Support Verizon Strikers: NYC Teachers From GEM and other Groups Join Picket Line

Leaflet prepared by CWA for teachers joining picket line

Message to UFT/AFT - You Are NOT a Union of Professionals - and Never Will Be
Yes, teachers today are further away from being viewed and treated as professionals than they have ever been. With teacher unions becoming the main target of the corporate ed deformers, it is time to connect the rank and file teacher to other rank and filers (as opposed to the leadership which expresses "support" for other unions but by harping on the "professional" theme creates a sense of separation from the guy at Verizon who climbs a pole.

Yesterday afternoon I joined a bunch of GEMers and teachers from other UFT activist groups at the Verizon picket line on West St. in the shadow of the World Trade Center site. You see, we can't be only about our own narrow interests as teachers and I'm proud to be associated with a group that clearly recognizes that. That we are young, old and in the middle is clear from the photos.

We were also joined by my friend Joyce, a retired CWA worker who knowing we were coming had the CWA prepare a special "Thank you Teachers" flyer for us explaining the givebacks being demanded. Teachers need to start making the connection that a victory for Verizon workers affects us just like the Regan firing of Patco air traffic controllers 30 years ago has impacted the entire labor movement.

And one more thing. The  imbalance of wealth and corporate control is due to a large part to the lack of a counter force. And labor is the only real potential force out there. But labor union leaders have continually played footsie and made sure to dampen any militancy that might  arise among workers. The cuts to social programs in this country will lead to London calling on our shores real soon.

Video updates will be added as they come in. Here is the first one.

Cheers as Teamsters pull their people out in solidarity

Reports from the picket line
Gloria Brandman, GEM
The Verizon rally was very spirited, energetic and loud. There were approximately 15 UFT members that I saw but others may have arrived after I left. Teachers were well received and Joyce, a CWA member, gave us each a flier with a huge headline stating: THANK YOU TEACHERS! It went on to explain that Verizon had made it clear that they want to remove almost every protection their employees have, leaving no other option for the CWA and EW then to go on strike. We engaged in conversations with the workers which were periodically interrupted by shouts of "scab", boos and whistles as people went in and out of the building. One woman explained that some of the supervisors who had to go to work were really in solidarity with the workers and would give them silent smiles. However, Verizon has brought in many scabs form other states, paying room, board and airfare. When we departed, we were thanked by almost everyone we passed for joining with them on the picket line.

Angel Gonzalez, GEM
As teachers, we're fighting for the same as telephone workers: labor rights, pensions, medical benefits, quality services, adequate wages and to halt CEO corporate/government corruption.

Support the CWA Verizon workers' strike.

Pete, Angel, Kelley join Verizon workers

The crew wearing UFT "painter" caps: Gloria, Julie, Sam, ,Joan

Kelley, Teachers Unite on right

Pete, ICE

I don't have my scanner set up but here are a few shots of the CWA leaflet.

So, find a Verizon picket line and stop by to say hello.  And honk your horn in support if you pass one by.

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

America in Labor and Parsing Randi

In today's Week in Review in the NY Times, Stephen Greenhouse wonders why American Labor Has An Unusually Long Fuse compared to European workers, who were out in the streets at the G20 meetings.

"Unlike their European counterparts, American workers have largely stayed off the streets, even as unemployment soars and companies cut wages and benefits."

At one time, in the 30's, when a powerful Communist and other socialist parties were strong in organizing the labor movement, this was not true.

General strikes paralyzed San Francisco and Minneapolis, and a six-week sit-down strike at a G.M. plant in Flint, Mich., pressured the company into recognizing the United Automobile Workers. In the decade’s ugliest showdown, a 1937 strike against Republic Steel in Chicago, 10 protesters were shot to death. That militancy helped build a powerful labor movement, which represented 35 percent of the nation’s workers by the 1950s and helped create the world’s largest and richest middle class.

Today, American workers, even those earning $20,000 a year, tend to view themselves as part of an upwardly mobile middle class. In contrast, European workers often still see themselves as proletarians in an enduring class struggle.

And American labor leaders, once up-from-the-street rabble-rousers, now often work hand-in-hand with C.E.O.’s to improve corporate competitiveness to protect jobs and pensions, and try to sideline activists who support a hard line.

“You have a general diminution of union leadership that was focused on defending workers by any means necessary,” said Jerry Tucker, a longtime U.A.W. militant. “The message from the union leadership nowadays often is, ‘We don’t have any choice, we have to go down this concessionary road to see if we can do damage control,’ ” he said.

Ahhh, there's a key. the "general diminution of union leadership" which wants to be partners with management.

Which leads us to Randi Weingarten and her speech this weekend at the NY State United Teachers conference in Buffalo.

We can be partners to 'advance the smart approach'
Don't reject reform ideas out of hand but instead "take a fresh look at some of the more divisive issues in education.

What are these "reform" - or deform- ideas Randi is talking about?

Merit pay, judging teachers and schools on narrow outcomes based on high stakes tests, charter schools that undermine public education, teachers as cogs - the whole gamut of deforms.

You see, to Randi, the partnership means she is the partner, not the rank and file teacher.

Now true progressive educator/reformers know what real reform would look like and it's a far cry from what is being pushed. Teachers who have real control of schools and their classrooms, which would require a take-down of the all-powerful principal. Like, how about teachers electing principals like they do in parts of Europe?

If teachers controlled schools, they would make the best - not perfect - but the best decisions. No teacher wants to work in a lousy school, so they are the ones with the most long-term interests in making schools work for themselves and the kids. More so than even parents, many of whom have more interest in their child than in the school overall. Besides, they are only part of the school temporarily, while teachers may spend an entire career. Oh, I forgot, part of the ed deformer package that Randi wants to partner with is a basic end to career teachers, replacing them with a Peace Corp mentality.

How does Randi benefit from that? Few teachers will be there long enough to realize her partnership = sellout.

Is the NY Times Asking, "Where is Hitler When We Need Him?"

Dave Leonhardt had an interesting piece on the impact of stimulus packages in the Great Depression in yesterday's NY Times.

More than any other country, Germany — Nazi Germany — then set out on a serious stimulus program. The government built up the military, expanded the autobahn, put up stadiums for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and built monuments to the Nazi Party across Munich and Berlin.

The economic benefits of this vast works program never flowed to most workers, because fascism doesn’t look kindly on collective bargaining. But Germany did escape the Great Depression faster than other countries. Corporate profits boomed, and unemployment sank (and not because of slave labor, which didn’t become widespread until later). Harold James, an economic historian, says that the young liberal economists studying under John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s began to debate whether Hitler had solved unemployment.

No sane person enjoys mixing nuance and Nazis, but this bit of economic history has a particular importance this week.

I was particularly taken with, "The economic benefits of this vast works program never flowed to most workers, because fascism doesn’t look kindly on collective bargaining."

Well neither does most of the American political system look kindly on collective bargaining. How about the attack on teacher unionism as the major obstacle to education progress, by the likes of Bill Maher and Nicholas Kristof and by many Democrats?

Remember the anti-strike Taylor Law?

How about Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers, which opened the floodgates to antilabor sentiment in this country? The Obama administration's waffling on card check, which would restore a semblance of balance between labor and management?

One could claim that a key element in the financial crisis is this imbalance between labor and a powerful corporate oligarchy that basically controls the American government that has lead to the massive disparity in wealth. It was well-known that during the boom years, American workers did not participate in the benefits.

Remember the shouts of "more productivity" in exchange for raises from the likes of Giuliani and Bloomberg?

Take teachers in NYC, who got supposedly big raises, but for longer working hours and more working days, while paying more for health care. We paid beyond the pale for the 2005 contract which stripped teachers of so many seniority rights and created the ATR mess.

Young teachers, especially in charter schools like KIPP are being paid 20% more for 60% more work and with nowhere the same benefits as public school teachers. This is the new model of non-career educators with no families or other serious obligations outside the school door that is being so praised by liberals and conservatives alike.

Arguments that labor has massive power and influence over the American political scene by anti-worker propagandists are a joke.

This Leonhardt point is revealing:

Europe is doing less than the United States, but the gap isn’t huge. It just seems so because European stimulus tends to arrive quietly, from existing safety net programs. In this country, where the safety net is weaker, stimulus comes largely from new laws.

Yes, Virginia, we have a weak safety net.
Weak labor = weak safety net.
Low wage, non-union companies like Walmart and McDonald's, among our largest employers = a population mass that under financial crisis will not be able to afford a Big Mac = global financial meltdown.

Related
Orleans School Board suspends teacher raises, allows larger classes
Cutting teacher salaries in New Orleans can easily occur because they destroyed the union. How will that work out for stimulating the economy? How will the hordes of Teach for America recruits brought in handle that? TFA will encourage them to keep their heads down and think about the kids instead of their livelihoods.


European Workers Rebel as G-20 Looms
At companies, including Caterpillar in France and Visteon in Northern Ireland, workers have occupied offices and detained bosses.
The Christian Science Monitor
America's press generally presents these people as left-wing lunatics, not as angry regular workers. I bet you can't wait to occupy your school and detain your principal and assistant principals.

What's This Card Check Stuff All About?

A few weeks before the election, a retired teacher who was clearly anti-Obama, asked, "What right does he have to take away the secret ballot in union elections?"

"Huh,"I said at first? "Oh, you mean Card Check. The unions want that, I tried to explain. But it was no use. She found another reason not to vote for Obama.

Well, she was not very conscious of union issues anyway.

But I was shocked at a small meeting I was at a week or two ago when a close political ally and strong union person expressed concern over the loss of the secret ballot implied in the card check campaign. That he was confused made it clear that we have to do more education on the issue and I've intended to write about it for some time.

Thank goodness for NYC Educator. The other day he talked about how Obama was already waffling on the issue in this post and I've finally has gotten off my ass. I left the following comment on his blog.

Ahh, the old secret ballot.

This is my impression of how card check works and correct me if I'm wrong.

Card check means if a majority of people sign a statement they want a union they get it without having an election. This is majority rule. And this seems to be what happened at the KIPP school - in NY state or the city do unions have that protection so there is no secret ballot at the KIPP school?

But the business community wants to do it again. After the majority sign off, they now have to vote - in essence a do-over. But now the boss has all the names of the people who signed. And a list of the most active organizers. SO guess what happens in the do-over? Maybe a few of these people disappear into layoff land. Or are threatened. And lo and behold, after the "secret ballot" the unions lose. Fear is a powerful weapon.

Reminds me of some UFT chapter elections where school admins get involved which are in some ways similar to the secret ballot.

I am sure part of the training at the principal academy is how to assure an admin friendly chapter leader and the techniques to use during the election to make it happen.

I lived through a few of these when my principal attempted to install her own CL. She ran her own slate against the CL (A decent Unity guy) and me as the delegate. 2 pro admin hacks who had shown little interest in the union before. It was a battle royal.

Months before I had filed a grievance for one of her flunky's jobs in special ed and won at the district level (I slipped the Supt. 2 Ranger game tickets after I won to thank him).

This "win" placed me in the heart of the beast - a special ed unit headed by the guy running against the CL. Over the months I was able to win over just enough votes to give the CL a 2 vote victory. I won by 6 votes.

Fifteen years later I took over as CL after that same Unity guy I had helped withdrew from the election, the principal sent the AP around with a petition calling for a new election so they could find a candidate to run against me. Over 20 UFT members were intimidated enough to sign it. We just ignored the petition, as we had followed UFT rules on holding elections to the tee.

I've actually heard of principals going to the UFT to complain about procedures - or getting their flunkies to do so - when they don't like the result. (And if the winner happens to be an ICE person, they get a good shot at getting a new election.)

I hope my little tale provides an insight as to why card check is so important and why we should not look at the narrow issue of the secret ballot in relation to democracy without considering the full implications.

Of course, the corporate world and the right wing has been presenting this as a workers' rights issue - that union goons will intimidate workers into signing on. Considering the state of labor in this country, we know where the goons are really coming from.

Toussaint on why we need political climate change

In this speech, Roger Toussaint makes a political analysis, not like Randi Weingarten who is all about tactics and strategy and political manipulation. No matter how much she talks about how she helped Toussaint, we all know that after the disastrous UFT 2005 contract, she would have looked pretty bad if Toussaint won a smashing victory. Her assigned role was to be an intermediary with the city, not an advocate, the same role she plays between the UFT and BloomKlein. Some say that is a good thing. But to have a labor leader always accept the argument there is no money without ever pointing to the surplus or the corporate tax breaks or the massive theft by real estates interests is not our advocate and plays more of a role selling Bloomberg's positions to us. Witness Deputy Mayor David Doctoroff's using up a massive chunk of time at the last Delegate Assembly where Randi was helping sell the plan. Contrast that with Toussaint's analysis of who exactly the plan is for.

Lisa North sent this along.
This speech by Roger Toussaint talks about living conditions and who decisions are made for in NYC/US. Not talked about in this speech was the fact that Bloomberg's plan for the future of NYC does not include building more schools for the increasing population. Some have said that his plans are for more wealthy people with NO children. If they do have children, send them to private schools or move! Lisa

(Remarks by TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint at the 2nd Annual Sumner Rosen Memorial Lecture on May 8, 2007) http://www.twulocal100.org/?q=node/462

Thank you Rabbi Feinberg, Ed Ott and all the organizers of this event. Thank you all for your support in these difficult times.

I want to talk about climate change. Some of you just had two full days on climate change at the North American Labor Assembly on Climate Change. Is there anything else to say? Especially from someone who is not a climate scientist.

I want to talk about changing the political climate. I have been asked to frame the discussion and then the panel jumps in. Here's a 5-point proposition for our discussion.

1. The political climate is very important.
2. The current political climate makes any progressive change almost impossible.
3. We are entering a period where the political climate can and will change.
4. Which way it changes -- good or bad -- is up to us.
5. So the big question is: What do the groups represented here tonight have to do to change the
political climate in a progressive direction. That's our task.

Our Union knows something about message development. 17 months ago, right before our last contract expired, TWU Local 100 put ads in newspapers and issued public statements. Our message was simple.

* Transit work is difficult, dangerous, vitally important work.
* Transit workers deserve respect and consideration for the work we do.
* Safety for riders and transit workers is our top priority.
* If we are hard nosed negotiators, it is because we have been to too many funerals.

That last line is not a paraphrase or summary. It is a direct quote from full page ads in December, 2005. "We have been to too many funerals."

The response from government and the media was swift and furious. We were denounced in the press for holding the city hostage. We were called greedy, overpaid, even lazy. We were told we should be thankful we had a job with any benefits. Editorials in the NY Post and Daily
News called for my arrest and jailing. Imagine that.

The media was not reporting the news. It was trying to create the political climate we had to work in. Let me add that the press was as rabid or more in 2002. Then the Post said I was leading a "neo-socialistic jihad."

There were also editorials about transit workers in the Daily News and Post this past week. Let me briefly quote from them:

"Safety is Job One in any environment. Transit workers find themselves in particularly dangerous circumstances all the time; the need for care is that much more acute."

That's from Rupert Murdoch's NY Post. Here's another, and here from the NY Daily News, an editorial titled "The tracks of our tears."

The sad, sorry truth is that most of us pay little attention to the men and women who keep this city running. Like the transit workers out there in the dark, dank tunnels where the subway trains come screaming through. We take both - the trains and the workers - for granted. Although the former would not be there for us if the latter were not there also, laboring under dangerous conditions.

We take the risks for granted, or do not understand the perils that come with the job. But this past week, our collective conscience was shaken by the deaths of two of these men.

Meanwhile, workaday New York - all the busy people rushing to-and-fro - should take a moment to acknowledge those who labor underground, unsung and unheralded. They deserve our thanks. And Franklin and Boggs and their grieving families deserve our prayers.

Like I said, the political climate can change. Local 100 did not hire a new PR firm to get these editorials. We paid a much higher price. There is an old IWW song: "We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years." Here is the refrain:

But if blood be the price of all your wealth Good God we have paid in full

Transit workers have paid in full to keep New York moving.

Climate change is coming. I think we are in one of those historic periods where what we do in the next year or two will determine the way people live for the next generation or two. It's one of those periods where the stakes are higher than usual.

* The future of American health care will be determined.
* The future of immigration.
* Transportation policy, and all that entails.
* The environment.
* The nature of work and retirement.
* War and peace for the whole world.

Use whatever term you want. Watershed. Paradigm shift. Or listen to Sam Cooke:

It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

Should we be hopeful or fearful? I say both. Clearly there is hope. If we had this meeting a year ago, with Bush and a solid Republican Congress, the future would seem impossibly bleak. Today it is less so.

But all change is not good change.

The last time things shifted for a generation was 1980, with Ronald Reagan. We are still living under that change.

What do we need to make the change a good change?

* We need stronger alliances between labor and other movements.
* We need stronger alliances between union labor and the rest of labor.
* And we need to forthrightly confront the big cultural roadblocks that block the progressive path.

The first one is about the public good. We have had 25 years of denigration of the very idea that there is something called the public good. Government has to push it forward. Society has to pay for it.

The Republican presidential debate last week was at the Ronald Reagan library. It belonged there. Reagan unleashed the open assault on the public good. The candidates fell all over themselves trying to show who was the most Reagan-like. Who would keep starving the
public sphere and push all wealth into the marketplace.

I used to think that the only public good the right wing accepted was the military. But today they even send our children and neighbors and co-workers into battle without armor. And then de-fund the VA hospitals when they come home wounded.

We need a full scale cultural counter-attack on this front.

* The market can NOT provide health care for all.
* The market can NOT provide efficient, affordable, accessible mass transit.
* The market can NOT make the environment green.

There are things the market can do. It can provide 300 TV channels and a fancier cell phone every few months. And if progressive public policy decisions are ever made, the market can try to make a buck off of them.

The market won't provide equality, or decency. It won't ensure dignity in our old age, though it will try to profit if society goes that route. We need to change the culture that worships the market and rebuild a sense of the public good, the common good.

I think this will require taking a deep breath and wading back into the battle over taxes. I offer as a proposition for debate: low taxes are an indication of a society going the wrong way.

Let me say a few words about New York City. A few weeks ago Mayor Bloomberg unveiled his big "Plan NYC 2030" to develop a more sustainable New York over the next generation. This time I did not tell the Mayor to shut up.

Two reasons.

1. He was talking about a big public initiative. It's about time.
2. And much of the content made sense. Playgrounds and green space throughout the city, a sound water supply, a superior mass transit system, and even congestion pricing for lower Manhattan.

But I have to raise the same questions I raised yesterday at the Climate Change conference. We are all for a greener New York, but a greener New York for whom? Who should do the sacrificing? And whose children get to benefit? It's not just about generations. It is also about class and race.

Every picture tells a story. Examine the photos accompanying the 157 glossy page Plan. You will see lower Manhattan, you will see Midtown Manhattan, and you will see Central Park. Not the South Bronx. Not East New York. Not Jamaica. Now read the text. You will see references to improving conditions in every borough and in every neighborhood of New York City. There is a mixed message here. Might I even say class perspectives are being shown?

We spoke out on congestion pricing because we see it as part of the mix for making NYC more livable and more viable in the future. Congestion pricing must be coupled with expansion of our mass transit system, with reducing transit fares, and with restoring the City's dwindling
funding for mass transit.

For us, this is not about making lower Manhattan a more comfortable place for bankers and lawyers to work, liveand play. It is about making mass transit effective, accessible, affordable for working New Yorkers. It is a matter of class. But in New York matters of class often turn out to be matters of race as well.

Look at a map of childhood asthma in New York. The South Bronx jumps out at you, as do other minority neighborhoods. Bloomberg's plan notes that 15,000 diesel-fueled trucks work the Hunts Point Market every day. That's true. But the trucks did not get there by themselves. They did not even get pushed there by the by the doings of the invisible hand of the market. NYC put them there. NYC poisoned the children of the South Bronx through conscious planning decisions.

We did not invest in mass transit. Instead we shut the ports. We shut down the rail lines. And the Cross Bronx became a trucking route. Childhood asthma in the South Bronx is not an accident. It is not the result of unplanned growth. It is the consequence of policy decisions pushed by big money and enacted by government. Policies soaked through with environmental racism.

And still I might take that over what has happened since: the total abandonment of public policy, planning and investment. It is a good thing that Mayor Bloomberg has reopened the possibility of government action in the public interest. It's up to us to make sure that the
policies are good one.

One specific example that might illuminate our challenge. For the better part of a generation,
government has reduced its commitment to mass transit. City and State contributions have gone down, and down again. They even cut back subsidies to the MTA for transportation for school children. And at the same time, they cut taxes for the rich over and over. The MTA
borrowed to make up the difference. Now interest to the banks on bonds is a growing burden.

Bloomberg calls for more mass transit. But he left out more money from the City and State. He talked of using the congestion pricing revenues, but not increasing the City and State share. He left out progressive taxation. And he left out fare reductions as a pull to accompany the congestion pricing push. He left all this out. We better not.

Why do I focus so much on public policy? Ask Dick Cheney. Standing on Ronald Reagan's intellectual shoulders, he said that conservation is a matter of individual decisions, not public policy. Our children are taught that if each of us does our part, we can make the world greener.

NO. Turning off the lights and riding a bike to work will not solve the problem. We better reestablish the legitimacy of the social sphere and public policy decisions. We better reestablish the proper role of government.

One more issue of American political culture that needs a climate change. I also think we need a major campaign that re-values honest work. We are losing that fight. America idolizes investment income.

Wages you can raise a family on, healthcare, and pensions have become "unsustainable entitlements". We are accused of dragging down the economy. Our benefits must be eliminated.

They actually say "unsustainable entitlements." That's from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Unsustainable!

Hedge funds are not called unsustainable. They don't think the war in Iraq is unsustainable. Good jobs and Social Security and Medicare are called unsustainable, over and over. This from the very people who say that spewing carbon based pollution has nothing to do with global warming.

Wages and pensions and health benefits are not just issues for labor negotiations. They are cultural markers that signify how society values work. Inside labor, we have many members who think their taxes are too high because public sector pensions are too high. Even in the
public sector. I think this is a culture war we have to get into if we want to keep our alliances and our ranks together.

Our notion of sustainability includes jobs you can raise a family on, jobs with health care for your family and a pension at the end. Our notion of sustainability includes parks and playgrounds, but also affordable housing and schools that work. Our notion of sustainability includes an effective, accessible and affordable mass transit system -- and good, union jobs
operating that system. Our notion of sustainability means making life livable for working people, for our children, and for our children's children.

If the lawyers and bankers come along for the ride, well, we can deal with that. But we are not giving up our seats for them.

This means we have to take a complex approach to the proposals that are out there. We will weigh seriously any proposal that can contribute to making life in New York more sustainable.

But we will also insist upon attaching the conditions necessary to meet our answer to the question "sustainable for whom?" For working people, that's who.

I started out saying that these next months will set the terms for a generation. On health care. Immigration. Transportation. The environment. Work and retirement. War and peace. And that we need alliances. Let me start the discussion with my comrades with an observation on
alliances and some questions.

* Labor is under attack.
* Labor is a key partner in any plan for progress.
* If we go down, we all lose.
* So our partners have to be much more than just tolerant of labor. You have to be affirmatively and strongly PRO-LABOR.
* If you (our partners in the environmental and other movements) need a strong labor movement, you have to help us more than you do.

So let me offer some questions to the panelists.

* What kind of alliances do we need to win?
* What do you need from us?
* What do you bring to the table?
* What's holding us back?

We have to collectively come up with the right answers or our children will hold us to account. Thank you.