Robotics at Javits Center Mar. 16-18

FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) Regionals at Javits, Mar. 16-18

The New York City Regional is a FIRST Robotics Regional Competition that will be held between Friday, March 16 and Sunday, March 18, 2007 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The 2007 competition will include sixty-three FIRST Robotics teams from New York City, the metropolitan region, and as far away as Brazil, Israel, and the United Kingdom.

The event is a world-class celebration of high school students, engineers, and mentors creating and discovering tomorrow’s science and technology! Twenty major New York City corporations will be on-hand to offer information about summer jobs, internships, co-op positions, and other employment opportunities at our first ever career fair. With an additional 200 middle school teams in five boroughs, the 2007 FLL and FIRST Vex demonstrations will only increase the excitement! http://www.nycnjfirst.org/nyc_frc.html

I will be there all 3 days at the registration desk, so stop by and say hello.

Friday is a practice day so the kids will have some time to take visiting school groups around.
I am coordinating school visits on Friday, so if you are interested in bringing a group contact me directly.

Read more at my robotics blog: http://normsrobotics.blogspot.com/

Daily Doins: March 8, 2007

How does a retiree spend a relaxing day? First, you start out by going to the printer to order more UFT election leaflets. Then, on to the full-day Region 4 robotics workshop. Then back to the printer to pick up the leaflets. Then off to meet a group of teachers at a high school who want to hear about the UFT elections. On the way, drop off leaflets at varying schools. Wrap up the evening battling the Unity slime on the blogs. Who wants to be sitting in the sun in Florida?

Tech Support in Medieval Times

In my last years in the system I was a technology staff developer assisting teachers with the integration of technology after Giuliani wasted $150 million putting 4 computers and a printer in every middle school classroom in the city, a system most teachers found practically useless in the context of the 45 minute or less period. (Most tech educators begged them to start out in the early grades and work the systems up the chain, but why listen to educators when businessmen can make the dicisions?) So my "support" often involved crawling around under tables plugging in printers and internet cables.

There's a much better system of tech support at Devil Ducky: Introducing The Book

Kit Wainer On the Non-Debate: Friday, March 2

Ballot facts

from Jeff Kaufman

Ellen Fox and I examined the membership list today at the American Arbitration Association. Over 161,000 ballots will be mailed. The list was missing 56 full time UFT staff members. This list will be emailed to me shortly. Jeff Zion, AAA official in charge of elections expected less than 50,000 to be returned.





Ballots to be mailed on Friday.
Academic HS 17642
Vocational HS 2125
JHS 12826
Elementary 36892
Retired 50207
Functional 38541
Special Ed 3579
While they were separated in the list Academic and Vocational will get the same ballot. Functional and Special Ed will get the same as well. Functional includes private sector. Charter schools are in each division.

Schmoozing at the Brecht Forum

As previously posted here, Sally Lee of Teachers Unite, hosted a forum on UFT basics aimed at new teachers, a number of whom enter teaching with a negative attitude about the UFT and unions in general. They are going to rescue the schools from those burned out teachers who value the contract over the children. Many have been imbued with the "corporate is good, public institutions are bad" mentality from college or previous jobs.

After all, look at the massive propaganda machine in the media that blame teachers for all the problems in the schools. With the DOE pointing its finger directly at the union contract as a reason for failing schools and with the DOE's ability to capture Teaching Fellows and Teach for America teachers with a "stay away from the union" and "you will find union people who don't want to work" and "UFT Chapter Leaders are the worst teachers" propaganda blitz, there is a lot of work to do.

At the same time, a group of these teachers are socially conscious and looking to be politically active in social justice areas. Sally's idea was to bring veteran union activists like myself and Megan Behrent (just a little bit less vet than I am) together with some of these people to explain how we see the union operating from our perspective, as members of ICE and TJC. If people want to get the Unity/union leadership point of view, they can always read the NY teacher, watch the commercials, or go to chapter meetings when the suits come to the school. But these are the people who often turn them off.

The event, surprisingly, brought out a mixed group of newer teachers and vets, some of whom read about it on this blog, including someone from Unity (not from the leadership.) We think everyone got something out of it. It was a pleasure working with Megan, who is so knowledgeable and articulate in presenting her views and that of TJC. She combines practical experience with her theories of activism. In particular, Megan is so good at addressing the idea that teachers who insist on adhering to the contract or who don't put in 12 hour days as somehow not being as caring as teachers that do. Points were raised that none of these 12-hour a day teachers have families with children or have to commute and that when they do they will find it impossible to put in the same time. In some ways, the concept of "heroic teacher saving the children," the Klein/corporate model of the ideal teacher, is very anti-mother (I know that many fathers take a big share of child-caring, but let's face it, women still bear the brunt). Lost in the rancor of the last few contracts with its time extensions was the disruptions so many families went through with rearranged baby sitting, etcc.

Sally has been bugging me for years to put together a flow chart of how the UFT is organized and I finally did it as well as a chart of the various caucuses. I used them to present a section on "UFT Basics 101." I will ultimately post them both when they are more presentable for the web.

Here is Sally's outline we worked from. We got most of this done, but not all.

Getting to Know the UFT: An Introduction for Teacher Activists
March 1st, 5:30 p.m., Brecht Forum

Overview of UFT Structure and History (15 min.)

(Sally) [slide presentation]
• Radical history
-What did Teachers Union fight for?
• 1968 strike
-Teachers vs. Community
• 2006 Context
-Community perception of UFT
-UFT’s role in national politics (Beyond Contracts)

(Megan)-Purpose of labor unions: Current State of solidarity/labor movement
(including: How TFA/Fellows program break solidarity)

(Norm) -How UFT is structured (hierarchy, caucuses, how resolutions are passed, etc.—

Why Get Involved (and what may happen if you do, and how to do it)? (20 min.)
(Norm/Megan) •Individualistic set-up of teaching (the “Dangerous Minds”/”Freedom Writers” trap): “I can make a difference” vs. building a broad movement
• Rank and file involvement/democracy makes the UFT stronger (including: how this will affect community/social justice issues)

(Sally) • Social Justice Unionism

(Norm/Megan) • Risks and Advantages of getting involved with the union in a school
(including the content of what you teach)

(Norm/Megan) • How can rank and filers get involved?/How can rank and filers utilize union as an organizing strategy for social justice?
-Rep/Delegate
-Caucuses
-Voting
-Chapters endorsing particular issues
-Conduct outreach about issues at DA meetings

• Strategies for protection
(Megan) -Consultation Committee
(Norm) -Customized consultation committee

Know Your Rights! (10 min.)

(Norm) • Role of chapter leaders
• Typical abuses/typical grievances

• Resources: Where can individuals look up rights?

Q & A (30 min.)

Participant questions for veteran union activists (introduce any union activists who are present to answer questions).

Klein & Weingarten: Separated at birth?

Trained as corporate lawyers.

Reached the highest positions in their organizations through appointment by the largesse of a powerful person above them.

Entered education for reasons unrelated to developing a career as a teacher.

Taught full time for only 6 months.

Run autocratic, rigid top-down, patronnage-ridden organizations top heavy with people making six figure salaries a year where personal loyalty is more important than competence.

Believe appearance is more important than reality.

Have in-house public relations staffs at great cost and pay high sums to outside PR agencies. View public relations as primary over trying to solve real problems.

Make at least a quarter of a million dollars a year plus expenses.

Wainer Clear Winner in "Debate"

While not a debate, but more in the nature of statements made by Weingarten and Wainer, the response by Weingarten to even the possibility of a debate is indicative of a fear of standing in front of the members in a forum where he doesn't have absolute control.

The following appeared today at the UFT-CWE wiki. Since I was banned on Broadway (52, that is) I remained outside to interview people as they left. Video is being edited and we hope an interview with Kit Wainer outside the UFT building will be available soon. Also, more coming on my banishment.

From http://uftcwe.pbwiki.com/

ICE-TJC candidate Kit Wainer clearly demonstrated his clear vision for a union that represents its members instead of its leadership at a meeting held at our regular chapter meeting on March 2nd. While Weingarten came off as personable she clearly told us that raising awareness of adult education issues was "our problem."

"The work must be done by the Chapter," she stated suggesting that it was our responsiblity to get other organizations involved.

It is hard to understand why she would not help us more. She offered to allow us a few minutes at a Delegate Assembly meeting which, of course, is attended only by UFT members, hardly the group that needs to be convinced about the need for adult education.

We have not endorsed a candidate but it is clear who the winner should be. For more on Kit Wainer see his video at http://www.elfrank.com/Kit/.

Coming Soon to the UFT: 28,000 Home Child Care Providers

I've been writing about how at-large voting guarantees Unity victory time and again. So far the 55,000 retirees with the addition of the lock-step chapters like guidance and secretaries that support Unity (most of the functional chapters are naturally led by Unity loyalists) have done the job. But soon they will have another 28,000 home child care providers, who have been organized by the UFT, joining them as another chapter. This will finally make the working in school teachers a minority in the UFT. (80,000 out of close to 200,000 UFT members.)

We totally support the organizing effort and the great work the UFT has been doing in organizing this group. But of course, we always question their motives. Rumors have been around that getting the UFT recognized as official bargaining agent is subject to negotiation -- like supporting the lifting of the charter school cap in exchange (with language to give the appearance that it will be easier to unionize the teachers, but in reality nothing much.)

They should be a totally separate chapter with their own president and executive board and should not be deciding issues like the high school, middle school and elementary VP's. If it is necessary to amend the UFT constitution, we should make that a contingency of supporting the entry of these workers into the UFT.

NYC Public School Parents Blog (New)

She will protest, but I believe Leonie Haimson's listserve has been one of the major galvanizing forces in the city for parents and other forces to unite against BloomKlein. Alliances have been built across the city. At the rally on Weds. I met more of Leonie's Lions, a force that will increasingly be reckoned with. We've seen some of Patrick Sullivan's fine posts on NYC Educator and other places. It was a pleasure to finally meet him on Weds. He will now be running a blog based on Leonie's nyceducationnews listserve. Lots of email, but worth all of it. A progressive parent voice with others chipping in. This is so scary for BloomKlein that they monitor it and often respond based on what is being posted there. Now comes the blog. Go there or be square!

Here is what Leonie sent out to the listserve.
Check out the new parent blog with contributions so far from Diane Ravitch, Patrick Sullivan, and Leonie Haimson – about the rally this week, the statistical lies of Tweed, the protest in Queens over Halsey Junior High School and more! Parents and others invited to contribute and to comment.

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com

Tiny Kangaroo Down Sport

From a contact:

I was at the UFT in Manhattan and shocked to see the Aussies having a meeting there with lots of PR material etc.

High-priced Aussies ($1000) a day by some accounts, have been part of micro-management attack on teachers. I'm sure the UFT has some explanation, but we get all too many accounts of the collaborative nature of the UFT.

Today at the Brecht Forum

Apparently UFT's leadership is raising questions to the event organizers because it features the opposition. They are not satisfied with Unity Caucus' control of 100% of the UFT media. They wants in on this event too. With Megan Behrent (TJC) and myself being the featured speakers, they want to know why UFT officialdom (the suits) was not invited, apparently not viewing Unity critics like Megan & I as true UFT members.

We'll make them an offer. Invite ICE and TJC to participate in UFT activities (funny, but they don't send Megan or I invitations to many UFT events). Give ICE and TJC regular space in the NY Teacher. And let us have rebuttal time to Randi's long-winded reports at the Delegate Assembly.

Well, maybe Unity clones will show up anyway. They can explain to the new teachers just how democratic the UFT is. Come down and join them.

If you can't make it down today, look for a report tomorrow.

Location:
The Brecht Forum
451 West Street (the West Side Highway)
between Bank & Bethune Streets
Subways: A, C, E or L to 14th Street & 8th Ave; 1, 2, 3 or 9 to 14th Street &
7th Ave.

Getting to Know the UFT: An Introduction for Teacher Activists

Thursday, March 1, 5:30 PM

Teachers committed to social justice often avoid having anything to do with their union for a variety of reasons. Whether curious about individual professional rights or how to build a large-scale movement, we invite New York City public school teachers to learn about the radical roots of the United Federation of Teachers, ask questions for veteran UFT activists to answer, and find out why rank and file involvement is key to mobilizing for social change.

Say It Ain't So Martine

Martine Guerrier has been appointed "chief family engagement officer" at Tweed

(I'll give a report on last night's raucous anti-Klein meeting later in the day.)

I read recently that BloomKlein, upon taking over the DOE bought off every potential parent who could emerge to oppose them in local areas with parent coordinator and other jobs. We basically heard the sounds of silence for quite a while. Certainly there was little or no parental presence at PEP meetings (except for special occasions), the one place where voices of protest could be raised publicly.


As a coalition of parent and community voices began to be heard again (and I give an enormous amount of credit to Leonie Haimson and her list for helping to bring some of these voices together) BloomKlein seems to be trying another round of the "buy them off" tactic.

I like and respect Martine Guerrier and I'm sure she feels she can do more on the inside, a classic error people make. She has (had) been the one voice on the PEP that seemed to question (gently) some of the actions of BloomKlein. She was often one of the only ones to question Klein on a number of issues. I haven't attended PEP meetings regularly but some of Martine's votes on controversial issues increasingly were tied to the politics of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, an ally of Bloomberg. I used to like Markowitz since his student activist days at Brooklyn College, but not after his sell-out so Ratner City and total suck-up to Bloomberg. (Hey Marty, fuh-ged-about-it!)

Naturally, one would expect this since Martine owed her position on the PEP to Markowitz' appointment. Her one big vote against the promotion policy when Bloomberg fired the PEP who opposed him ( he couldn't fire Martine because she was a borough appointment) was the highlight. Markowitz apparently gave her free reign on this, while the Staten Island borough Pres, fired the SI rep at that time.

I don't remember all of her votes, but I do remember an unsettling pattern of support for Klein's policies seemed to be emerging. And Klein always bent over backwards towards her. She does command a great deal of respect with her demeanor and intelligence.

But Martine is not the first person of this ilk to be co-opted and will now be drawn into the maw of the DOE, joining people who had a rep for integrity like James Leibman, forced to sit in as an acolyte at Klein press conferences, in the midst of buzzing Blackberries, never to utter her own thoughts again without filtering through hordes of press agents. In other words, the sounds of silence.

See original post from Leonie Haimson to her listserve and email from DOE here.

Arthur Goldstein, ICE-TJC Candidate for Exec. Bd. At-large Speaks About the Election

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dznjzblBz9A

Teacher arrested and removed from school in handcuffs

The NY Teacher trumpets every time there is a rare grievance victory. BloomKlein just laugh and refuse to enforce even sustained grievances. Weingarten brags about the pamphlet “Know Your Rights” but when you do stand up for your rights you find the union behind - far behind.

A little over a week ago I got a chilling phone call. It was from a former colleague who taught across the hall from me for a decade. That day (Thurs, Feb. 15) she was arrested and taken from her school in handcuffs based on a bogus charge made by a parent. She was not told the reason or told her rights. Most egregious was the actions of the school administrators. The AP came up to her room and told her she was wanted in the office. Not one other word that there were 5 cops waiting for her to arrest her. 5 cops! I guess there are no other crimes to solve in this city. But I do not blame the police for this.

The former Leadership Academy principal, who is close to the parent, was smiling ear-to-ear. She had finally found a way to remove a teacher who was a thorn in her side (the teacher ran for chapter leader last year and lost by a slim margin.) It was certainly within her power to convince the police that this case did not warrant an arrest.

What kind of monsters do we have running our schools?

How do we know the charge was bogus? While the teacher sat in the police station until 7pm, the police investigated at the school and the child was taken to the hospital by the police and found to not have a mark on her. When they returned to the station, the cop said it was all “nonsense” and they rescinded the arrest. They had looked at her 22-year record and found not one mark against her. “People we spoke to had good things to say about you,” they said. Someone from child support services told the teacher that the parent, who was at the station, said that if the teacher offered an apology, “this would all go away.” “Hell no,” the teacher said. For escorting a child to her seat after she had run out of the room twice? “Hell no!”

The teacher will now spend months or longer in the rubber room. We are efforting to help her find a lawyer to sue everyone involved. Maybe one day she will own the school building where she was so humiliated. And hopefully, the principal’s house.

The principal can keep smiling ear-to-ear, for now, having removed the one person who stood up to her. What a lesson to the rest of the people in the school, which has undergone enormous turnover in just a few years. Ask people if things are not worse than when the principal arrived.

Now, where does the blame lie for this fiasco? The principal? Sure. But I also blame a union leadership that can be so weak, helpless or worse, not consider that this can happen to any teacher in the system at any time, a high priority issue to address.

Why not, you might ask? I should put it in terms of they are more concerned about the bad public relations that might result from a teacher that is guilty than they do about the innocent teachers who have to be put through this. When I told some union officials about the case, they said, “Why didn’t she call the union?” The teacher has no faith in the union and when she did call the district rep the response was not exactly immediate. The UFT will say, “She should have read the “Know Your Rights” pamphlet in their "blame the victim" mentality.

I went to the rubber room at 25 Chapel St. Monday, Feb 26 and videotaped a statement from the teacher as she came out at 3pm. Then we went to the UFT Executive Board meeting where we both spoke. “We have a policy,” was the response. “We get a lawyer to assist you.” What is left out is what they don’t assist you with. The legal assistance is limited. I asked why doesn’t the union take this to the top level of the police department so cops will be alerted that these cases are all too often “nonsense.” The response: “People are guilty too. We’ll get them a lawyer.”

Thus, the UFT has the same response whether the teacher has committed a crime or whether there is a vendetta on the part of a principal or parent or even a child. This attitude is what is undermining the union at the basic level – the school.

There are no repercussions for anyone at the DOE because the teacher is left to fend for herself. If she wants to sue for false arrest, the burden is on her to find and pay for a lawyer. Then if she wins after spending an onerous amount of her won money, the union will trumpet the victory as theirs.

Oh, she might even win her way back into the school from hell after the DOE investigates after months in the rubber room. But what of the image children, parents and colleagues have of her removal in handcuffs?

I can point to case after case where Randi Weingarten has protected principals and superintendents, not wanting to interfere with cozy political arrangements.

When Jeff Kaufman, one of the ICE HS reps on the current Exec Bd and himself a former lawyer made a resolution last June calling on the UFT to provide more support to teachers in this position by hiring paralegals to do their own investigation apart from the DOE—questioning witnesses, etc, Weingarten and the Exec Bd were opposed. After all, they have to use the money for more insipid commercials. This is one of the reasons why Weingarten is so anxious to get Kaufman and other ICE-TJC reps off the Board.

At the Feb. 26 Exec. Bd meeting, Jeff and others in ICE gave the teacher a sense of support she does not get from the UFT. Jeff told her what she would have to do and gave her a lot of advice. At the end of the meeting, long-time Unity hack Sandra March, one of our 3 pension reps, attacked me, typical of the standard Unity response.

Because ICE raised this case to such a high profile, we expect the UFT to respond with a higher level of attention than the average teacher would get.

If ICE-TJC had more influence, we would call a press conference in front of the school and parade the teacher as the poster girl for teacher abuse. We would help her find a lawyer and make the DOE pay to such an extent they will think very long and hard before letting this happen to another teacher.

There would be consequences for allowing this to happen to an innocent teacher. The law will take care of the guilty. The UFT should stand up and deliver for the innocents.

Getting to Know the UFT: An Introduction for Teacher Activists

Thursday, March 1, 5:30 PM

Teachers committed to social justice often avoid having anything to do with their union for a variety of reasons. Whether curious about individual professional rights or how to build a large-scale movement, we invite New York City public school teachers to learn about the radical roots of the United Federation of Teachers, ask questions for veteran UFT activists to answer, and find out why rank and file involvement is key to mobilizing for social change.


Presenters:

Megan Behrent has been a high school teacher for eight years and is a UFT delegate. She ran on the Teachers for a Just Contract slate in 2004. She was on the city-wide UFT negotiation committee in 2006 and was one of the few to vote to fight for a better contract on that committee. She is also an active socialist and has been involved in UFTers to Stop the War.



Sally Lee is a former teacher and a core member of NYCoRE (New York Collective of Radical Educators). She founded Teachers Unite to support teacher-activists and progressive educators with resources that develop community leadership and social justice pedagogy.



Norm Scott spent thirty-five years working in the NYC school system, thirty of them as an elementary school teacher. He was a UFT delegate for much of that time and a chapter leader from 1994-1998. He started publishing Education Notes, a newsletter for NYC teachers in 1996 and was a founding member of the Independent Community of Educators (ICE), a progressive caucus in the UFT in 2003. He writes a blog at http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/

Location:
The Brecht Forum
451 West Street (the West Side Highway)
between Bank & Bethune Streets
Subways: A, C, E or L to 14th Street & 8th Ave; 1, 2, 3 or 9 to 14th Street &
7th Ave.

Sam Lazarus, Chapter Leader, Bryant High School

Sam Lazarus, Chapter Leader, Bryant High School, is running for one of the 6 high school UFT Executive Board seats. These are the most "electable" positions in this election for ICE-TJC but they face both New Action and Unity who have cross-endorsed their candidates in an attempt to wipe out the lone opposition voice on the Executive Board. See his video.

ICE-TJC High School Executive Board Candidates

Peter Lamphere is a union activist and teacher at the Bronx High School of Science. Previously, Peter was a UFT Delegate from Columbus High School where he led a rare UFT victory to stop his school from being closed completely. The fact that there is a Columbus High School at all that is still in existence is due in no small part to Peter’s organizing ability.



Sam Lazarus has over twenty years experience as a teacher. He currently works at Bryant High School where he is in year four as chapter leader. Sam organized his school and region in leading a Region 4 protest rally that successfully put a stop to Region 4 micromanagement. Teachers in Region 4 are no longer required to use the “workshop model” in all of their lessons thanks to Sam’s organizing and his ability to organize the UFT to join the fight. It was Sam’s idea that the UFT should combine with other unions rather than accept the horrible giveback laden 2005 Contract.



Marian Swerdlow was educated in NYC public schools, and has a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University. She is the author of "Underground Woman: My Four Years as a NY Subway Conductor." She has taught at FDR H.S., Brooklyn since 1990, and has been a UFT Delegate for twelve years. She has presented many resolutions at the UFT Delegate Assembly including many attempts to persuade the Union leadership to actively engage the rank and file.



Nick Licari is the longtime chapter leader from Norman Thomas High School in Manhattan where he teaches. Nick helped to elect the only two independent, non Unity District Representatives back when there were elections for that position. Nick is a strong advocate for his members at Norman Thomas and he has led several demonstrations to protest conditions at his school. Nick was the Teachers for a Just Contract candidate for President in the 2004 UFT election.

James Eterno is a twenty year veteran social studies teacher at Jamaica High School who has been chapter leader for 11years. He has been elected to the UFT Executive Board for ten years, seven in New Action and the last three as an ICE-TJC representative. Eterno left NAC when they decided not to run against Randi in 2004. He has authored numerous resolutions that have become Union policy including a recent proposal to demand that the UFT oppose the closing of schools. He argued against Mayoral Control of the schools as early as 2001 when Randi first argued in favor of it.

Jeff Kaufman is the Chapter Leader of Rikers Island Academy. Even though the Department of Corrections along with the Principal at Rikers conspired in 2995 to have Jeff removed from the school because he was helping a student, his chapter still overwhelmingly reelected him as their chapter leader. Kaufman was completely exonerated by the DOE and has taken his case to return to Rikers the State Public Employees Relations Board. Jeff has questioned Randi on numerous occasions at the Executive Board where he has served for the last three years. Jeff made a demand that the UFT hire staff to do our own investigations when teachers are removed from schools. Why should we rely on special investigations people to make the only record of any incident?

James Eterno (left center) and Jeff Kaufman (right) at Oct. 2005 rally at UFT HQ calling for a NO VOTE on the 2005 contract.

Jeff and James also led a vociferous opposition to the Fact Finding report that led to the Draconian givebacks of the 2005 Contract. First, they warned Randi in 2004 not to go to fact finding because they knew we would lose based on precedent of 1993 and 2002. Randi ignored them. Then, they told Randi to reject the Fact Finding Report when it was released and to start all over. She again reacted with anger. Finally, when the final Contract was agreed to, they pointed out all of its flaws and made the case the Contract would be a disaster for UFT members. Randi’s reaction has been to attend fewer Executive Board meetings and when she does show up, she usually is only there for part of the meetings. If she can’t face tough questions from UFT Executive Board members, then how can she stand up to the Mayor?

How Unity Uses At-large Voting to Control the UFT

UFT Election Notes - Feb. 25, 2007

Statistics (rough):
80,000 teachers in schools.
20,000 non-teachers (paras, secretaries, social workers, guidance, nurses, etc.)
55,000 retirees
Total: 155,000 members

If you break down the UFT election into categories, you can see the inherent lack of democracy built into the system. All 11 officer positions are voted on at-large — the entire membership, which includes 55,000 retirees. Even the divisional Vice Presidents -- elementary, high school, middle schools and vocational schools - are included. They used to be voted on only by their division but Unity changed the rules to assure they will never be threatened with having even one opposition member on the AdCom (Administrative Committee.) All 11 officers are also members of the Executive Board and the Delegate Assembly.

Using at-large voting is the key to control, since retirees make up 1/3 of the union membership and vote overwhelmingly for Unity.

What about the other 78 members of the Executive Board?

42 members are also elected at-large. So far, 53 (42 + 11) for Unity.

14 functional (non-teachers, including retirees) are as good as at-large: make the total 67.

The 22 remaining members of the EB come from the 80,000 teachers actually working in the schools: Elem (11), Mid Schl (5), HS (6).

So let's say the majority of people actually teaching in the schools vote for ICE-TJC. Let's take an extreme case and say 75%- around 60,000 teachers vote to elect ICE-TJC in these three divisions. That would give the representatives of the 80,000 teachers in the schools only 22 out of 89 seats on the Executive Board, leaving Unity with over 75% of the EB seats.

If this scenario ever occurs (even with a 51% majority), the opposition would have a very good case to make with the members that there must be fundamental change in the constitution that can allow such blatant manipulation. We can guarantee Unity will respond in ways to try to maintain control. One way is to dilute the % of working teachers in the UFT by adding nurses, home workers, etc., a process that is already in the works. Thus, the United Federation of Teachers may one day be a union where teachers are a minority.



Unity Caucus will organize banana pickers to solidfy its reputation as running the biggest banana republic in North America.

So far, the opposition has been able to win the 6 high school seats on a fairly consistent basis and once won the middle schools. They have never gotten close in the elementary schools. When New Action, which had been winning these high school seats went over to the dark side and joined with Unity in the 2004 elections, that spurred TJC become active in elections for the first time, while leading to the formation of ICE in response to the New Action sell-out. The result was that the ICE-TJC high school candidates defeated New Action.

But holding 83 out of 89 seats is not enough control for Unity. This time they are endorsing the New Action candidates for high school Ex. Bd. so that a vote for the Unity or the New Action slates will count as a vote for the New Action candidates. If they win in the high schools there will be no ICE-TJC members of the Executive Board. In addition, Unity has guaranteed New Action at least 5 seats on the Board by running 5 New Action candidates at-large.

Commercial, commercial, commercial
That is why it is so important for high school teachers in particular to vote the ICE-TJC slate (DO NOT VOTE ONLY FOR INDIVIDUALS). The six ICE-TJC people running have a lot of experience as part of the opposition to Unity for many years.

James Eterno (Current EB member, and a member for many years, CL Jamaica HS)
Jeff Kaufman (Current EB member, CL Rikers)
Peter Lamphere (Teacher at Bronx High School of Science, former Delegate. Columbus HS)
Sam Lazarus (CL at Bryant HS and the instigator of the Region 4 rally against Reyes Irizzary.)
Nick Licari (CL at Norman Thomas HS for many years, TJC Pres candidate in 2004)
Marian Swerdlow (Del, FDR HS and active in the opposition for 15 years.)

(More extensive biographies will be posted soon.)

Election these 6 people to the Executive Board will preserve some vestige of representation for opposition voices to Unity.

A list of ICE-TJC candidates for officer and executive board can be found at http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/