, especially the earlier ones where people did a lot of talking and not doing. This past year we began to focus more on getting work done --like chapter leader assistance - they are often keys to getting a fightback going at the school level - but one saturday a month is really not the way to get things done. MORE's elementary school people are concerned but as you say too busy to do much about it. I think what is needed is a MORE elementary school group that tackles the specific problems in a committee not in a meeting - maybe break the meetings in 2 and have the committee meet - then follow up on their own. If you are interested in working on issues like these let me know. One approach would be more to focus on these issues at the district level - not on the central where there is not much that can be done. So maybe getting some D 14 elem school teachers together might be an idea. If one district gets some changes that model can be shared with others. 

Retro UFT History Lesson: How Unity Killed Divisional Vice President Elections

Most teachers don't know that Unity changed the UFT constitution to preclude high school teachers from selecting their own academic VP. This is because Mike Shulman committed the unpardonable sin of winning with New Action one year. That was back when New Action was a real opposition, before Randi bought Mike and the rest of them off with patronage jobs....

NYC Educator, Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Dues Deduction Without Representation is Tyranny

Prepping for today's meeting with Bruce Markens, Ira Goldfine and Vera Pavone for some insights into the past and how that affects the present and future, Mike Schirtzer found this old Ed Notes post from Dec. 2006. It looked to be well-written so I assumed it was from NYC Educator. But no, it was actually me. What a pleasant surprise. We'll get into more details on the history of New Action and the impact of its sellout to Unity in 2003/4 in future posts.

By the way, Mike Shulman collected $12,500 for his UFT patronage job as reported in the most recent LM-2 (2013) report. There is some fiction going around that New Action people only make around $1200 a year and that is too little to make them sell out. Most do but not at the top.

One note -- the 1995 contract battle where the membership voted it down the first time was led by NAC (or New Action -- not clear it the merger of TAC and New Directions had taken place yet) and also by Bruce from his position as District Rep.

Here is the Ed Notes post from Dec. 28, 2006:

Unity Spins and Grins: A History Lesson

NYC Educator has posted a proposal for a petition calling for divisions to elect their own VP's instead of at-large. Here is an explanation of the history of the change.

There is a debate going on at the NYC Educator blog in UFT democracy, or lack thereof. Since 1994 Unity caucus amended the constitution to eliminate the direct election of divisional vice-presidents -- e.g. Academic HS, Vocational H.S., Middle Schools, Elementary Schools--by constituents of each division and instead had these Vice Presidents elected on an at-large basis by the entire membership, including retirees.

A Unity spinner on the blogs actually claimed this is a good thing, ("The notion that the executive branch should be elected together, in order to provide a minimal unity for governing, is hardly an anti-democratic one.") even trying to compare this to having the US President and VP come from the same party. Naturally he distorted the facts of what really happened to make his case, which NYC Educator trashed in his response.

I asked former Manhattan HS district rep Bruce Markens what occurred while his memory is still intact. (Bruce's long tenure as the lone non-Unity Dist. Rep. despite constant attempts by Unity to defeat him was one of Weingarten's motivations in ending the election of DR's.)

In the mid-80's the opposition was still a coalition called NAC (New Action Coalition, a combo of 3 caucuses with a piece of the name from each one -- some of the founders of ICE were with the Coalition of NYC School Workers).

Mike Shulman won the 1985 election for HS VP by 94 votes over the Unity incumbent George Altomare, one of the founders of the UFT. This sent shock waves throughout Unity and they got Alomare to challenge the election claiming improprieties, a joke since the Unity machine ran the elections.

Naturally, the election committee upheld the protest and they refused to seat Shulman. They finally agreed on an arbitrator and his report called for a new election. This time, without a slate headed by Shanker at the top, Shulman got 62% of the vote. He was not allowed to take his place on the AdCom until Jan/Feb 2006.

With the next election coming in 1987, Unity dumped Altomare and recruited John Soldini from SI (where they could get the large HS vote out for him) to run against Shulman and Unity geared up all forces for the ‘87 election. Schulman almost won again, losing to Soldini by only 21 votes.

He lost again in '89 and by 110 votes in '91 election. But in that election, NAC also won the junior high ex bd seats, giving them 13, the most they ever had. Their JHS VP candidate also lost by about 150 votes. With the opposition seemingly getting stronger, Unity clearly had to do something to keep the wolves at bay.

Their opportunity came after the '93 election when inexplicably, New Action lost the high schools and junior high schools, giving the opposition no voice on the ex bd.

Unity formed a task force to "improve" the election process. It had no specific mandate to deal with the issue of changing the divisional vps to be elected on an at large basis.

At an ex bd meeting in early Jan. '94 they sprung the " improvement" - taking all divisional elections of VP's out of the divisional and making them at-large. A few days after, they sprung it at the Jan. DA, (historically one of the least attended of the year). There also just happened to be a snowstorm that day (Did Unity rig the weather?) guaranteeing an even lower attendance of non-Unity people.

But Unity assured a quorum would be there to make the act legal by threatening Unity Caucus members with the loss of their part-time union jobs and banishment from the slate, which assured a free trip to the AFT and NYSUT conventions. Thus, Unity was able to steamroller through the "improvement" in the election process.

In our so-called democratic union the Unity way, you can change the constitution without having to get membership approval.

But even if they had gone that route, the Unity machine would have spun this “improvement” to the members in some fashion. Without an effective opposition to oppose it (the inability of New Action even at that time to put up a semblance of a fight is indicative of some level of ineffectiveness) the members are helpless against the machinations of Unity. One more argument for the building of an effective opposition to Unity as opposed to the phony bogus opposition New Action has become with all their leaders on the UFT/Unity payroll.

UFT History in a Graphic: Caucuses from 1960-2014

NOTE: People are having problems reading the graphic - I am trying to get a pdf loaded but having trouble - email me if you want me to send you the pdfs - normsco@gmail.com. 
UPDATE: I found a way to replace unreadable jpgs with semi-readable pdfs.

I just finished reading Barbara Tuchman's "Guns of August" about the first month of WWI. Almost every issue we face today can be related back to decisions and outcomes a hundred years ago and beyond that.

We need to know some history of the UFT in order to fully understand things in context. I created this flow chart in attempt to get some history on record.

I created this for the first MORE July 12, 2014 summer event. It was a rush job on that day as I had returned from the AFT convention the day before at 1PM on a very delayed red eye. Shortly after I got home on the 11th, Ira Goldfine and Vera Pavone came over to review the history. On the morning of the 12th I spoke to Glenn Tepper, one of the founders of New Directions. So this all came together in the few hours before the MORE event and naturally is open to revisions.

There is a strand for Unity, TAC, New Directions, New Action, TJC, ICE and Ed Notes (not a caucus but key to ICE). No strand yet for PAC, Chalk Dust and assorted other groups that sprang up.

I didn't get into the work of GEM as a precursor to MORE -- This graphic is still a work in progress - as is MORE.

Of course - this is my own point of view and I imagine there are other views. If you have problems viewing it email me and I'll send you the pdfs.

UFT History, Early Years from "City Unions", Chapter 8

We bought a few copies of this book which covers some fascinating early history of the UFT and pre-UFT with lots of detail on the political machinations and Shanker's consolidation of power. There is so much info packed into these 19 pages I have to read it again. The UFT did a great series by Jack Schirenbeck that covers some of the same ground but somewhat cleansed, as you would imagine. This lays out some of the internal battles that took place in the 60s and the formation of Unity Caucus even earlier than I thought, with details on the early strikes from the high school teachers refusing to work in night school through the early 60s.

If you go over to the MORE site there are 4 videos of last week's UFT Friend or Foe event where some history is also laid out, in particular in Ira Goldfine's video and text.

NOTE: I'm pulling the embedded pdf because it seems to slow up this site.

Get it here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/158371024/City-Unions-chapter-8

Video: MORE UFT History Event Attracts SRO Crowd

It's great to see so many activists from TJC, ICE., GEM, NYCORE, Occupy and others come together under MORE and all the new comers who felt empowered yesterday to finally have a forum for their voice.  ------Attendee at MORE Event

Last night's opening of the Movement of Rank and File Educators' Summer 2012 series of events focusing on a history of teacher unionism in NYC and the history of the UFT from the perspective of the opposition caucuses drew a much larger crowd than expected. I made about 20 copies of handouts expecting to take some home. I could have almost tripled the number. I made a very rough count of 50 from where I was sitting but it was so crowded some people just hung out at the bar, for sure a better experience than listening to me yap, though I won't say the same for Michael Fiorillo, who always manages to captivate an audience.

I won't make any judgements on what it means for 50+ people to come to a talk on the history of teacher unions on a hot summer night. How many are ready to become active in a group like MORE? Given the amount of work that needs to be done to build an alternative to Unity Caucus, they sure are needed.

What was interesting was that it wasn't just the usual suspects but lots of people we did not know. I was pleased when one of them stopped by on the way out to introduce himself as a regular reader of Ed Notes. Here are the 2 videos of Michael and I. I'm going to work on the Q and A section which lasted about an hour and was very interesting and stimulating. People clearly want to talk about this stuff, which for a wonk like me is heaven. Really, I spoke for about 17 minutes and could have gone on for an hour. Michael too.

By the way, MORE doesn't have video accounts yet so I'm using the GEM vimeo sites to post.
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MORE Summer 2012 Series: UFT History Through 1968 With Michael Fiorillo from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.
https://vimeo.com/45698849

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MORE Summer 2012 UFT Caucus History Since 1968 - Norm Scott from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/45705700

Comment from an attendee:

the presentations were wonderful, they were engaging, and really relevant to our movement. I can say i learned a lot and will buy the book Mike suggested. To some of us new to inner union politics it was really an education. Norm and Mike were so spirited an knowledgeable it was really fun to listen to and I took notes. Best line of the night by Mike" Unity is anti-communist and how ironic that they now act like a one party communist state" really funny stuff...

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.