When American Troops interferred in more than an election in Russia

Pvt. Henkelman, who painted car bodies at Detroit’s American Auto Trimming Co. before being drafted, told the soldiers he would cross enemy lines alone, carrying a white flag. He would invite the Bolsheviks to a goodbye party. Then he and his co-conspirators would walk away from the war. Four days later, U.S. Army officers caught wind of the plot. Pvt. Henkelman was hauled before a court-martial and charged with treason, desertion and mutiny—crimes punishable by death.....
Soldiers in Company A of the 339th tried to forge a separate peace with Bolshevik soldiers across from their lines. One American, apparently the son of Russian or Eastern European immigrants, drafted the truce offering in rough Russian on Knights of Columbus stationery decorated with an American flag. The writer complained about the deceit of the British officers and the absence of British troops on the front lines.

Yesterday's WSJ had an amazing article about one of the most shameless events in our history -- the sending of troops to Russia to fight try to kill off the Russian Revolution. I'm posting this because a member of my writing group, Bruce Bowman, has written an as yet unpublished novel on this very subject. How American troops who were expecting to fight the Germans were sent to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks. So what's a little interference in the 2016 election compared to this?

More proof that Woodrow Wilson engaged in some of the most awful deceptions of any American president, despite his reputation as a liberal. When I studied history we viewed him as one of the good guys. Goes to show you how much stuff has been hidden.

The Saturday Essay

The One Time American Troops Fought Russians Was at the End of World War I—and They Lost

Thousands of U.S. soldiers sent to guard military storehouses from the Germans were instead ordered to wage war on the Bolsheviks

In late February 1919, the soldiers of Company B reached the breaking point, when griping gave way to mutiny.

The Americans had expected to face Germans on the Western Front. Yet three months after the Nov. 11 armistice ended the Great War, they were instead fighting Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia’s frigid European north.

Dozens of their fellow troops had succumbed to influenza on the sea voyage to the Russian port of Archangel. Others had been killed in combat by an enemy armed with a local’s knowledge of trails and villages. Wounded Americans had frozen to death awaiting rescue in snowy forests.

Kristallnacht - The Day of Fate - David Frum, The Atlantic

Until November 1938, the Nazi program for Germany’s Jews was one of humiliation, segregation, and exploitation. Recent scholarship has drawn uncomfortable parallels between the Nazi subordination of the Jews before 1938 and the Jim Crow system of the American South at the same time. In the half decade leading up to 1938, German Jews were expelled from the civil service and from teaching posts. They were forbidden to marry Gentiles and risked murderous punishment for nonmarital sexual relations. They lost their licenses to practice medicine and law. They were barred from using park benches and swimming pools. They were excluded from Germany’s universities, then its high schools. They were expelled from orchestras and other cultural institutions. At every turn, they were economically defrauded and robbed: subjected to economic boycotts, punitively taxed, denied health insurance and other social benefits, and forced to sell assets at knockdown prices to regime cronies.
Yet through the end of 1937, it remained possible to hope that the Nazi persecution might still respect some last limits of humanity. While many individual Jews suffered assaults and some were murdered in the early years of the regime, systematic killing of Jews solely because of their religion still hovered over the horizon. Surely in an advanced and cultured nation, some decency must still constrain uttermost barbarity?
Eighty years ago this week, the last of those illusions was smashed like broken glass.

I posted another story on Kritallnacht on FB but this one by David Frum is so good as it connects some dots between then and now.

The Day of Fate

Kristallnacht, on its 80th anniversary, still offers a potent lesson: We all face the choice between right and wrong, responsibility and recklessness, conscience and complicity.

7:01 AM ET 
 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/eighty-years-after-kristallnacht/575410/?utm_source=twitter&utm_term=2018-11-09T12%3A01%3A01&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&fbclid=IwAR0VfDZkek5y6MjGrA8C-4Jv0EKbfRGWej_c9KkwNtjgLKaFc39hjVfqBhU

UFT Contract Vote Results - Finally

I've been bitching about the lack of exact numbers (UFT Contract Vote: Where are the numbers?) but here they are:

James has some comparisons to 2014 at the ICE blog:

There were 89,083 total votes cast this year compared to 90,459 in 2014. That's 1,376 fewer voters. In terms of teachers, there were 61,708 votes cast in 2018 compared to 64,232 in 2014. I can't explain that 2,524 drop in numbers for teachers.

Obviously a key vote came in the OT/PT chapter with only 36% approving the contract.

Very significant is the 86% teacher vote. Yes, 8600 voted NO in spite of enormous pressure and speed in the process, but 53,000 teachers voted YES. James points to 2500 less teachers voting than last time.

James points to the total NO vote as roughly 12,000.

Let me point out that in the 2016 UFT elections MORE/NA received 10,600 votes. Add the Portelos 1400 and we get about 1200 total in 2016.

What this tells me is that there is a floating 12,000 people in the UFT who are skeptical or opposed to Unity. That number has ranged between 9 and 12,000 over the past decades.

James thinks if the opposition had been in more schools the vote would have been higher.

But that is the point. Why isn't the opposition in more schools? And why has the number of opposition people and schools remained fairly constant over decades?

Here's how I'm beginning to look at it.
There aren't more opposition and therefore a greater vote because being an active part of the opposition doesn't and hasn't appealed to many people beyond this floating core. And I do not see any prospects for this to change in the near future. In fact I think it may shrink, given the opposition is at its weakest point in a very long time.

The Founders and Us -- Was John Adams Right and Jefferson and Madison Wrong?

Since the 1980s, Ellis argues, the political right has engaged in a persistent, well-funded and “radically revisionist” act of historical fraud, painting government as “demonic” in the eyes of its creators. Faced by the reality that [John] Adams anticipated — deep, endemic, expanding inequality — conservatives peddle Jeffersonian remedies, like the crippling of federal power. Ellis thinks the right has been so successful in selling this “extreme version of capitalist theology” that it has, to a meaningful degree, shut down the centuries-old debate about the role of government. The advocates of regulation and economic reform have been shouted down and shoved to the sidelines, Ellis contends, turning “mainstream politics” into “a one-sided conversation, a muted version of the American Dialogue.”.... NYT Review of American Dialogue by Joseph Ellis

A fascinating review of a book I think I should read but probably never will. I remember this debate taking place in my history classes in high school and college. But no longer I imagine. I keep telling people you can't understand what is happening today without looking back to the past. (Check out this Nov. 1960 article on JFK's victory.)

But no one wants to listen. Just yesterday at a luncheon where I was the only one present who was an adult in the 60s, I was asked if those years were as divisive as now. YES I said. Maybe more so. Here is more from the review by Jeff Shesol.

Jefferson’s romantic notion that economic and social equality would be the natural order of American life and Adams’s retort that “as long as property exists, it will accumulate in individuals and families. … The snow ball will grow as it rolls.” Jefferson’s was the prevailing view at the time. Meanwhile Adams’s “prophecy,” as Ellis notes, struck most of his peers as “so bizarre and thoroughly un-American … that it served as evidence for the charge that he had obviously lost his mind.” Adams saw no way to prevent the consolidation of wealth and power by American oligarchs, but he did believe it could and must be moderated — regulated — by a strong national government....

John Adams an early version of late 19th- mid 20th century reformers?

There can be no question whose forecast was right. Jefferson’s ideal of an egalitarian, agrarian society was an anachronism before the 19th century was out, while the Gilded Age, near that century’s end, provided garish confirmation of Adams’s insight. So, of course, does the current age. Turning his attention to the present, Ellis paints a vivid if familiar picture of the redistribution of wealth to the top of the income scale, as well as the abandonment — indeed the denigration — of Adams’s belief that, in Ellis’s words, “the free market required regulation for capitalism to coexist with the egalitarian expectations of democracy.”

I loved this review, though I don't think I have the patience to read the book.

History was my favorite subject from elementary school on. There was possibly some kind of bias in the material against the Federalists and in favor of the Jefferson wing of the party because of the attitudes I emerged with by the time I left college. That the Federalists like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams were patrician bad guys and Jefferson and Madison were truer Democrats. Actually, I remember Madison being views as Jefferson's lackey in some ways. (We visited both their houses which were not far apart in Virginia.) But Madison may be the true father of our nation due to the work he did in getting the constitution passed. If not for him we might need a passport go to New Jersey.

Adams

Jefferson

Madison

Did Madison intend the constitution to be read like a biblical tome, ala the late Justice Scalia?

Ellis argues, the prevailing conservative doctrine of “originalism” is a pose that rests on a fiction: the idea that there is a “single source of constitutional truth back there at the founding,” easily discovered by any judge who cares to see it. As a historian, Ellis takes particular offense at the machinations made by Justice Antonin Scalia in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) — a sophist’s masterpiece of an opinion that concluded the founders sought to arm the American people without limit and without end. Though Scalia is gone, his ideology remains ascendant, while Madison’s heirs, the proponents of a “living Constitution,” are “on the permanent defensive.” History, to that end, is bastardized, sanitized and turned into talking points.

Over the decades my views have shifted because of the new information and interpretations and John Adams has continued to rise. And Madison is just a giant - though he was supposedly short.

Actually I believe the founding fathers stature in history is connected to their heights.
Washington was 6'3"
Jefferson was 6'2"
Adams was 5'7"
Madison was 5'4"

Below the fold is the entire review.

Are Green Party Defections Due to Trump's Pushing People To Democrats, Countering Some Left Analysis?

Normally, I would agree with the Jacobin election analysis. But  you'll note that all the victories were for Democrats, not Greens. Are we tacking left? If so what about the massive drop in vote totals for The Green Party in the NYS governor race?

Totals dropped from 5% to less than 2% in the election for governor of NYS between the 2014 and 2018 election - from 184,419 votes to less than 80,000 at last count. Howie Hawkins was the candidate both times - and everybody loves Howie -- but his Lt Gov was Brian Jones in 2014 and Jia Lee in 2018 - both are associated with MORE and a socialist agenda. The Green platform was a very progressive agenda -- social democracy at the very least -- the kind of agenda I would normally support.

One of the ironies of Trump is that people seem to be moving from the left and more towards the center as a better alternative to the horrible Republicans. And as an aside, thinks of how this analysis might apply inside the UFT where the MORE Caucus is tacking left in the expectation that the membership is also moving in that direction. I and a few others still around MORE who don't quite agree are taking a wait and see attitude.

I often vote for the Green Party but hesitated to do so this time due to my sense that we are stuck in a two party system and with the Republicans being the party of Trump, it is not easy to brand the Democrats as being little different.

I got a dose of this first hand from a close family member who despises Cuomo almost as much as Trump but voted straight Democratic line as a way to register her protest against Trump.

So, given the option of voting Green or voting for the despised Cuomo despite his tacking left, my sense if that many people felt the same way.

Now the left press doesn't seem to agree. Here are some links to a Jacobin analysis:

Jacobin

• Last night's elections were an important repudiation of Trump — and another confirmation that voters will embrace left-wing policies over watered-down centrism, explains Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.
   
• By running to the right, Democrats insist on losing twice: at the polls and in constructing an inspiring agenda. Bold left-wing politics are our only hope for long-term, substantive victory.
   
• When it comes to beating Trump, baby steps are not enough. America’s decades-long shift to the right won’t be undone with Democratic Party liberalism.

Normally, I would agree with the Jacobin analysis. But if you read some of it you'll note that all the victories were for Democrats, not Greens.

But right now I am thinking I want an FDR New Deal, which has been being undermined by the Republicans, aided by the Clinton/Obama Democratic neo-liberal wing of the party. If people hadn't jumped into the despised (on the left) Democratic Party, there would be no victories.

Rather than jumping into left-wing parties, I'm feeling that we are at a stage that requires many people to work in the Democratic Party even when some elements are not of a perfect political flavor. Like can the party exist within the two poles of Connor Lamb and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

I'm willing to give it a try. But I also want to note that AOC has come under severe attack from the left-wing ideologues, so expect them to keep attacking the Democratic Party but when it suits them to brag about victories over Trump by the Dems.

I have the sense that it is time to join my UFT brethren in working in the Democratic Party, pushing for a progressive program. Not a radical program, but progressive. I just may start going to UFT Retiree chapter meetings and look at some options -- and let me note I hate canvassing and calling from phone banks but may have to bite the bullet.

I couldn't mark the ballot box for Cuomo but also couldn't vote Green. Someone reminded me that former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner, who at one time wanted to challenge Cuomo in the primary, was also on the ballot and I want to encourage diversity inside the Dems, so I voted for her.

But there is some good news for the Greens, as evidenced in this article from a Syracuse newspaper.

Howie Hawkins wins enough votes to keep Green Party status in NY

Candidates for New York governor Stephanie Miner, Larry Sharpe and Howie Hawkins speak during the 2018 Global Citizen Festival in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo)

By Michelle Breidenbach

mbreidenbach@syracuse.com

syracuse.com

Syracuse's Howie Hawkins has succeeded in his attempt to keep the Green Party's status as an official party in New York state.

With 83 percent of the vote counted, Hawkins had won 79,640 votes. That was less than 2 percent of the vote against the winner Gov. Andrew Cuomo and challengers Republican Marc Molinaro, Libertarian Larry Sharpe and Stephanie Miner, who ran on a new party called the Serve America Movement.

Sharpe has also won enough votes to give the Libertarian Party a line for the next four years. Miner was behind in her effort to win a ballot line for the SAM party.

Although he has not won office in more than 20 tries, Hawkins has been a powerhouse for the Green Party's ballot placement.

Candidates who win at least 50,000 votes in the race for governor win an automatic ballot line for the party for the next four years. It means candidates who run on the Green Party line for all state and local races can collect fewer signatures than independent party candidates. It also means Hawkins appeared fourth on the ballot this year.

The Green Party appeared fourth on the ballot in NY thanks to Hawkins' strong showing four years ago in the race for governor.

Hawkins inched the Greens into recognized party placement in 2010 with 59,906 votes. With a higher ballot line, Hawkins won 184,419 votes in 2014, according to the NYS Board of Elections.

The Green Party boasts that it has successfully won a ballot line three terms in a row by running its own candidates rather than cross-endorsing major-party candidates.

White House Press Release: Trump Fires Racist

President Trump struck a blow for civil rights when he fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an avowed racist.

No further information is forthcoming.

UFT Contract Vote: Where are the numbers? Lack of Transparency Leads to conspiracy theories

"Hey, Norm, I bet they began counting the ballots the minute you were out the door." Comment on my post on "observing" the contract vote last Friday.

I've always pretty much accepted the results to the AAA counts on elections and contract votes, especially when I was able to observe the counts. I saw ballots being pulled from envelopes early Friday afternoon. Why weren't they being put in counting machines?

This one took a hell of a long time and I pretty much accepted the story. But I also expected the detailed results to be published. Details like the % and hard numbers for each of the 14 contracts and also the % of those who voted on each contract. I would also like to see the numbers on each of the divisions - high schools, middle schools and elementary schools.

These numbers are available as every voter was checked off on master lists. But I will say that the primitive nature of how this count was conducted makes the voting snafus we saw yesterday look mild.

I went to the UFT Ex Bd meeting on Monday night expecting to get some real numbers on the contract vote, which according to UFT officials, went through Saturday and into Sunday morning. It didn't happen. I'm sorry the non-Unity Ex Bd people didn't push harder for answers. But only 3 of them were there, two from New Action.

We were told that the turnout was the same as in 2014 which I thought was over 90% but apparently it wasn't. I heard a number like 79%. MORE is reporting 70% voted as a sign that the 30% non-voters are a sign of protest, or disinterest, but I don't know where the numbers are coming from.

I was at the count in 2014 and I remember it all taking place in one day so I can't quite understand the delays.

People are contacting me and casting some doubts on the process and maybe even the outcomes.

Tossing out the 87% YES vote as the major outcome is misleading.
The reports on Sunday were that 80-85% of the teachers voted YES was confusing. My guess this is UFT/Unity spin --- where are the exact numbers?

The UFT leadership needs to get out the numbers ASAP as transparency is important and I hope they put out a fact sheet at the Delegate Assembly today. If there are still the same sketchy reports then I may jump on the conspiracy theory bandwagon.

Video: School of Secondary Journalism Student Walkout - Student Leader Gets in Touch

Here is a follow-up on the walkout of students yesterday at the Secondary School of Journalism on the John Jay HS Campus in Park Slope: STUDENTS ORGANIZE WALKOUT at Secondary School of Journalism - Complain About AI Principal Livingstone Hilaire

Leonie has been in touch as I posted on my original link. And here is an email from the senior student who organized the walkout -- I'm not using the name, nor am I reporting on the parent who is my contact. Why give the enemy info?

Good morning Mr. Scott,

I’m a 15K463 SSJ senior student who organized the walk out to protest against the principal and other wrongdoings within the school. I was networked with you and I want to thank you for picking up on our story. I will be sending you photographs and video clips from the walk out that occurred on November 5, 2018. If any questions or concerns feel free to email me. Thank you, and have a good day.
 
In the video we are chanting “SSJ will pay for our GPA!”

https://vimeo.com/299277119

School Scope: UFT Contract Passes, Pre-Midterm Thoughts

My column submitted to The WAVE for Nov. 9, 2018.

Written Monday, Nov. 5.
School Scope: UFT Contract Passes, Pre-Midterm Thoughts
By Norm Scott

As further proof that I don’t have a life, I did my due diligence as an unpaid reporter for The WAVE by spending over half a day last Friday at the American Arbitration Association (AAA) attempting to observe the vote count for the new UFT contract. It turned into 5 hours of watching 30 workers opening over 100,000 outer, then inner envelopes before a nugget of a ballot with either a YES or NO or a “Go to hell” written on it emerged, to be stacked and ready for counting. Since there were 14 separate contracts being voted on, there were 14 colored ballots. I can’t imagine the range of 14 colors once we get beyond the primary ones.

UPDATED: STUDENTS ORGANIZE WALKOUT at Secondary School of Journalism - Complain About AI Principal Livingstone Hilaire

I'm updating this post with info from Leonie Haimson. Also see her comment in the comment section.

Students’ personal data is being collected by CZI/Mark Zuckerberg and being shared with up to 18 other companies.  Many parents & students throughout country have rebelled.

See the recent NY Mag article here:

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/the-connecticut-resistance-to-zucks-summit-learning-program.html

or the many blog posts I've written about Summit -including https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/08/30/parents-cite-student-privacy-concerns-with-popular-online-education-platform/?utm_term=.991a38a334ee

  and https://www.studentprivacymatters.org/parents-rebel-against-summitfacebookchan-zuckerberg-online-learning-platform/

and https://www.studentprivacymatters.org/update-on-summit-schools-including-my-visit-to-a-summit-charter-school/

and https://www.studentprivacymatters.org/zuckerberg-and-the-parent-pushback-vs-summit-schools-inbloom-reprised/

and https://www.studentprivacymatters.org/serious-privacy-concerns-with-new-summitfacebook-platform-used-in-100-schools-across-the-nation/

I don't have the details on what is behind this walkout at this point. I saw something where the students at a school for supposed journalism are complaining about the curriculum. If you have info leave a comment but be patient as I have moderation on.

Part of 15K463 SSJ walkout on 5th November 2018 - despite the Superintendent Janice Ross trying to talk the students out of it.

One of IA Principal Livingstone Hilaire’s cronies who is also a former IA Principal in our school is preaching to the students what the students typed up.

Superintendent Janice Ross is on site at the moment - she was sent by Executive Superintendent Karen Watts to stop the walk out.

UFT Contract Vote Prelim Report: OT/PT Reject But 87% over all — 80-85% for teachers

UPDATE - Monday -  OT/PT Chapter Leader urged YES Vote. Unity Caucus usually controls the functional chapters so this is not surprising.

======

Sunday 3:30 PM Update - I'm reposting the 1:30 with an update.
The OT/PT, nurses unit rejected the contract. I think the leadership will try to punish them for rejecting the contract by letting a lot of time pass so they will be not get any raises. That'll learn em for saying NO.

A CL emailed me:

The more I look at Mulgrew's letter, the more furious I get. "You just screwed yourselves, but we will stand beside you. While you screw yourselves." Solidarity forever.

OTs and PTs were furious that they didn't get a fair pay increase, pedagogical status, or recognition of enough paid hours to qualify for FMLA. Apparently they went to sleep the night before the tentative agreement being assured they'd get some combination of the above things. When asked about the betrayal at the October DA, Mulgrew tepidly responded by saying something like, "Well, the DOE didn't want to talk about any of that." The attached letter, that just went out to the OT/PT & Nurses chapter, is a classic example of passive-aggressive, supportive-but-actually-not-supportive, chastisement. Very disturbing.

Para Contract
There was some back and forth on the para contract, which I'm sure was overwhelmingly ratified. James Eterno sent me his position on the para contract and why he thinks despite due process it was not a good deal for them.

 Paraprofessionals winning better due process is all well and good from their contract which is a totally separate contract from teachers. The UFT has many distinct bargaining units. What about paraprofessional pay? They too are receiving paltry salary increases so that the starting salary for paras will be $28,448 a year in 2021 in this contract. In NYC that is basically subsistence wages for paras. That is less than half of what a starting teacher makes. Another non-teacher chapter in the UFT isn’t catching up with teacher salaries either. Occupational-physical therapists are not anywhere near pay parity with teachers and these professionals have advanced degrees. That is an outrage that has not been addressed. In addition, guidance counselors, school secretaries and other non-teaching titles did not get an arbitration provision in their workload dispute complaint procedures so administrators are free to just pile on the work and the dispute is never heard by an outside neutral party. Most of the non-teacher UFT contracts are not any better than the teacher deal. Because the paras have better due process, it is no reason to say yes to the teacher or guidance counselor or any other of these UFT contracts.

Will Some NOs opt out?
I also got some feedback from the earlier post -- like if there are over 15,000 people who voted NO, does that make them candidates to use Janus to opt out of the union in June?

Impact on Opposition
I will explore what this all might mean for the opposition that led the NO campaign. 80% of the teachers is a victory of sorts. How much did Eterno and MORE move the NO needle? Imagine if there were NO people in 300-500 schools. That they aren't far from being in triple figures after all this time is indicative of the glacial rate of organizing. In fact there has been shrinkage -- glacial organizing retreat. Still, if the number comes in at 80%, given that in 2014 it was less than 10% points lower among teachers, this is not the kind of +90 wave we thought we might be seeing.

Earlier I reported:

Sketchy report from UFT event at the Hilton. Not as high as we expected but higher than in 2014. We’ll do some analysis on what it may mean in terms of the NO vote campaign and the future UFT election in a few months.

By the way, I heard some birdies say that Mulgrew wants to push the election up from when they held it last time, which makes sense to capitalize on the contract numbers ASAP and also to stay away from the late spring when the window opens up to opt out due to Janus.

I keep asking the others in the opposition about the point of putting so much effort into a dead end election. First build up a network of a few hundred schools. Clearly many of the NO votes came from schools where there was an active NO network. Given how few schools the entire opposition are based in, these votes - say as an estimate - 12-14,000 teachers — is not insignificant in terms of building a network. The opposition must go out and find them and organize them, something it has not been able to do - witness 2014 when higher numbers voted NO.

UFT Contract Vote Update - Large Turnout May Top 2014

2 PM, Nov. 2

As you can see I signed a non-disclosure agreement on the outcome but can blog about the process.
I’m here with people from the UFT - Yasmin Colon, Leroy Barr, Howie Schoor and Dave Hickey - who have been in and out.
I’m leaving here around 3:30 for the ICE meeting. I invited Leroy and Howie to come for a true unity meeting with multiple caucuses. They are tempted but can’t leave so I may send a care package of rice pudding.
A final day influx of schools and individual ballots came in at the last minute.
I’ve been here since 10:30 and they still haven’t begun the count but are about to begin. But we did get a fine lunch.
Here is what they had to do all day so far, mostly manually - there are about 30 people doing the work.
Open each school pack.
Manually check off each person who voted against their lists.
They also had loads of ballots sent in from non-school personnel who had to be checked off.
Then a machine slices open the outer envelope and then the inner envelopes get opened and the ballot removed by hand.
There are 14 contracts up for a vote - each one is color-coded.
The machines are able to distinguish between the colors.
Once the ballots are out and stacked they are fed into the counting machines. I was hoping to watch some of the results and make rough estimates but that won’t happen before I have to leave.

It’s freezing down here even with a jacket.

2:35 - still haven’t begun the count. I won’t have to undergo water torture to spill the beans since I will have no beans to spill.

UFT Contract Vote and UFT Election Update: The Split in the Opposition Doesn't Help

I am setting the over/under for this contract at 89% approval as that was the yes vote in 2006, the last early  contract.

James Eterno on ICEUFT Blog

HANDICAPPING THE CONTRACT RATIFICATION PERCENTAGES -

With UFT elections coming in the winter/spring and the contract vote ending today, there is a connection between the two events. With Eterno predicting 89% YES, I won't go that far.

My guess on the contract vote outcome on the teachers contract will be anywhere from 75% to 93% YES. The Unity campaign could only be counteracted by a strong NO campaign. It didn't happen.

[This is a reworking of my previous post: UFT Contract Vote Scorecard Update - Who's For and Who's Against?]

75% would be a major victory for MORE and ICEUFT blog, which led the VOTE NO campaign with yeoman work by James Eterno on the ICE blog, though Solidarity Caucus, with less outreach, also opposed. James' work has impressed people in MORE and there seems to be some healing going on since the rancor last April. The contract issue has closed a bit of the gap between ICE and MORE, though some ICEers are still outraged at the undemocratic behavior of MORE. (I promise to get into these weeds at some point.) How many NO votes can be attributed to the campaigns?

I think James' post, which by the last weekend had 14,000 hits, may have been the most effective of all:  EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK ON WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE NO.  But he has kept up a constant drumbeat.

Also see this excellent piece on the MORE blog:

Movement of Rank and File Educators

NYC teacher union loses all of the battles it never fights - The new UFT-DOE contract makes no change in the 50-year wait for lower class sizes, a fair grievance procedure, and a rational job security process, among ...

I know class size reductions cost money, but to leave this ragged grievance procedure in place is criminal.

New Action leader and Ex Bd member Jonathan Halabi urged a YES vote with reservations. New Action as a group has not even met on the issue so they have not taken a position. This is a problem for MORE. And for New Action. How do you run in the UFT elections against Unity without a position on the contract?

Two elected MORE/NA Ex Bd reps, Goldstein and Schirtzer, are strong YES votes. My beef with them is that it seems OK to wait another 50 years for grievance procedure or real class size relief. Two observations and parental leave are victories but let's keep an eye on where we should have been going. MORE will continue to lobby on the contract.

I'm going to wager that the lack of a strong unified NO campaign will push the YES votes higher. But if the numbers are similar to 2014 where we had a stronger campaign that will be a sign of unhappiness in the rank and file. But much higher means an accepting rank and file of Unity rule. Don't tell me, as I heard someone say, that people voted YES holding their noses. A YES is a YES.

ICEUFT is having its monthly meeting tomorrow to discuss the contract vote and election possibilities.

I am observing the count most of the day but it probably won't be completed by the meeting and besides I cannot share the outcomes with people no matter how much rice pudding they shove down my mouth. (UFT Contract Vote Count Friday - Embagoed Till Sunday).

I am guessing based on previous contract votes where there were Vote NO campaigns. The most effective was in 1995 when teachers voted down the contract. One thing people may not know is that one division of the union can turn down their contract while others may vote yes. I was not yet active in the UFT other than as a chapter leader focused on my own school and I would bet my efforts there helped the school to a NO vote.

In 2005 ICE and TJC led a massive campaign, with rallies at the DA and the UFT and the vote count was intense -- close to 40% of the teachers voted NO. New Action, in alliance with Unity, was not part of the movement though they did issue a leaflet in opposition.

In 2014, MORE led the Vote NO with about 20,000 leaflets handed out as we went around to schools stuffing mailboxes. (Old vets like Eterno and I were somewhat disappointed in the MORE effort.)

Teachers voted 75% in favor but with 92% voting the 25% against came to 16,000 votes and there was another 4000 NOs from other divisions.

This time MORE led a Vote No campaign, but due to its internal issues that have led to a shrunken MORE, there was limited outreach in the schools but a more effective campaign on multi-media. MORES seem to think that in the schools they are in and active, there will be a NO vote -- I agree but there are too few of them.

The OT (Occupational Therapy) teachers are most upset as they were in 2014 where they did ratify the contract despite reports they were organizing to turn it down and this time they seem to be furious, so I will keep an eye on their vote. Expect paras to vote overwhelmingly -- maybe 95% YES.

UFT Election confusion

A contract vote over 85% would make the UFT election pretty much a waste of time. And many veteran opposition people are talking about sitting it out.

Here is what is clear. Things look bleak if not impossible to have one group opposing Unity -- which would be the only way to win the high school seats this time.

MORE in no way will run with Solidarity -- At the MORE meeting on Saturday someone branded it as a right wing group. I pushed back but apparently the Don't Tread on Me symbol is used on the far right and in the current political environment that is being used as a reason. Some people in New Action are using the same argument. Solidarity should address this issue publicly.

MORE may not even be willing to run with New Action due to the fact that NA is not taking a stand against the contract and Jonathan put out a YES vote. There would have to be some backsliding on its NO campaign to run Halabi as an Ex Bd member, though I can see that happening.

 

It was also pointed out that NA wants to focus on winning the high school seats. MORE does not agree -- that focusing on winning the high schools is a distraction and it wants to get its message out to all levels.

MORE does want the work NA would do in the election, since they are retired  mostly and would relieve the working MORE people to some extent, though given the last time when I handled the petition campaign for the election, NA can only contribute a limited number of signatures. So the bulk would have to come from the MORE people. But they would run a limited slate so that would take some pressure off.

What NA offers is a distribution campaign but NA would most likely put out its own lit instead of pushing the MORE line. 

 

But there is division in NA over running with Solidarity -- they are the "one opposition" people -- that there is almost no point in running if there are two opposition parties, while the other portion of NA wants to run only with MORE. A recent vote in NA leaned toward the pro-Solidarity people but that is still being revisited.

 

If the pro-Solidarity people lose they will not be involved in the election and that limits NA's distribution.

If MORE runs at all - which it probably will -- and probably with some accommodation with New Action if NA decides to abandon an alliance with Solidarity....

....it will be a limited campaign with the purpose of pushing it's political line on the contract and social justice issues. And a good chance it may run on its own. It has experienced people from Teachers for a Just Contract to run a limited campaign like they did when ICE ran with them -- they never put forth a lot of candidates.

The pro-election faction wants to use the campaign to push the "contract we deserve" campaign rather than focus on winning the high school seats.

There are people in MORE who do not feel MORE should run at all because it has shrunk over the years and needs to rebuild itself in the schools and that elections are a distraction. The argument that elections help you build has proven false in every single election I've been in. People emerge for a few weeks and then disappear after we lose badly to Unity.

MORE will discuss the elections at the Nov. 17 meeting.

That leaves everyone else -- and the question is if it is worth it to even run if there will be two opposition groups?

 

Solidarity has declared it is running, though I question whether it has the resources to do much of a campaign. It didn't get on the ballot last time because it was short of the 40 candidates. I assume they will get that many this time but doing all the election work is draining. Do they have the resources? They are willing to run with anyone. The elephant in the room for them is Portelos and some Solidarity people who attended the last ICE meeting said they have a broader base and he is playing less of a role.

 

Is it worth it for segments of NA, Solidarity and others who don't want to run with MORE to run a separate campaign?

 

Also there is the situation with EB members Arthur Goldstein and Mike Schirtzer who are alienated from MORE and free agents now and are being wooed by Unity. Both brought in a batch of high school votes in the last election. It is not clear what they will do, or even try to be on the Ex Bd again.

So at this relatively late date in the UFT election cycle, confusion reigns. James Eterno and I may start playing golf this spring.

UFT Contract Vote Count Friday - I'm Going as an Observer, But Must Sign a Non-Disclosure

I intend to check out the vote count this Friday at the AAA before heading to the ICE meeting but won't be able to report results as they come in due to the UFT Ex Bd voting yesterday to embargo the results so they can be announced on Sunday as part of the UFT's annual celebration of its first strike in 1960.

I told Leroy Barr that I would withstand water torture before revealing the outcome. I will release my own analysis of the outcome on Sunday on this blog.

You know, hanging out at the Ex Bd with Unity people (along with some oppositionists) can lead to a stockholm syndrome effect where hostages begin to identify with their captors.

You can read Arthur's report on the meeting here:

UFT Executive Board October 29th--Contract Voting Results Will Be Released Sunday

Also check out Chaz' rebuke of the allies who are backing the contract.

Chaz's School Daze

Why ATRs Voted No On The Contract. 

Some people who have been critical of the union leadership, have decided to support the contract.  These well-respected bloggers are nyc educator, DOEnuts, and JD2715.  One thing all three have in common is that they are not ATRs.

By contrast, all bloggers who are ATRs.  South Bronx Schools, ATR Adventures, and ATR NYC have voted no.  Moreover, ICEUFT, run by a retired ATR recommended a no vote.  Finally, I, as an ATR also voted no.

It's a pity that our usually reliable allies, while giving lip service in support of the ATRs, still voted yes for the contract, despite the contract not making any significant changes to the ATR pool.
 

 I do not necessarily expect people to vote NO only on the basis of the ATR situation if they think there are benefits for the majority -- ie. -- two observations --- but I expect them to at least point out the negatives.

I don't get it. There is absolutely no need for ATRs given the situation in the schools. The continuance of their status allows all kinds of abuses, especially when teachers are excessed into the pool - principals can weaponize the ATR pool. It seems to me that the end of the ATR situation should have been a line in the sand. Now I know many ATRs who are perfectly happy in the pool but it is time to end this farce -- appoint people to schools like it was done in the old days until 2005. The NYC school system survived 80 years without ATRs and could do so again.

UFT Contract: My commentary and Swerdlow on Contract Dangers

These committees will be, in effect, making contract.  If they cannot, these standards in most cases can be established by arbitration.  So, members are now voting on a TA that will have, in effect, many provisions they cannot possibly know.... Marian Swerdlow 

I’m going to the MORE contract meeting later where Marian Swerdlow will present on the contract. I’m reposting her analysis on the MORE blog which gets to some of the nitty gritty stuff. My pro-contract buddies tell me the leadership listened and responded. I guess they did given Janus. I think they are glossing over or outright ignoring some of the hidden dangers in the contract. I find many of the YES articles lacking analysis like Marian does here but in fact doing a sales pitch. I’m ok if you say her points are not enough to make you vote no. But at least recognize that there are pitfalls instead of blind adherence. I also say this about NO propaganda. Two evals and parental leave is moving in the right direction. My YES friends claim they had something to do with these changes because the leadership listened to them. The union didn’t listen to them because they were nice guys but because they were perceived as representing groups beyond themselves. After all some of them were not elected to the executive board as individuals but by the votes as a result of the efforts of Two  caucuses. If they had run as independents they would have gotten squat.

I wonder how the yes/no contract divide and some of the associated bitterness will play out in uft elections this spring where we may see as many as 3 groups running against Unity. Or no groups. The MORE internal meeting before the 1pm contract convention will take up the election issue today. I generally urges not to run but as conditions evolve so do my views. New Action will take no position on the contract. Eterno at ICE has cast the die but others in ICE are Split but probably leaning no. We’ll see at Friday’s ice meeting when the vote will be done. Solidarity is opposed. So we are seeing some strange bedfellows which might spill over into election coalitions.

Or not. Having just returned from a Road Scholar tour of Croatia in the former Yugoslavia where we had Balkan politics and all its complexities explained I find myself emersed in our own version of the balkans.

A Contract for Collaboration with the DOE

October 21, 2018 — 1 Comment

The general thrust of this tentative agreement (TA)  is to move from enforcing members’ rights and toward greater collaboration with management.

Part of this is the large number of joint UFT – DOE committees it sets up.

Two of these joint UFT – DOE committees are being set up to formulate “standards,” which are very similar to contract provisions.  Like all the committees set up in this TA, they have the following characteristics: (1) an equal number of members appointed by the UFT president and the Chancellor.  (2) The UFT appointees are unelected, and not directly accountable to the membership. (3) Their meetings are not open to members. Only the Chancellor and UFT President have the power to approve or reject these standards, not the members or even the Delegate Assembly. If Chancellor and UFT President cannot agree, a neutral can be called as mediator. If that is unsuccessful, the TA calls for that neutral to “issue a binding decision,” i.e. binding arbitration.

One of these joint committees, the “Central Committee,” (CC)  will set standards governing “reduction and elimination of unnecessary paperwork, defining a curriculum and when it must be provided to teachers, professional development, the requirement to provide basic instructional supplies. [Item 6]  Furthermore, “Nothing precludes the parties from agreeing to the addition of new System Wide Standards with respect to operational issues.” [Item 6]. Another will set system-wide standards for school safety, positive school culture and climate. [Item 7]

These committees will be, in effect, making contract.  If they cannot, these standards in most cases can be established by arbitration.  So, members are now voting on a TA that will have, in effect, many provisions they cannot possibly know.

Just as alarming, members do not have the power to grieve violations of any of these standards.  Instead, the TA states: “Employees . . . may request that their Chapter Leader raise school-specific Operational Issues with the principal, the employee’s direct supervisor, and/or in a  . . . [consultation meeting]” But this is only a request: the Chapter Leader (CL) has no obligation to honor it. In place of the member filing a grievance, the CL can “raise” the issue. “If the issue is not resolved within five school days . . . the appropriate UFT District Representative (DR) may raise it before the District Committee.”(DC)    If the DC reaches a resolution, it is “subject to approval by the Chancellor.” It the DC cannot resolve it, it “shall refer the issue to the Central Committee for review.” There is no time limit for this last step. If the CC reaches a resolution, it too is “subject to approval by the Chancellor.”
An important difference from the current grievance process is that in the latter,  a neutral arbitrator whose award is not “subject to approval by the Chancellor” comes in at the “third step”   In this new process of committees, the chancellor has final say over even the third step. This delays the introduction of a neutral party. 

After the third step, “[f]or alleged violations of the System-wide Standards, the UFT [not the member] may file a grievance . . . [but] it is understood that, PRIOR TO [emphasis added] a grievance being filed, the issue must go through the committee process as described above.  Such grievances shall be filed directly with the DOE’s OLR [Office of Labor Relations] . . . ” So, even at the end of the process of committees, it is still not in the individual member’s power to initiate a grievance. 

The TA also specifies that the arbitrator’s written award will be “brief.”  Long awards have often established important rights for members. This would seem to discourage that.  It also says, “The parties shall negotiate pre-arbitration hearing procedures so each party is aware of the allegations and defenses being raised at the arbitration . . . ”  The current contract doesn’t seem to have a provision like this. If this is a new provision, it also signals additional cooperation between the union and the DOE. 

So, to summarize, these changes will (1) force members to vote on a TA whose provisions they do not know, because these provisions, called “standards” in the TA, are to be determined in the future by joint committees;  (2) delay arbitration by channeling the adjudication of complaints about violations of these standards through a hierarchy of joint committees before they can be grieved. (3) Completely deny members any right to grieve over these standards.

Other similarly structured joint committees that are not establishing standards but will have a bearing on working conditions and even salary include: a Joint Labor Management Committee “to review and discuss programming in the schools . . . ” [Item 19]; a “Professional Learning Team . . . charged with the planning of an annual training session schedule . . . regarding the implementation of the observation cycle,” [Item 10] a Joint Accreditation Committee (JAC) to take part in the revision of the criteria for courses that will count toward the second differential.  Even “[t]he posting for these deans positions shall be jointly created by the UFT and the Board (DOE)” The training of Deans “shall be jointly developed by the UFT and the Board (DOE) [Item 7]. Another joint committee will “design and implement” the Remote Teaching Pilot Program.” [Item 16] In this last example, if the committee cannot reach a consensus, “the UFT President and Chancellor shall jointly make the final decision,” rather than an arbitrator as with most of the committees. 

The TA’s way to handle class size violations likewise delays the grievance process, channeling complaints through a hierarchy of joint committees.  The UFT leaders call this an “expedited” process, but, as others have pointed out, it will actually take longer for grievances of over-sized classes to reach binding arbitration this new way.  

Under the current contract, school administrations have the first ten days of classes to get classes down to legal size.  The union can file for arbitration two days after that, and arbitration must begin no later than five days after that. So class size violations can begin to be arbitrated 17 school days after classes begin.  

In the TA’s so-called “Expedited Procedure for Class Size”  it isn’t until the 21st day that the violations go to yet another joint UFT – DOE committee, the Class Size Labor Management Committee (CLMC).    The CLMC will “attempt” to resolve the violations. (Only for schools “chronically out of compliance” does the CLMC start to attempt a resolution earlier, on the tenth day.  But even for those schools, the CLMC only “attempts” a resolution.)

Only when the CLMC fails to reach a resolution may the UFT, in 2 days, file for arbitration, and then arbitration must begin in 5 days.  So, this change actually delays for at least eleven school days the violations reaching a neutral party whose decision is binding. It appears that the grievance process, which already functioned poorly, will be increasingly delayed by a journey through a series of joint union-DOE committees, operating by consensus, whose decisions are non-binding and can, in almost all instances, be vetoed by the DOE.

These changes are part of a turn away from an adversarial model of labor management relations, which was based on enforcing the contract through grievance and arbitration, and toward management by consensus and joint-ness.  This was already the direction in practice and to some extent in the last contracts, but this new agreement codifies and consolidates it. 

The most glaring danger is that at some future date, a hostile city administration along the lines of a Giuliani, Bloomberg or Emanuel, comes to office, and this regime could use this collaborative model very powerfully against the union.  

But even with a “friendly” administration, this turn gives members less control over working conditions.  They cannot vote on the “standards” which will govern many of them. Their ability to protect their rights will be limited and delayed, making it more likely that school administrations will violate these rights.  This weakens the union at the chapter level at a time when the loss of the right to collect agency fees has made the union more vulnerable than ever. 

Its role in speeding up this ongoing shift in the general orientation of the union is another reason why this TA should be rejected.  

-Marian Swerdlow, retiredFormer Chapter Leader, FDR High School, Brooklyn

Jacobin: The Ford Foundation’s Reform From Above in Ocean Hill-Brownsville

.....behind the public rhetoric needed to create the consensus that it sought, there is evidence that the Foundation’s support for community control was rooted in a desire to take education out of the hands of the public system altogether, prefiguring the motivations of today’s champions of charter schools and school vouchers. The Foundation’s preferred, if unpublicized, decentralization plan would have created hundreds of small, competitive, independent school systems run by such entities as universities, corporations, teachers’ unions, and parents. The Foundation even worked with some of the community control activists to come up with a plan for an independent school in Harlem that would demonstrate this approach....... the Foundation was anything but an impartial player during the schools crisis. Instead, all of its meddling in New York’s schools was predicated on the liberal assumption that if only the schools and teachers were better, opportunity would flow, and poverty and inequality would end, without ever reckoning with the heart of black inequality and the very real material power that underlay the exploitation that created philanthropic fortunes. This mindset persists among today’s liberal philanthropist “disruptors,” who follow in Ford’s footsteps by pursuing top-down efforts to fix the schools based on contempt for the public system and its personnel, faith in private solutions, and hubristic conviction that they hold the answer to solving the crisis in education for poor children of color.

When I see commentary from the left on the '68 strike, the UFT is universally condemned. But the rhetoric then was so similar to today's neo-liberal ed deformers. Do we need to re-examine some of the UFT militant response in '68 as containing elements in defending some fundamental union won rights? I was an unthinking striker in '68 and my first activism in 1970 was with people who crossed the lines but I also heard some rethinking on their part -- that the Ford Foundation was pulling anti-union strings.
I also note the calls from the leftists in MORE for a militant UFT. Beware what you wish for as this may have been the highest level - and the last time the UFT was militant. Note that the contract following the strike in 1969 won major concessions on class size. The lessons of '68 for the UFT leaders was to never be that militant again.

This Jacobin assessment doesn't go that far but is worth reading.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/09/ford-foundation-ocean-hill-brownsville-philanthropy?utm_source=Jacobin&utm_campaign=85f388f9d5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_09_24_04_39&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_be8b1b2846-85f388f9d5-85061857&mc_cid=85f388f9d5&mc_eid=ccfe96fecf

The Ford Foundation’s Reform From Above in Ocean Hill-Brownsville

By

Karen Ferguson

Black activists might have initiated the fight for community control in Ocean Hill-Brownsville in 1968. But the Ford Foundation not only played a key role in the idea’s conception; they shaped its execution according to elite, liberal aims.