Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!
Halabi: I am challenging
Unity’s moral compass. This is one of many seats they control. But
because they might lose it in a fair election, they made the rules
unfair so they can continue to control it.
If this were a borough-wide election, and the Bronx was going the
“wrong way,” would Mulgrew try to change the rules to get Manhattanites
to participate in Bronx elections? Because that’s kind of what he does
when he has elementary teachers vote for the HS VP..... Jonathan Halabi, https://jd2718.org/2022/06/29/how-many-union-offices
We've done a number of articles matching Unity policy of control and repression to the Republicans controls enforcing minority rule and suppression of the majority.
While we can't say that about the union as a whole, we can definitely say that about the high schools with its 20 thousand teachers. Dems rail about the fact that out of the past 20 years, only once has a Republican president received a majority of the votes. For the UFT, we can say that over the past 30 years, only in 2019 and 1993 has the Unity HS VP candidate received a majority. This is the Electoral college in spades.
So while we filed out 70 page report (still unanswered) on 2022 election violations, there are a lot more pre-election violations in the way Unity has controled the structure of the UFT. 30% of retirees voted for UFC both in this year's election and last year's chapter election. We get not one of the 300 delegates to the DA not does this 30% get a glimmer of a voice at the AFT/NYSUT conventions or on the Ex bd.
Then there are the non-election of district reps since Randi changed the rules 20 years ago because non-Unity Bruce Markens dared to get elected Manhatten HS DR for a decade -- she knew if she tampered while he was still there there would be howls of protest so she waited till he retired to abolish DR elections.
Would the UFT and high school teachers be better off by having a Halabi like diverse voice on AdCom? Hell yes!
High School Vice President
High School teachers chose me to be their Vice President in May. I got most of their votes. But I did not win. Let me explain.
This Spring I ran in the United Federation of Teachers election. I
ran for High School Vice President. I lost. The Unity Candidate, Janella
Hinds, received 66%. I got 34%. That’s a little less than two-to-one.
Actually, it’s a pretty good result for a non-Unity candidate, perhaps
the best… since… hmm.
So you can see the numbers. I see the numbers. How can I claim I got
more votes? Actually, I don’t claim I got more votes. I claim I got more
high school votes. I did.
In 1985 Michael Shulman of New Action beat the Unity candidate, George Altomare, for High School Vice President.
When Unity took the seat back they started playing with the
constitution. And eventually what they came up with was what you see
above – we do not run for “HS Vice President” but for “Vice President
At-Large/High School (Academic)”. That “At-Large” business is so that
elementary teachers participate in the selection of the HS Vice
President. Elementary supports Unity. (or at least it has, up to now).
High School does not support Unity.
So among all voters – mostly not high school voters, I received 34%. But in the high schools?
There were 2,508 slate votes for United for Change in the high
schools. Most of those are academic high schools. And most of those
votes are mine. Unity had 1,981. Most of those are Janella’s. There were
perhaps a total of 200-250 non-slate votes. Those would not have made a
difference. I got more high school votes. I got around 56% of the high
school vote, and lost to someone who got about 44%.
I’m not challenging the election results. I knew what the rules were
going in. Unity followed correct procedures in transforming the VPs from
representing a division, to being “at large.” But I am challenging
Unity’s moral compass. This is one of many seats they control. But
because they might lose it in a fair election, they made the rules
unfair so they can continue to control it.
If this were a borough-wide election, and the Bronx was going the
“wrong way,” would Mulgrew try to change the rules to get Manhattanites
to participate in Bronx elections? Because that’s kind of what he does
when he has elementary teachers vote for the HS VP.
This is a naked power grab. They know the rules are anti-democratic.
They know this is essentially the same garbage the republicans pull all
over the country. It is an internal union equivalent of voter
suppression. Taking what is not yours because you can and no one can
stop you – no need to characterize that.
I watched the recent PEP last week for hours - on and off - the Panel for Educational Policy -- PEP - which I am renaming PECS - Panel for Educational Charter Schools. They want to starve the beast to prove public schools except for a few don't work.
Goal to starve the beast - the public scbool system -- to drive the move for vouchers and other options. And it will work. Imagine a totally fragmentized and Balcanized non-union system. Once those pesky UFT salaries are out of the way, the charters won't have to compete on salary -- or even on competentce of teachers --- just drag them off the street for the schools in poor neighborhoods.
Banks made a few appearances and they were almost embarassing. He can't even lie effectively and uses phony charm to try to get over.
MORE came up big at the PEP --maybe 30 people spoke -- no one from the UFT leadership - I repeat - totally absent from a major meeting dealing with massive cuts.
I posted the Ronnie Almonte speech and newsletter -- Ronnie gets what the political agenda is about: Starve the beast -- and show how government doesn't work. There was a rally of sorts where MORE had more people showed than Unity. I mean this is a union of 197,000 people. Getting a few hundred out makes the union look weak. Sometimes its better to stay home.
Leonie is on the case on the budget cuts. (And on Class size -- big event for Skinny Awards Monday night.)
Adams intends to advance his party’s national crusade to privatize
education and bust teachers unions. Surely his cuts will accelerate
enrollment decline, providing the pretext for further cuts and
reallocation of public funds to privately-run, ununionized schools.... Ronnie Almonte
Note Mulgrew and Barr watching
Ronnie was just elected to the UFT Ex Bd and he really gets the agenda of the privatizers now running NYC schools - a total echo of the 12 years of Bloomberg. They are creating a budget cut "crisis" to force the debate on lifting the charter cap for NYC. Make public schools less attractive is the goal and leave them for the people who can't find a way out. Sift off the higher academic achievers into the privatized system and use public money to pay. Instead of managing an effective system, they are looking to offload as much of the system as they can into non-unionized schools, thus weakening an already weakened UFT.
At the rally to protest budget cuts on Friday called by the UFT, MORE had an enormpus presences and Ronnie made this awesome speech - and note Mike Mulgrew and Leroy Barr in the background either cheering him on or dreading seeing him every two weeks at Ex Bd meetings.
I think I may have met Ronnie once in person, but am looking forward to seeing more of him. You can subscribe to his new newsletter by using the link below his article.
NYC Schools are under attack from the Mayor and City Hall. At least $215 million, but probably closer to $1.7 billion, has been slashed from next year’s school budgets. Teachers, counselors, and other workers are learning
that their positions have been cut. Next year’s short-staffed schools
will struggle to meet their students’ high academic and social-emotional
needs as they grapple with larger class sizes and heavier case loads.
Mayor Eric Adams—who controls the schools—could fully fund the system
from the Department of Education’s $5 billion of federal relief money. His refusal to do so amounts to nothing less than an assault on public education.
Adams claims he’s simply adjusting budgets to match declining enrollment. It’s a lie; he’s also reduced the dollar amount a school receives per student, so those with the same enrollment will see their funding cut.
His “adjustments” are first and foremost to expectations that the DOE
will use its federal cash to make long overdue improvements to learning
conditions. He’s squandered the chance to answer the decades-old call to
reduce class sizes to levels comparable to white, suburban districts
throughout the state. It’s not ignorance or mismanagement, but strategy.
Adams intends to advance his party’s national crusade to privatize
education and bust teachers unions. Surely his cuts will accelerate
enrollment decline, providing the pretext for further cuts and
reallocation of public funds to privately-run, ununionized schools.
He
can be stopped, but our resistance must be strategic. Adams and City
Hall’s budget boost to the NYPD shows that their commitment is to guns
and riot gear over books and counseling. The UFT’s rally at City Hall on
Friday was a good start, and surely we should continue protesting,
writing to our representatives, and penning open letters to our
communities. But the union must plot a course for escalating tactics in
the event that the cuts are not restored. Everything good from the labor
movement was gained by workers acting together to disrupt business as
usual, with picketts, slowdowns, and strikes. We’re a big union with
tremendous power. It’s about time we leverage it.
Our leadership is willing to sacrifice our health care needs for their own narrow political ends.
That may not be such an easy sell as:
...it looks like Mulgrewcare might eventually be coming to active people.
Only a judge stopped a healthcare plan that would have denied a choice
of free plans for retirees. We called the inferior plan Mulgrewcare.--- James Eterno, ICEUFT Blog
This is not only a local but a national issue as a project of the Dem party since the Clinton days:
A Biden administration official in charge of the program has
said they intend to have all the traditional Medicare beneficiaries in
such for-profit programs by 2030..... Daily Kos
And the UFT/AFT/NYSUT anti progressive agenda is tied to Dem Center right corporatists where the health care industry pores millions of lobbying dollars.
Saturday, June 25, 2022
There's a lot on this plate for you to chew on. Retiree Advocate continues to work toward fighting the attempt by the city and our own beloved union to remove us from Medicare and into a higher expense MedAdv plan to save money. Someone explain how much higher expenses save money unless it comes out of services.
June 30 will be a year since our big march and rally to protest MulgrewCare. Posts from June/July 2021:
ICEUFT Blog
ACTIVE CITY WORKERS NEED TO WATCH OUT FOR UNIONS DISCUSSING HEALTHCARE SAVINGS
- UFT Chapter Leader Update: Efforts begin to rein in health care costs. The
Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella group of nearly 100 municipal
labor unions including the UFT, negotiates the health care benefits of
all city workers. The top priority of the MLC and the UFT is to maintain
high-quality, premium-free health care for all city workers even as
costs increase year after year. The city, with the MLC’s support, issued
a request for information on June 16 to let the health care industry
know that the city is seeking a 10% decrease in health care costs
without sacrificing any of its employees’ existing benefits
This cutout from the article on the Machinists resistance sums up the situation:
the Medicare direct contracting pilot program that Trump
initiated where equity firms and insurance companies could come in and
basically buy up clinics and medical facilities and move people over to
that private system without having to really notify them or explain to
Medicare recipients that they were now in a different system,” Lux told
the members..... there is about $1.6 trillion in the Medicare Trust Fund
that these private equity firms and insurance companies are just waiting
to get at—to make a profit
While we know it's impossible that we will see Medicare for All nationally, there is the NY Health Act which both the UFT and DC 37 oppose. Why? One answer is they employ many people to handle our healthcare and those, often patronage, jobs would disappear. The other is that they can claim to members that the leadership has delivered health care and once that's out of their hands, what else can they deliver? Bupkus. So our leadership is willing to sacrifice our health care needs for their own narrow political ends.
It is important to connect what's happening locally with the national trend which is privatization to save money on the backs of the patients while insuring massive profits to industry. I posted a story from The Lever on how Biden is pushing privatization:
BTW - Biden has appointed a guy who wants to privatize social security too.
Reality check -- 2024 will be a disaster and will have the even more awful Rep a trifecta and a DeSantis will be a smart Trump and give us our own Viktor Orban. For me the only Dem who could have a chance is John Fetterman but given his health etc that is a dim chance. Pete or Harris? OY! We're dead.
Here are two more stories to check out: An update from the lawsuit that has stopped MulgrewCare so far and -- this union is fighting back:
We simply cannot surrender our right to share with our coworkers information that affects their livelihood. We were elected to the Executive Board to amplify the needs of our members, not to make decisions unilaterally behind their backs.... Alex Jallot
and Ronnie Almonte, UFT Ex Bd High School (as of July 1, 2022)
The
cone of silence descends on the UFT negotiating committee. Some UFT Ex
Bd members refuse to sign the Non Disclosure Agreement.
I believe just about all contract issues have been pre-decided by the leadership already - including what they will accept. Don't hold your breath for inflation matching raises. Any hint of preventing this farce by open bargaining has been disparaged by Unity -- you don't bargain in public.
Feb 8, 2022 — from Jane McAlevey ... How unions negotiate is a strategic choice. Seldom do union members experience the actual process of collective ...
Questions on the Negotiation Committee:How are people chosen to be on this committee? Of the 350 committee members how many are in Unity Caucus?Does secrecy mean that Unity Caucus members don’t discuss the issues brought up for discussion among themselves?Are we to believe that the only discussion that takes place among Unity Caucus members is in the committee room?
If you think top level Unity don't discuss the issues beforehand, take a walk on the bridge you just bought.
In fact, I believe just about all contract issues have been pre-decided by the leadership and their main problem is how to filter the info out to the negotiating committee and how to do it to make it look democratic. Every committee will echo the election committee with a Unity majority. I
like that there are people who want to be on the neg Comm even if
having to sign the NDA and also that there are people who won't sign.
We know the contract will suck and many in the opposition will call for a Vote No campaign - in fact I'm starting the campaign right now -- oh, shit, retirees don't get to vote on the contract. You working stiffs have my proxy.
Some Unity slug will stop by to comment on how dumb I am.
I urge people to accept the reality and just call for a NO VOTE NOW.
But most people connected to United for Change who are on the committee are signing the NDA - but we do have some newly elected Ex Bd people who were added to the negotiating committee but are refusing to sign and therefore will not be on the committee -- and they came under attack by ubber Unity Hack Richard Skibbens. But who cares?
Here is the statement by these two members of MORE:
WE believe our union's contract should be open and transparent to all members and stakeholders (see the work of Jane McAlvey).
Under
the duress of our union leadership's decision to keep talks with
management confidential. I am compelled to sign today's agreement
because the interests of my chapter must still be represented in these
negotiations.
As newly elected Executive Board members, we have been invited to join the union’s contract
negotiating committee. In a time of pandemic and budget cuts, it’s critical that we bargain for
better salaries, benefits, and working conditions.
As workplace leaders, we also believe that our union’s strength depends on making decisions
collectively with openness and transparency. Unfortunately, the UFT has a long practice of
requiring members (who are hand-picked) to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) as a
condition for serving on the negotiating committee. We oppose this policy because it prevents
the membership from holding the committee accountable, puts pressure on the UFT to broker
backroom deals with politicians rather than rely on the strength of the union membership, and
thus undermines the union’s ability to win a strong contract. For this reason we oppose the
NDA, and refuse to sign it as much as we would like to join the committee. We simply cannot
surrender our right to share with our coworkers information that affects their livelihood. We were
elected to the Executive Board to amplify the needs of our members, not to make decisions
unilaterally behind their backs.
The upcoming negotiations with the city must be open and transparent. In this way the
membership can be made aware of what’s at stake, can follow the progress of negotiations, and
can be mobilized in moments where the city refuses to compromise. Our members are the
union, and their activity is the source of its power. Open bargaining is the path to securing the
working conditions we deserve, and the schools our students need.
Shades of the Bloomberg era - it's time to go back to the PEP - except they got an emergency reprieve from having to face the public in person through the July meeting -- so this is zoom only.
I have little doubt that Adams etc are privatizers of public schools. Cut the budget deeply and create demand for the charter school cap to be lifted. The class size law? Hochul hasn't signed it yet. Adams doesn't want it. Watch the primary outcome to get a clue to see if she signs it.
Norm Scott
Calling all Parents, Students,
Educators, and School Staff
Make your
voices heard – In Unity There is Strength!
Join the June 23 People’s Panel for
Educational Policy!
Budget
Cuts? Layoffs? School Closings? Class size? Charter School Takeovers? High
Stakes Testing? Homeless Families?
I've been to almost every one and was a proud recipient a few years ago. There is no more consistent fighter for the public education community than Leonie Haimson. See you there!
lso news update on city budget
Dear folks-
Class Size Matters would like to invite you to our “Skinny Award” dinner to be held Monday, June 27 at 6 PM.
This our first fundraiser in three years, and especially important this
year as we have something really momentous to celebrate: the passage of
a new state law that will require NYC schools to lower class size to much smaller levels.
We are honoring the groups and individuals who made this happen, and thus gave us the real “Skinny” on NYC schools:
The Alliance for Quality Education, for leading the successful battle to provide full Foundation aid to NYC schools at last;
State Senator Robert Jackson and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, for introducing the original bills requiring our schools to lower class size;
Assembly Education Chair Michael Benedetto and NYC Senate Education Chair John Liu, for shepherding the class size bill to passage this session;
A special "Parent Visionary" award to Johanna Garcia,
education advocate and Chief of Staff to Sen. Jackson, for her
persistent and passionate advocacy over many years to achieve the goal
of fully equitable class sizes for NYC children.
Wine and light food will be served!
For more information and to purchase tickets to attend either in person or remotely, please click here. If you’d like to contribute to the organization without attending, you can do so here.
2. Sadly, despite all our advocacy, briefings and testimony, and all your emails and calls, the City Council agreed to a budget deal with the Mayor
that did not restore any of the $215 million cuts to school budgets for
next year; a deal that will be voted on tomorrow night. It is likely
that in many schools, this will force class sizes higher and/or cause
the loss of critical services, and I urge you to work with your School
Leadership Teams to try to ensure that your school's core teaching staff
is protected as much as possible.
Clearly,
Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks have no intention of obeying the will
of the Legislature to require them to lower class size, and instead are
thumbing their nose at them, as I say here. Which makes it even more critical that Governor Hochul to sign the class size bill as soon as possible, which will give us legal leverage to stop these cuts or at least minimize their damage.
So please, call the Governor at 518-474-8390 , and message her here. Tell her: Please
sign the class size bill as soon as possible so that NYC class sizes do
not increase and instead, our students are provided with the same
smaller classes that kids in the rest of the state already receive. We have also posted a petition that you can sign here.
I’ll be in Albany on Thursday, and if we get enough signatures, I’ll try to deliver it personally to her and/or her staff.
