December 23, 2019: A Day of Infamy - Reports from the field and FB Outrage, including MORE Follies

MORE, the caucus that wants a militant UFT won't be militant by, say, calling for a sickout on Dec. 23. Instead they want to add a day at the end of the school year - June 29, a Saturday --   How much do you want to bet that if the UFT had done that in the first place MORE would have opposed? As of last count almost 15,000 people have signed. There's militancy for you.

....the UFT was negligent in not covering the calendar issue in contract negotiations. Those talks culminated in a contract in October even though the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) put out a Fact Sheet in September telling local unions that the State Education Department expects new collective bargaining agreements to comply with new minimum instructional days (180) and hours (900/990) regulations.... James Eterno

I brought this to UFT Executive Board last week, and you can see what leadership said a little further down the blog. This is one of the stupidest things I've seen in over three decades of teaching in NYC, and that's saying a lot. Asking for another useless June day is hardly a solution, and asking for it on a Saturday pushes the absurdity even further.... Arthur Goldstein 

Oh the angst and anger over next year's school calendar which lists Monday Dec. 23, 2019 as a work day. At times it seems a bit much considering all the other issues out there to be outraged about. But I do get it - many people go away or prepare for Xmas and having Monday off allows people to travel with plenty of time to spare. Plus consider how many teachers are from other places and probably go home for the holidays.

One retired friend with a son who teaches and grandchildren who go to the public schools was surprisingly outraged - she says it just shows the level of disrespect and almost mocking of a working staff that is abused in so many ways. And she also blames the UFT for making excuses - she absolutely believes they could have stopped this if they were bothering to pay attention.

James Eterno has led the battle at the ICEUFT blog and fundamentally agrees and heaps scorn on the UFT--- he goes into the reasons -- the UFT was negligent.  James was one of the first out of the box at the ICEUFT blog and at last count had over 7,000 hits. And look at those comments. And all the math people are doing to add up the school days and minutes. And the research into what other districts have school on that day. 

NY1 did a story on James leading the fight.
NY 1 COVERS CONTROVERSY ON NYC SCHOOLS BEING OPENED ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2019 AND MORE ON THE SUBJECT
And we can see his kids too video of the news report.

James has posted extensively on the issue and has put a lot of time into doing the research -- OK- I can think of better things to do but here are the links:

• SCHOOL ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 23 A MAJOR UFT SCREW UP THAT WILL RECUR

• MULGREW BLAMES STATE ED DEPARTMENT FOR SCHOOL BEING OPEN ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 23 IN NEXT YEAR'S CALENDAR

While James blames the UFT, Arthur Goldstein heaps scorn on the State Ed Dept and the DOE. Arthur asked the question at the Ex Bd and has written about the entire folly of working Monday Dec. 23
NYSED, December 23rd, and Wasting Time and Money

Arthur and his pal Mike Schirtzer have come under attack for not attacking the UFT leadership over issues like this. I find myself in the middle of this argument.

I see both points of view - the UFT leadership need to be criticized but Arthur and Mike have chosen a different path -- try to get them to act not by criticizing but by trying to build alliances with people in the union who might be willing to act. And you don't do that by calling them slugs - which has been pointed out to me numerous times. I've been on both sides of this issue -- Ed Notes in its earliest years did not attack the leadership and I attempted to build alliances - ultimately I failed and then went on the attack. But Arthur and Mike feel the times have changed and more can be won by not attacking. Time will tell whether James' approach has a better outcome than Arthur's and Mikes.

In the meantime, Arthur has been having fun at MORE's expense.

NYC Educator

More in Bad Ideas from MORE--Opening School Saturday, June 27th 2020 - After MORE dumped all my friends in an effort to achieve ideological purity and cleanse itself, it managed to go from winning the high schools to winning ...

And a follow up: MORE Alters Petition After People Signed It
Arthur mocks MORE for coming up with an idea that is as bad as working Dec. 23.

As usual, the opportunists in MORE, desperately seeking issues to raise jumped on the bandwagon Eterno created and created a petition on the Dec. 23 issue. And people were signing it in droves. Except they didn't read the fine print that MORE was calling for Dec. 23 to be replaced by adding June 27 to the school year, even dumber than the UFT plan. And even worse, June 27 is a Saturday. MORE has come under attack on FB by rank and filers. MORE then changed the petition to call for school on Monday June 29.

This petition indicates how democracy has fallen apart in MORE. In the days we were there we would have called for a full vetting of the idea on the listserve and fought it out. But when no dissent is allowed you fall into the world of stupid.

Well, if you want my theory on why MORE would call for adding a day to replace Dec. 23 here it is. Can the social justice caucus of the UFT call for taking away a day of instruction? Just sayin'.

School Scope: Democracy, Socialism and the UFT

My weekly column for The WAVE - May 10, 2019 - part of my series where I try to decipher socialism, the left, capitalism and democracy and relate it all to local issues in the UFT and general politics.

School Scope: Democracy, Socialism and the UFT
By Norm Scott

I’ve been writing about the variety of brands of socialism and democracy and no matter how people look at these ideas there are so many interpretations that if you take any one definition of democracy or socialism, you will violate the sensibilities of others: the eye of the beholder syndrome. My views hang from a bungee cord, bouncing back and forth.

Last week we went so see the enormously popular Freda Kahlo exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Kahlo was a lifelong socialist/communist, as was her husband Diego Rivera. They hosted Leon Trotsky, one of the key leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution when he lived at their house in Mexico City before an agent of Stalin assassinated him. Trotsky and his followers were purged by Stalin and became the heart of the socialist movement that became increasingly critical of the Soviet system. They claim Stalin hijacked the Bolshevik Revolution and turned their version of communism into an undemocratic state controlled by one strong man.

Trotsky and Trotskyism were viewed by hard core Stalinists as their major enemy and they persecuted Trotskyists all over the world. Reading George Orwell’s works from the Spanish Civil War, which he fought in in the 30s, he was clearly sympathetic to the Trotsky point of view and his Trotsky brigade came under attack by the Stalinists. Thus, Orwell who became famous for writing anti-Soviet novels like “1984” and “Animal Farm” has been used by anti-communists. But Orwell died a socialist in 1950 and seemed to be aligned somewhat with the Trotskyist wing of socialism.

Back to the Kahlo exhibit, there were many photos of her and Trotsky and others. One photo identified a key Trotsky supporter named Max Shachtman who morphed out of Trotskyism in the late 40s and became the leader of a branch of socialism known as “Shachmanism”.

In a recent column I pointed to the history of my union, the United Federation of Teachers, which due to the high number of members was organized into a powerful political force in the early 60s. Those key organizers, led by Albert Shanker, were socialists. Shanker as a young man in 1948 campaigned for Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas. Shanker and the other organizers of the UFT were fundamentally Shachtmanites. Indeed, Shachtmans wife, Yetta, was a key advisor to Shanker in the UFT for many years.

It is worth exploring this particular brand of socialism in order to better understand the political stances and organizational structure of the UFT which is based on some key concepts of the Leninist branch of socialism, like democratic centralism – which means everyone in the party must go along with the majority publicly or face expulsion. (I will address the complexities of democracy and protection of minority views in the future.)

The UFT’s ruling party, Unity Caucus, has been so organized since 1962 and has maintained power since then, often under the leadership of one strong voice --- which itself undermines the democracy part of democratic centralism. There have been only 4 UFT presidents since 1964. The recent UFT election was won by Unity with 87% of the vote, the kind of dominance Putin would kill for (and he probably has.)

Quoting Wikipedia on Shachtman:
“In 1958, the Independent Socialist League led by Max Shachtman dissolved to join the Socialist Party of America. Shachtman had written that Soviet communism was a new form of class society, bureaucratic collectivism, in which the ruling class exploited and oppressed the population and therefore he opposed the spread of communism. Shachtman also argued that democratic socialists should work with activists from labor unions and civil rights organizations to help build a social democratic "realignment" of the Democratic Party. Though he died on November 4, 1972 and had little involvement with the Socialist Party in the year proceeding his death, his followers, identitified as "Shachmanites", exercised a tremendous amount of influence on the party. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_USA#Background).”

The party is known as SDUSA and in the early decades to get anywhere in the UFT membership was an important ingredient, but has waned once the old-guard founders of the UFT like Shanker and his successor Sandy Feldman were gone and replaced by more traditional Democratic-like politicians like Randy Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew who have never identified themselves as socialists. That original old guard put anti-Communism at the top of their agenda and allied with right wing forces on many issues, leading the UFT away from its earliest roots while keeping elements rooted in methods of control used in certain socialist parties and organizations. Even today, you will find that the UFT, NYSUT and the AFT pretty much aligns with the center of the Democratic Party on most issues, especially when it comes to foreign policy and defense spending.

I will close on this question: Can socialism and democracy co-exist? I don’t have an answer yet but we will keep exploring.

Norm is very democratic at ednotesonline.com where his vote of one always prevails.

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Adult Ed Teacher Castigates UFT Leadership - Do you have our back?

Speaker—Sarah Tyson Adult Ed.—chapter leader—Co workers under terrible burden for almost seven years. Here and seen injustice done by admin. Asks—Do you have our back? A few weeks ago I was in a CL training and I heard the president echo that UFT has our back. I’m wondering today.  --- Excerpt from NYC Educator report --- UFT Executive Board April 29, 2019--Adult Ed. in the House, and All About December 23rd

The Adult Ed chapter of the UFT has been under years of attack by the DOE and have come to the Ex bd to protest a number of times, only to be fundamentally ignored. Here are just a few posts on Ed Notes about adult ed.

• Adult Ed Superintendent Rose Marie Mills targeted veteran teachers over age and they sue - UFT Mum - Ed Notes June 2018 
• Councilman Danny Dromm Hearing on Adult Ed Issues - Sept, 2017 
• First UFT Ex Bd Meeting of Year - A Stephen King Horror Movie

I would think that the speech about the lack of UFT response over the years by Sarah Tyson was the most significant event at that meeting for those who are critical of UFT policy, but the Dec. 23 day of teaching in what will most likely be schools devoid of children is getting the most play: 

OH, NO! I have to work Dec. 23

ICEUFT Blog:  MULGREW BLAMES STATE ED DEPARTMENT FOR SCHOOL BEING OPEN ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 23 IN NEXT YEAR'S CALENDAR -
There are a number of comments, almost all are anonymous.

Sarah Tyson is not anonymous.

Sarah Tyson's speech 29 April 2019

Good Evening... My co-workers who have been under a terrible strain for almost seven years. I’m the chapter Leader of the Adult Education program. I have heard and seen the injustice that the administration has done and is still doing.

I put this question to you this evening: Do you have our back? A few weeks ago, I was in a chapter leader training. I heard the UFT President echo that the UFT has our back. I saw a sign on the subway on Friday from Consumers’ and Workers’ protection: We have your back.
I turn this statement around in my head; “I have your back.”

What does this mean? According to the Free Dictionary, “I’ve got your back” means to be willing and prepared to help or defend someone, to look out for someone.” This evening we are calling for help. Help defend us. Help look out for us. I am reminded of the song, “Lean on Me.” It says, “You just call on me brother or sister, When you need a hand, I’ll help you carry on.” We need our union of over two hundred thousand members to help us carry on and help our students.

I know that together we are strong. But to be strong we must come together. Mark 3: 24-25, If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand, and if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

Let us come together and stop the injustice that is going on in Adult Ed. Together we can be strong and stop the abuse of Teachers, and Paras, and others!

My call today to all is to all: Come together and stop the injustice that is going on in Adult Ed and all the public schools!

Oh, and MORE which has been in the witness protection program since the election (the last post on the MORE blog was 5 weeks ago about how to vote in the election), emerged with a "jump on the bandwagon" opportunist petition. Ho Hum!

School Scope: Socialism and Democracy

School Scope:  Socialism and Democracy

By Norm Scott

Going back to its roots in the mid 1800s, the many brands of “socialism” kept dividing as new tendencies and interpretations arose. Those divisions continue through today and sorting it all out can be daunting. Which is why I am using this space to explore the depths and limits of my own knowledge. What motivates me is the current mainstream media talk which so often demonstrates a lack of understanding about socialism. The earliest roots of socialism was tied to the rise of unions in the most highly industrialized nations with growing working classes. And  my own union, the UFT, was founded by people who considered themselves socialists.

Wednesday May 1 5:30 at Cipriani -- NYC Teachers, Students and Activists to Protest Secretary of Education Betsy Devos As She Receives an Award

Join teachers, students, and activists outside of Cipriani 42nd St. to protest Betsy DeVos's return to New York as she receives an award from a think tank. DeVos has worked tirelessly to expand federal vouchers and cut education spending. DeVos backs Trump’s proposal to cut education spending by $8.5 billion in 2020, eliminating more than two dozen programs that help public schools, including teacher development, academic support and enrichment, and after-school activities.

More details here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/584503618696723/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA ALERT

UFT Election Overall and Retiree Data: Halabi Reports

Mulgrew had 37,000 votes and over 20,000 came from retirees, a warning shot across the bow of the UFT leadership and to some extent it explains their reaching out to former opposition people to stay on the Ex Bd by running on the Unity line. It won't do them much good as the UFT needs deep structural changes instead of cosmetic ones.

It was a bad election for the UFT. Vote totals were down across the board. My caucus, New Action, did particularly poorly
Unity did sweep the seats. But the group that has a monopoly on power has a growing inability to turn out votes, even after turning a popular chapter leader of a huge school, and a prominent Bernie Sanders supporter, with following.....
....Unity can claim a victory – they took an absolute majority of the high school votes for the first time since I’ve been a teacher… but with their second lowest vote total in years, perhaps ever.
I’ve seen speculation about who came in second overall. These results make me think Unity came in second – and those with an interest in promoting distance between the members and the union – our enemies – came in first...
..... Jonathan Halabi, https://jd2718.org

I've been posting the election data as Jonathan compiles it division by division. Below are the retiree votes -- which seem to have leveled off at around 21,000 with Unity getting almost 90% of the votes. First here are his rough overall totals. The numbers are pathetic for everyone.

Here is the rough skinny on the retiree vote:

School Scope: UFT Election Results; Socialism or Progressive Capitalism?

April 26, 2019 - www.rockawave.com

School Scope:  UFT Election Results;  Socialism or Progressive Capitalism?

By Norm Scott

The triennial UFT election ended last week with the usual victory for the Unity Caucus, which has been in control of the UFT since its inception in 1962. President Michael Mulgrew received roughly 85% of the vote, with retirees being the largest voting block. Other than retirees, the turnout from working UFT members bordered on embarrassing. For instance, in the 20,000 member high school division, 3260 teachers voted. Without an effective opposition, the high schools, the only division where Unity has been weak, went totally for Unity by 67%, one of the few times that has happened over the past three decades. One of the reasons was the divisions among the three caucuses running against Unity. The rough order of total votes were Solidarity (7%), MORE (5%) and New Action (3%). As a longtime activist in the opposition, I shudder and question whether it is even worth participating in UFT elections, a waste of resources and time. You can read a detailed election analysis on my blog: https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2019/04/uft-election-results-halabi-posts-high.html.

Unions are a product of the capitalist system and the salvation

The UFT is the largest union local in the nation and some 200,000 people are eligible to vote. Above you can see some of the negatives when a union leadership locks itself into lifetime control, but even critics like me would take that system over the alternative – no union. Unions came into existence in the first place when conditions become intolerable enough to force people to get together. There were no unions before capitalism (though there were craft guilds). The very idea of a union strikes some people as being socialistic, which leads me back to one of my favorite topics.

Since Bernie came on the scene, there’s been a lot more talk in the mainstream press about socialism, but often without clarifying the various degrees, from social democracy within a capitalistic system to out and out revolutionary socialism leading to communism.

Nobel Prize winning left wing economist Joseph Stiglitz was featured in two columns in the NY Times this past week. One was written by him and titled “Progressive Capitalism Is Not an Oxymoron: We can save our broken economic system from itself.” The other was an interview with Stiglitz by Andrew Ross Sorkin: “Socialist! Capitalist! Economic Systems as Weapons in a War of Words.” If you are interested in understanding some of the degrees of socialism look these up.

Stiglitz is arguing for progressive capitalism vs. a total socialistic system where the state owns the means of production. Rather then the attacks we see on government, Stiglitz sees the need for major government controls and that is where he believes we have gone wrong and entered the realm of runaway capitalism via the rise of neo-liberalism to counter the New Deal imposed in the 1930s during the great depression. There’s a lot wrong with the way we are governed and much of that connect to a corrupt system where money rules. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Note: political liberalism in the US which promotes more government control is very different from economic liberalism which calls for minimal government – this version has been branded “neo-liberalism” – unfettered free markets – and we’ve seen that applied to our public schools system with the counter “choice/charter” movement. Stiglitz and others point out the fallacies of rampant neo-liberalism.

Last week I talked about how popular socialism was in parts of this country in 1912 and asked: What happened to socialism in the century since 1912? What happened was the October 1917 Russian Revolution and the resultant consequences, the rise (and fall) of communism and the confusions engendered between various brands of socialism. Next week we will have a primer.

Norm, unhappy with the working conditions at ednotesonline.com, is waiting to be unionized.

UFT Election 2019 - Functional Chapters Based on Halabi Data

Functional chapters (non-teaching) are the mystery ship of the UFT - we address the fundamentals. There are about 40,000 working functionals - non-classroom plus 60,000 retirees and they are lumped together when they vote in UFT elections and get 19 Ex Bd seats. Thanks to Jonathan Halabi's efforts, we are getting some of the data from the UFT elections with his comparisons to previous elections. In this piece he provides info on the often mysterious functional chapter(s).

Actual teachers in the three divisions total over 70,000 so even if a strategy of winning the three teacher ex bd divisions (total- 23 seats) where retirees don't vote was successful, the UFT would still be under Unity control, but seriously threatened if the opposition could gain control of the functionals. Below I delve into why that would be so difficult. Even if the opposition were to win these 19 and add them to the 23 teaching seats the 42 seats would still fall short since there are 48 Ex Bd at-large seats where retirees vote. And in fact retirees vote and run for the functional ex bd seats too so that is how the election is rigged.

9000 non-retiree functional voted in this election out of the 40,000. Unity got 7200, a drop of around 400 from 2016 - maybe due to the OT/PT people. MORE received 824 and New Action 212 while together in 2016 they got 2200. So they lost 50% of the previous vote together but MORE even got less than they did in 2013, which is remarkable since they opportunistically focused their attention on the OT/PT chapter and ran one of the big voices in opposition to the contract as an officer. Let's assume a batch of their 824 came from that chapter.

The surprise was the showing of Solidarity (referring to them as Portelos' clique by Jonathan is disrespectful to the people involved) which got 917 votes, following their trend of tripling their 2016 votes across the board. I assume some of the unhappy OT/PT people went for them too. And secretaries are not happy either. Paras seemed to get some improvements in their contract and I would assume they went big for Unity.

I hear over 21000 retirees voted. (Some MORE supporters are whining about a phony issue where some retirees cut off the ballot in the middle and sent it in - we are addled, you know. And to count those the machines had to be reset. It seems that somehow counting these caused some to start charging it was fraud -- sure.)

In previous posts Jonathan covered the other divisions of the union and also did an overall summation (which we have yet to publish). I've been trying to break down the data with some analysis. Why? Because the past counts no matter how much people want to deny it and the patter in UFT elections is consistent. Yet we will see once again in 2022 caucuses claiming we need to vote in new leadership in the UFT. My goal is to get people to stop wasting everyone's time and energy unless you have built a massive and united opposition going head to head with Unity. That won't happen as long as caucuses see their priority as building their own narrow caucus instead of an opposition united on some basic principles. Let me know when that happens.

Here are my previous reports in reverse order of publishing with links to Jonathan's posts.

• UFT 2019 Election Report - MORE Follies, Middle an...
• UFT Election Results: Halabi Posts High School Tot...
• UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE t...
• UFT Election Report: What I learned - Don't Eat th...

Also read Arthur's take: MORE Plans to Fail, Fails to Plan to Fail Sufficiently, and Comes in Second Among Working Teachers

About the functional chapters: 
There were 13 colored ballots during the contract vote for the functionals. The biggest one is the para chapter with I am told 19,000 members. Secretaries were usually over 3000. Guidance counselors and social workers and OT/PT and school nurses and hospital nurses. Others are much smaller.

Each chapter elects its own chapter leader and delegates and an ex bd to run the chapter and Unity makes sure to control this process and make sure the chapters remain loyal and don't go off the reservation. They have been pretty successful in this -- I was in a functional in my last few years in the system - the teacher assigned chapter -- I worked for the district - and I believe Randi opened up a delegate position for me since I was not in critical mode at the time --- I was sort of told that they wanted to be pushed - a little -- but when my pushing went over a line they were not happy.

Functionals help Unity control elections and the delegate assembly
Retirees are a functional and there are 63,000 retirees with 300 delegates to the DA - and add all the other chapter delegates -- like paras etc -- all pretty much under Unity control - so the functional chapters when added to the Unity chapter leaders and delegates in the schools give Unity control over the DA too.

Retirees don't vote for contracts but do vote in UFT elections. But their vote is broken out separately because there is a cap on retiree votes - I think 21,000  - which means if more than 21,000 vote - as I think happened this time -- each vote becomes a fraction. Like this time maybe .95 or something.

The little trick Unity plays with the 19 functional ex bd seats is to lump them together instead of allowing each functional to elect its own member(s) to the Ex Bd. One reform of the UFT Ex Bd to open it up would be stop lumping them. And to manage the retiree issue I would give retirees a bunch of seats on the Ex Bd since they are such a big chapter -- say 5. But I would also cut down on the 300 Unity delegates they get in the DA. And I would also give retirees a seat on the ad com. But they would not vote for the rest of the adcom or at large ex bd. In fact, I would fundamentally eliminate the at-large seats or maybe reserve 10.

Well, I hope you understand more about the UFT functionals. If my plan to win the 23 ex bd teacher seats ever came about, an opposition would have make some inroads into some of the functionals. Ironically, the only chapter with even a semblance of an opposition is the retiree chapter where the Retiree Advocate operates with New Action and some of the former MOREs who are also still involved. We run in the chapter elections and put out a newsletter but of course getting retirees to go against Unity is a useless operation because who are the happiest people in the UFT?

UFT 2019 Election Report - MORE Follies, Middle and Elem from Halabi Data

A united front in UFT elections might actually have won the middle schools in addition to the high schools and possibly made a dent in the elementary schools.

MORE shrinks rank and file power
MORE is contending that attempts to win these seats is somehow counter to what they term as "building rank and file power", another piece of rhetoric that is fundamentally meaningless, as if having the rank and file actually cast a vote for you doesn't really mean very much. The actions of MORE have actually shrunk rank and file power by undermining the general opposition to Unity Caucus and strengthened the ruling power. Building real rank and file power requires weakening the control of Unity and how driving out people into the arms of Unity does that is beyond me.

Arthur has a must-read funny and devastating blog post on the MORE folly of not winning: 

NYC Educator

MORE Plans to Fail, Fails to Plan to Fail Sufficiently, and Comes in Second Among Working Teachers

MORE went into this election cycle with the clear goal of losing. Optimally they would get no votes whatsoever. However, an election campaign requires that you ask people to vote for you. Otherwise, it would not be a campaign. So there's the rub--when you run to lose you have to at least pretend to run to win, or people will find you insincere. Now it's pretty tough, when you are sincerely insincere, to prove you are not. So that was one quandary.

The ISO (now disbanded) wing of MORE (which is still intact and in control of MORE) in its internal reports to the ISO leadership (which I will be publishing excerpts of) were selling the idea to the newly recruited Democratic Socialists (DSA) that the now purged ICEUFT wing of MORE was somehow right wing - a joke since it was mostly socialist or left Democrats - and that in order to win seats on the UFT Ex Bd MORE would have to dilute the social justice message where in reality we called for cutting the rhetoric and dog whistles and presenting a broader base of ideas without labeling things as bread and butter or social justice. As a lifelong socialist in ICEUFT recently commented: We are not ceding to MORE that their vision of social justice is the correct one.

ICEUFT was truly a rational social justice caucus. That real conditions teachers and students were facing in the schools not the agenda of a tiny group of people is the real way to drive building rank and file power.

The ISO fraction (as they call themselves) viewed winning as being just for the sake of winning. Arthur takes that down with:

... you run no candidates whatsoever for the high school seats, because last time you won them, and that was a disaster. I mean, there were those people going to Executive Board twice a month, making themselves available to anyone who wanted to talk to them, and advocating for just about anyone who asked. Worse, they didn't bother to advocate for the things you wanted because it was Monday night and hey, Monday night is rumba lessons.

The point I could never seem to get across within MORE was that winning seats from Unity IS a message to the rank and file, which has its only opportunity to participate during elections and gives them a chance to send the UFT leadership a message. And by winning or at least challenging seriously, the leadership itself feels threatened enough to possibly modify its policies. For me the golden oak leaf cluster would be to win all three school divisions where retirees can't vote --- that would not only send a message, but would also open up the idea of a law suit on the retiree issue -- that the working teachers were voting opposition but were thwarted.

That dream is done in by the sectarian actions of the MORE leadership under the control of the ISO faction or fraction or whatever.

In this election, whatever share of the rank and file that votes shat on the MORE vision of building rank and file power.

Middle and Elem school election outcome
Jonathan Halabi has been doing a yeoman job parsing UFT election data. (What a way to spend a week off. But look at me spending time on doing the same thing.) Here is his middle and elementary school data with my commentary.

While we considered winning the high school ex bd seats a pretty sure bet with a united front, the middle school ex bd seats were deemed remotely winnable if a concerted effort was made by a united opposition. That may not be obvious at first but look at Jonathan's data over the past 3 elections - 13, 16, 19. In 2016, MORE/New Action with Solidarity data hit 39%, withing striking range in 2019 with a concerted effort to hit the largest middle schools from the beginning of the school year. Notice the drop in Unity votes from 2016 (think of it - Unity gets 1236 out of a potential 12,000 MS teachers). If you take the opposition totals from 2016 and apply them to 2019 (not a given), we would have been in striking range. The only time the opposition won the middle and high schools (13 seats) was in 1991.

MORE received only 145 ms votes - and they had one strong school - Kevin Prosen's where I bet many of the votes came from. Solidarity despite the low totals actually has made its best showing in MS % wise - and bested MORE with 188 votes. New Action's 74 votes is mostly due to the work of the tireless of Greg DiStefano in Staten Island.

Where did the rank and file strategy go in the middle schools when 882 people voted for MORE/NA in 2016 and only 219 MS teachers voted for them individually this time, a drop of about 75%? As Arthur said, MORE failed in its attempt to get 0 votes but got close.

Now the elementary schools are a different kettle of fish and winning this division would require a district based strategy, which no opposition in history has had(other than my group, Another View in District 14 in the early 70s). I did try to bring that idea to MORE with a focus on the one district where we seemed to have some strong elementary school people - District 15 -- but that effort fell apart as people left and other reasons. My idea was that a strong effort in just a few districts might pull enough elementary school votes to get close. That idea is not dead too.

But again look at the Unity numbers - 7k in 2016, 6k in 2019. MORE/NA did not do too bad in 2016 - over 2500 elem school votes if you add Solidarity. I believe most of these elem school votes came from MORE which in 2016 still had some force in District 15 and a few other districts.

And look how Solidarity outpolled MORE in the elem schools this time -- 519-433.  A disastrous drop for MORE -- probably closer to 80%. Hail to building rank and file power.

Here are my previous election reports:

• UFT Election Results: Halabi Posts High School Tot...
• UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE t...
• UFT Election Report: What I learned - Don't Eat th...

UFT Election Results: Halabi Posts High School Totals Plus Historical Perspective

I've been reporting on UFT elections - UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE the Biggest Loser, Solidarity Stays Alive-
based on the data I've been given. Election results have been coming in piecemeal - Since I'm  not attached to any caucus I don't get official results. New Action's Jonathan Halabi posted these interesting high school vote totals on his blog where you should check out his comments. I left this comment on his first election post:

As a UFT wonk these numbers are fascinating to parse. Don’t forget that in 2004, ICE-TJC won the high schools because Unity didn’t run candidates. Unity vote went up very little. Total opposition vote went down drastically. The reason? Has to be the split in the opposition. Longtime anti-Unity voters just sat it out. The MORE drop from 2013 is stark. 60 or so people who signed up to run on the Solidarity ticket including a people who are respected in the UFT. Portelos played so much of smaller role this time — if he had played a bigger role they might have gotten more votes. The pattern of 30 years was broken not by Unity but by decisions made by the opposition caucuses. The so called Portelos clique which was considered marginal was given life by the MORE disaster. Also the idea that Arthur and Mike brought votes to Unity might be valid when you look at Unity’s 2013 totals – or not valid when comparing to 2016. The 50 extra votes this time could be from Arthur’s school plus some from Mike’s. Both schools had voted heavy for MORE/NA last time.

He also did a followup which I will address in tomorrow's post.

UFT 2019 High School Election results compared to previous years.

Analysis: There are about 20,000 high school teachers in the UFT .... Only 3265 voted in 2019

Unity
WOW! The numbers are ridiculous. Jonathan is painting this low turnout as a big loss for the UFT even if a win for Unity. But I don't even see this as a win for Unity in this sense. It is clear that if there were a united opposition that went after winning, Unity would have lost again.

2004
Look at the Unity numbers over the 6 election cycles Jonathan posted. The height of their vote totals in the HS was in 2004 but ironically, they didn't run any HS Ex Bd candidates due to their deal with New Action, which lost to the ICE/TJC which got 1417, less than half what Unity got. NA got 700 - so even if you added that to ICE/TJC, Unity would have won outright.

2016/19
Now consider that they only got 50 more votes this time than in 2016 and also that Arthur and Mike brought them a batch of votes over from MORE. So this makes Unity look even worse in the high schools. Mike got a bunch people to vote Unity at Leon Goldstein, which had been a TJC and then MORE school - and 4 faculty ran with MORE this time. Assume Arthur shifted at least a 100 or maybe 150 votes to Unity. It is clear to me that Unity is as weak as ever in the high schools, if not more so and that a united opposition that started early could win these seats in 2022 even if Arthur and Mike stayed with Unity. My question is why bother?

Solidarity
Some are painting the outcome as a big win for Solidarity over MORE but I don't see it that way. MORE, though suffering a tremendous drop in the high schools still beat Solidarity 544-376 with New Action getting 242, which is not totally out of line with the past performance since NA only got 454 in 2013.

But note that even with the ballot line and running candidates for HS Ex Bd, Solidarity went from 108 to 376 - which some are saying is a major move - more than tripling. I guess, but given that there are 20,000 hs teachers, that the HS have always been the most militant part of the union and that MORE ran no candidates for the winnable ex bd seats, claiming 376 votes as a victory is farcical.

New Action
The question is whether they survive. I think they do decide to continue a presence in the UFT and I hope they do. If the landscape changes within the opponents to Unity, they may have a role.

MORE: Plus A little history going back to the 2016 election
Since MORE was a combination of ICE and TJC plus others, Halabi has a continuous record of high school voting since 2004. Note the consistency over 4 election cycles from 2004 through 2013 - MORE's first year. 1417, 1524, 1369 with ICE/TJC and then when they combined with NYCORE and others  -- a shockingly consistent 1430 in 2013 even with so many new people. For MORE to drop from 1430 in 2013 to 544 in 6 years is a shocking loss of support.

I think MORE will just shrug the outcomes off and try to sell the idea they really didn't put much effort into this election and they never really cared about the outcome anyway. Will the members buy it? Since MORE is fundamentally a DSA oriented group I think most will because they have a bigger agenda than UFT politics.

But they must deal with the fact that ICE/TJC and MORE through 5 election cycles, with a broader agenda than just social justice pretty much were able to get 1350-2200 votes in the high schools. And look at the MORE candidates and the high schools they came from - count the potential votes and you will see even in the schools where they had a base they didn't necessarily get overwhelming support. I heard reports from one school with a prominent MORE as CL where people complained that chapter meetings were all about issues that they felt had nothing to do with them - like the fact Mulgrew signed on to bringing Amazon back - something they couldn't care less about.

To say MORE didn't put effort into the election is not totally true. The election is pretty much all MORE talked about at its meetings since October and they kept pushing people to get out the vote in their schools. Since MORE is almost all high school based, the 544 votes is a sign of how weak an impact MORE is having. But they may even try to sell this as a base with the argument that MORE in essence remade itself into a new caucus after the purges and was essentially starting over. Still, there are those numbers from 2013  - 1435 - when MORE was a new caucus to explain.

Also consider that some of that 544 comes from legacy voting - people not aware of changes in MORE but who had voted for MORE in 2016. Thus the actual strength is less than 544. Also consider the two schools Arthur and Mike come from. Arthur probably brought 150 or more votes to MORE in 16 and assume some shift of these to Unity. And Mike's school, which had always been opposition due to TJC's Kit Wainer, was split this time.

Background to MORE internals in the 2013 and 2016 election and signs of divisions

With all the action around the founding of MORE, with the ICE and TJC and NYCORE connections, especially in the high schools, in 2013, I expected we had a chance to compete for winning the HS ex bd seats. So when all we got was 1430 and Unity 1592 to which New Action's 452 were added, it was a bitter pill that all we needed was 2000 votes in the high schools to win and fell so far short.

It was clear not enough outreach even in their own schools had been done and it was at that point that I saw that MORE as an electoral entity did not have much promise, which is why I fundamentally urged them not to run unless it was in coalitions. MORE held a "2013 victory" party on the day the results were being announced attended by 80 people and when I showed up crestfallen to deliver the outcomes - they begged me to show a happy face. Also a clue that they did not want to face reality but wanted a positive spin. But imagine that 80 or more people came out in 2013 and compare to today? The MORE promise and where it went? would make a good study.

Some of us knew that with better organizing we could get at least 2000 or more in 2016 and we set out to do so -- but disruptions internally in MORE in 2014 derailed us.

Mike, James, Arthur and I - and the rest of the ICE wing of MORE - were the leading proponents of going all out to win the high school seats in 2016 as a way to show the membership Unity could be beaten in at least one division with the hope that would lead to a move to defeat Unity in the middle schools and eventually the elementary schools in the 2019 election.

That we had to put up a fight internally in MORE to go for these seats was a sign of things to come.

In the spring of 2015 we began a high school newsletter outside the bounds of MORE because trying to do so inside would be a struggle with the ideologues. But that newsletter - The High School Forum - got some resonance and distribution we were asked to bring that inside MORE, which later on co-opted the name. We formed a MORE high school committee which none of the MORE sectarians got involved in - at first. And that allowed us to take the lead. (We also urged the other divisions in MORE to do the same -MS and ES -- and that never happened.)

By early summer 2015 when NA was still with Unity, we organized at the MORE convention to focus the high school committee on winning and the vote was very favorable. We really thought we might win the high schools even if Unity and New Action ran together. After all, in 2013 Unity only had 1592 and New Action brought only 452. So we aimed at 2500 votes even if NA stayed with Unity.

Rumors were that NA was not happy with Mulgrew and I and a few others did see that if New Action could be lured away from Unity and into an alliance with MORE we could beat Unity in the high schools for sure in 2016.

At the convention we put together a MORE high school committee basically run - in the early stages - July, 2015 - by the ICE wing and its supporters - much to the dissatisfaction of the ISO led ideology wing which didn't really want to go after these seats - they didn't see winning as a fruitful exercise - (given today's context I might take the same position).

We reached out to New Action and there was a positive response and thus an alliance was born -- though I do remember some of the ideologues pushing back at a MORE meeting in September of October 2015 that New Action wasn't ideologically kosher enough due to its 12 year alliance with Unity. That winning came second to ideological purity. The majority of MORE at that point was overwhelmingly for the alliance. How things changed by the fall of 2018 and I would say the split in MORE was fundamentally over these kinds of issues.

By the fall it was clear we had some momentum and at this point the MORE sectarian ideologues became concerned enough to jump onto the HS committee, which led to struggles through the fall of 2015 to shunt Mike and Arthur off the ballot, with unmatched levels of skulduggery which we managed to beat back. I kept stressing that Arthur's large school was the key to winning a close vote.

We won that internal battle at the time but the ideologues used their own negative reactions to the victory in the election as an internal organizing tool against Arthur and Mike.

And they literally began their attacks within weeks of winning the high schools in May 2016. But that's a story for another day.

I may even write a play.

Susan Ohanian - Trump,Trump, Trump: The March of Folly

One of my favorite people is Susan Ohanian
who has been one of the leaders of the movement critical of standardized testing forever -- she is one of the first people who influenced me. But Susan goes far beyond that in terms of advocating for rational education. She has a new book out and if you happen to be in Vermont on May 7 stop by.

Trump,Trump, Trump: The March of Folly

Burlington

Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - 7:00pm

Join Onion River Press and Phoenix Books Burlington for the launch of Susan Ohanian's new book, Trump, Trump, Trump: The March of Folly, a clever and meticulously thought-out poetic rebuttal to the absurdity of the current president.

ABOUT THE BOOK: From giving his second-grade teacher a black eye to insulting the grieving parents of a military hero, the rollicking verse in this book presents a Donald Trump profile of bombast, babes, and bankruptcies. Details of Trump, his progeny and current political cohorts, characterized by greed and deceit, are verified by engrossing news accounts. The facts are grim, the humor captivating.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Susan Ohanian, a longtime teacher and writer, is the author of more than a dozen books on education policy and practice. Notable titles include: One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards; Garbage Pizza, Patchwork Quilts, and Math Magic; Who's In Charge? A Teacher Speaks her Mind; What Happened to Recess and WHY are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten?

Susan's more than 300 articles have appeared in publications ranging from Education Week and Phi Delta Kappa to The Nation, The Atlantic, and The New York Times "Metropolitan Diary." Her website of resistance to corporate intrusion into public education received The George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language. She also received the Kenneth S. Goodman Award in Defense of Good Teaching from the University of Arizona and the Vermont Society for the Study of Education John Dewey Award. In March 2017 at her Vermont Town Meeting, Susan introduced a successful advisory motion to Impeach Trump, based on Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the U. S. Constitution.

ADMISSION:  This event is free and open to all.

Event address: 

191 Bank Street

Burlington, VT 05401

UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE the Biggest Loser, Solidarity Stays Alive

Mulgrew, the Unity Caucus candidate, received 38,591 votes, or 86.2 percent of the votes cast while Solidarity Caucus candidate Lydia Howrilka received 3,604 votes (8 percent) and Dermot Myrie the candidate of the MORE caucus, got 2,540 votes (5.6 percent).... All 102 seats on the union's Executive Board were won by the Unity caucus........UFT Web site 

My spin - a massive win for Unity and a massive loss for the

opposition even though Solidarity can claim the mantle of the only caucus that shows signs of growth.

Unity won by the biggest margin in years as the folly of 3 opposition caucuses was revealed. The total of Solidarity and MORE was roughly 6000 votes (we don't have New Action since they did not run officers). That Lydia finished second was the big surprise and the poor showing of MORE is making me eat a lot of crow with some former MOREs who predicted this disaster -- kudos to John G and Peter Z. John predicted Solidarity would beat MORE and Peter predicted MORE would finish under 4000 votes. Even he was over optimistic.

And for the first time since 1993, Unity won the high schools unassisted - Wait, Wait -- actually they were assisted by having Arthur and Mike join them and bring many former MORE votes with them to Unity.

I know this puts Solidarity in the titular position of the opposition with the most support but it is a hollow "victory." Sadly, it seems that New Action has faded so far and let's blame MORE's refusal to run with them as a reason. Some of us in the opposition might even join New Action to try to keep it alive.

In 2016 election MORE/New Action had almost 10,600 votes and Portelos running for Solidarity had 1400. 6000 (plus whatever New Action gets) combined this time is a drop in half of what the opposition received just 3 years ago. Sad. Remember - I urged people not to bother running because the outcomes mean something to people. So even if you don't want to troll for votes, people take the ability to get votes seriously even if you don't - yes, I'm talking to the faction in control of MORE who pushed this idea on some fairly inexperienced people and they just wasted 5 months of talking about the election. I bet they will have a victory party.

No one - MORE or New Action - wanted to run with Solidarity because they didn't have a big base. I didn't expect much from them and challenged them to prove they had a base of votes. And they did to some extent in that they finished ahead of all the other opposition groups and now can claim a mantle of the opposition with the most support even if it is minuscule. But they worked real hard to get on the ballot and get votes. Give them credit - let's see if they can build on this outcome. (Frankly, ICE got around that many votes in its first run in 2004 and I thought that was pathetic.)

Now Solidarity beating out MORE is a big thing in the tiny world of the opposition inside the UFT and their 3600 votes was in line with my prediction since I expected them to double their totals from last time especially since they had a slate this time. Showing some growth is essential but it was clear they didn't have enough of a base to make much bigger gains. But no matter what people say, the real race was to beat MORE -

and
-
Shockingly they did. I expected MORE to lose thousands of votes - but MORE dropped so drastically and so quickly. Jia Lee who was the presidential candidate and received 10,700 votes in 2016 ran for VP Special Ed this time and received only 2700 votes to Solidarity's Quinn Zanoni's 3600. Jia's vote totals dropped by 8000 votes and it has nothing to do with her but it does in this sense - she backed all the way the MORE moves that have turned it into a boutique caucus.

Think of it - in 3 years MORE lost 8000 votes. Someone do the % drop math -- from 10,600 to 2,600. Is 75% a rough figure or am I way off?

From what I've been hearing a whole bunch of votes for Solidarity came from people who voted for MORE last time. Let's say 1000 - the difference in their totals. But what happened to the other 6000 votes that the opposition got in 2016 - and also remember that 12000 people did vote against the contract. MORE lost them or even didn't try very hard to get them. And don't forget, they must have had some support from inside the OT/PT unit, so imagine their base in terms of classroom teachers is even smaller.

Here is my first impressions of where MORE lost votes:
Solidarity, Unity, and non-voting.

But watch the spin - MORE will declare victory - that they didn't really try and purposely ran not to win and that there are 2600 people out there to organize for their platform -- just like they organized the 10,600 last time.

All the years of building up to 12000 votes and it all went crashing against the rocks of MORE sectarianism.

At the end of the day, the opposition in the UFT is decimated and Unity Caucus is more empowered than ever. Nice work.

The faction in control of MORE ought to write  book - how to destroy a union opposition and empower the ruling power.

Here is the UFT posting.

Michael Mulgrew re-elected UFT president

UFT Election Report: What I learned - Don't Eat the Cauliflower

Lots of infighting at the ballot count. Claims of paper thickness and other stuff is causing paper jams.--- 3:15 PM, April 18 - message from UFT vote count

The UFT should ask the American Arbitration Association for a rebate. I'm actually glad my wife had me on Passover readiness duty all day today in prep for our 27 guest tomorrow night so I wasn't able to give in to any temptations to go back after a wasted day yesterday -- though I did ask Amy Arundell to  write me a pass just in case I got the itch- she rightly said NO. Let me recount what happened yesterday.

The AAA serves dinner

April 17 - Dinner was served at around 7PM at the American Arbitration Association a few blocks from the UFT after a day of mostly wasteful vote counting. I wouldn't leave until I had this "wonderful dinner" but I finally gave up the ghost at around 8PM with literally no results. With every election cycle the process gets worse. And rumors are the UFT gives the AAA around a half a million bucks to run the election. I think even some of the top officials who were there with us to witness the fiasco might begin to rethink how UFT elections are run, though I wonder why they even bother anymore. I would give the half a million to a fund for an ATR bye out . As James points out, no one would notice anyway -- ICEUFT Blog: UFT ELECTION MERCIFULLY ENDS. 

Here is where the situation stood when I left at 8PM Wednesday when they were still tabulating the functional votes which were in the range of 10,000 and they were up to about 8,000 when I left. They expected to have slate results by 11 PM or later but based on the speed I didn't see how. There were still about 10,000 elem votes (based on how many in 2016, 4500 high school and 2500 middle school. They expected to begin again at 8AM this morning.

I got to the AAA, located in the basement of 120 Broadway at around 12 PM. In the room observing were Mike and Mark from New Action, Erik from Solidarity (Lydia came to relieve him later), Myrie from MORE, an alternating crew of Leroy/Dave Hickey/Howie from Unity, Amy as chair of the election committee, Yasmin who was in charge of the election process

Only about 10,000 retiree votes were counted using two scanners that seemed to come to a stop every minute. We were able to watch the ballots as they were scanned on a big screen. The process was so slow I left and went uptown to pick up some library books, drop them off at my apartment and since I didn't  have an ed notes leaflet prepared for the Delegate Assembly, I took my stash of the April edition of the Indypendent, which I distribute for them down to hand out at the DA. But it was 2:30 and I went back to the vote count and it was still crawling along with the retiree vote which at this point was around 18-20,000 with more to go. 

Then they did the functional which went by like molasses.
From what I saw on the big screen, Unity looked like it was winning the retiree vote by at least 10-1, with New Action pulling some votes and Solidarity too - MORE pulled very little from what I saw in the retirees.

In functional, Unity again was also winning very big -- maybe a little less than 10-1. MORE pulled some more votes here and so did Solidarity while New Action did very little.

At this point I left and finally wrote this up tonight -- and in the midst some real results came in -- reports later in a follow-up.

Mark and Mike from New Action

Mike Schirtzer on How Unity Caucus Votes - Nov. 2017

UPDATE: I've gotten some feedback on why I published these pieces by Mike and Arthur - Unity Fiddles While High Schools Unrepresented - Oct. 2017.

I wanted to show that they have both evolved - or devolved. One reader summed it up: Good to remind them both, who I support and voted for as individuals, what brought them to serve.
And to remind them that it was MORE/New Action, not themselves, who put them on the Ex Bd and that this time it is Unity who put them on the Ex Bd. One of our fights in MORE was that while they should have adherence to the MORE program they were also free to be individuals, which seemed to enrage some people in MORE. The same here- they owe some allegiance to the Unity program and the question is will they also be free to be individuals? If they are not then they won't be asked to run again.

No matter how good your argument is, no matter what our chapter members want, Unity members are required to vote what the party says. You cant change minds, your arguments don't matter because it has already been pre-determined how the members of the majority party will vote. It can become demoralizing.  ... Mike Schirtzer, Nov. 2017

With Mike Schirtzer's election on the Unity slate today, it is worth sharing some comments from Mike on ed notes a year and a half ago. Even though Mike hasn't been required to join Unity will be exhibit signs of the Stockholm Syndrome and vote the same as Unity?

{Look for a companion piece coming in a half houd on Unity from 2017 from Arthur Goldstein who is also elected today on the Unity line.}

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Mike Schirtzer on How Unity Caucus Votes

Mike, with over a dozen years in the system, ruminates on his experiences with the Unity Caucus machine. He is over 30 years younger than me but I expect when he reaches my age he will still be going to UFT DAs to hand out our newsletter, Another View in The UFT - Our New DA Newsletter.

Six years ago I was nominated as a UFT delegate from my school. That means I attend the UFT Delegate Assembly with chapter leaders and delegates from around the city once a month. The job of a delegate is  to hear a report from our union president on the state of our union, public schools, and what the latest news is from our relationships with politicians. Delegates also have time to ask questions and raise resolutions about the direction our union should take. Often the UFT leadership raises resolutions that dictate the direction of our union and polices we will advocate for.  These proposals should result in vigorous discussion and debate. After-all we're deciding on the direction  of the largest teachers union in the  USA. Whatever we decide has ripple effects throughout the country. However, I learned rather quickly the debates are far from honest.

The leadership of the UFT and close to 2/3 the 700 of the delegates that go to DAs are part of an inner political party, known as Unity caucus.  The Unity caucus members follow party lines, meaning they all vote the same way, every time, no matter what!.

When I showed at my first DA and I heard a chapter leader raising a resolution that any new evaluation system the union agrees to should go the membership for an online vote. It sounded like a rational argument to me, but then speaker after speaker got up and spoke against it. Finally someone from the DA stood up and said "I call the question" which meant debate ended without ever hearing an additional speaker in favor of the resolution.

It seemed weird to me. Why were fellow delegates, fellow teachers voting against and even speaking harshly in opposition to this resolution that all my friends at my school and every other school would vote in favor of? Seems obvious we should have a say in what our union negotiates that will impact our careers. When Mulgrew called on speakers he asked them for their names and schools. They all presented themselves and then spoke against it.

The resolution was voted down. It all seemed so strange to me. In the next few months there were resolutions raised against common core, against high stakes testing,  supporting parents that opt their children out of testing, and for sports programs in all schools, all voted down. They all were resolutions that would have been voted for overwhelmingly in my school and by my friends and family that are teachers. Yet they were all voted down.

At the same time resolutions for political endorsements that should have had discussion and debate were overwhelmingly voted on and spoke in favor of by all the same people. I began to realize each month it was the same people speaking against resolutions. Each month the same people were called on to ask softball questions. Each month Mulgrew called on the same people as if he never met them before.

Soon I learned all these people are in the same party or caucus, all are required to vote the same as Mulgrew, and are required to follow the party line whatever that might be. (This is known as democratic centralism.)

If Unity said common core and test based evaluations were great, then every Unity member would say the same. When the leadership reverses itself everyone in Unity goes along with the party line.

No matter how good your argument is, no matter what our chapter members want, Unity members are required to vote what the party says. You cant change minds, your arguments don't matter because it has already been pre-determined how the members of the majority party will vote. It can become demoralizing.

Now that I have  been elected to the UFT Executive Board as one of the seven MORE/New Action High School reps (Unity has the other 93 positions), I am finding the experience of the Unity wall the same as a DA, just on a smaller scale. Out of 100 members that are supposed to be discussing and debating the position and direction of our union, 7 are left to challenge the union leadership. While there is more debate than at the DA, decisions are already made behind closed doors.

While we almost always support the leadership positions, anything we bring up is automatically opposed or amended to take the teeth out.

If our group, MORE/New Action  says the sky is blue, the Unity caucus will say it's red. When members vote as a block and cannot be convinced to change their minds that is not in the best interest of our union.

Showing up to vote as a block and not identifying yourself as a member of Unity falsely leading everyone to believe you're speaking for yourself or the people who elected you in your school when in reality you're taking the party position and no one can can convince you otherwise.

Unity Caucus, which has exercised total power over the UFT since its founding, in theory functions internally in a democratic manner. But in reality, the top leadership decides and everyone follows along. So there is little real debate internally in the caucus and a narrow point of view and agenda becomes the operating feature. This leads to bad decision making and bad policy and ultimately causes harm to the membership. 

Arthur Goldstein - Unity Fiddles While High Schools Unrepresented - Oct. 2017

The frustration I don't really get is that of being in a union with leadership that treats us like garbage. I mean, we pay the same dues as everyone else. We pay UFT leadership. We pay NYSUT. We pay AFT. But we have absolutely no representation in any of it. We have more members than the entire Philadelphia teacher union, and just about no say in the decision making. Leadership has engineered it that way.... Arthur Goldstein, NYC Educator, Oct. 2017

Both Arthur and Mike were elected today as high school ex bd members on the Unity line. I thought it interesting to post some of their comments from a year and a half ago. Mike's went up before this post which was from Arthur on his NYC Educator blog. Since this post, Unity people have seemed to bend over backwards to be responsive to Arthur. Everyone in the UFT should establish a well-read blog if they want attention of the leadership.

Both of them believe the landscape has changed drastically, especially given the situation in the MORE caucus and their disillusionment with them and the opposition in general.

I am pretty sure that if the opposition had gotten together on the high school level there was a chance both Arthur and Mike may not have won despite their popularity since Unity has lost the high schools in almost every election since the late 80s.

Now to be fair, Arthur and Mike both believe there has been some movement for change inside Unity and they feel they have been recruited to help push for some changes in the UFT. Most of us vets believe that is sugar coating but with the addition of Mindy who did join Unity even a nudge will be better than nothing.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Unity Fiddles While High Schools Unrepresented

It's kind of frustrating being a high school teacher in New York City. Some people will tell you that the kids we teach are difficult, but I always think as long as we can be crazier than they are, we'll be OK. I've got a difficult class this year, with widely varying levels of ability, but all of them are kids, and all of them are learning one way or another. The frustration I don't really get is that of being in a union with leadership that treats us like garbage.

I mean, we pay the same dues as everyone else. We pay UFT leadership. We pay NYSUT. We pay AFT. But we have absolutely no representation in any of it. We have more members than the entire Philadelphia teacher union, and just about no say in the decision making. Leadership has engineered it that way. Around the time I first started teaching, Mike Shulman of New Action was elected high school vice president. I knew nothing of union politics, but from the crap that showed up in my mailbox, he appeared the underdog. That was good enough for me.

UFT Unity contested his election. They kept him from office for a while. Then they ran another vote, and Shulman won by a larger margin. I voted for him again. I vote every chance I get. Unity was not happy, so as soon as they won the seat again, they changed the rules. Now high schools are not allowed to choose their own vice president. All VPs are chosen "at large," which works for monopolistic Unity. After all, it was only the high schools who challenged them.

This is like Donald Trump saying New York is too liberal when they choose governors. Maybe Trump will decide to have Oklahoma and Texas help us choose, thereby preventing our own choice. It would be an outrage, and what Unity does is an outrage. In the last election, high school teachers chose James Eterno as their Vice President. And yet, Eterno has no voice at AdCom. Thus we don't either.

Yesterday, a Unity rep who went behind my back to arrange an event in my school told me he was sorry that I "felt" high school teachers have no representation in NYSUT and AFT. Here's the thing--it's not something I "feel." It's something, period. And when UFT Unity ignores elected chapter leaders to do any damn thing they feel like, it's counterproductive and stupid on multiple levels.

For one thing, there's no need to run around backstabbing people and doing things surreptitiously. We can get things done that benefit all of us by communicating directly. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm not really big on dirty tricks. I don't see the point in cooperating with people who deliberately deceive me. I'm busy, I have priorities, and I'm not wasting time playing juvenile games.

I hear some suggestions that high schools can go another way, and I usually reject them. I've been trying pretty hard to see what we can do hand in hand with leadership. I've taken flack from a lot of my friends for supporting COPE in the face of the Constitutional Convention. Sometimes people in leadership say things that make sense to me. Sometimes they persuade me.

Other times I wonder just what in the hell we need some of these people for.

Today is Election Day at the UFT - Look at 2016 Outcomes

Francesco Portelos posted the outcomes from 2016 and since we will have results by tonight or tomorrow, it will be worth doing a comparison. Will this election break the pattern of the past 15 years where outcomes were fairly predictable? There are always lessons for the future.

Note in slide 4- over 24,000 retirees votes out of 60,000.
Total non-retiree votes: 28,000 - out of 110,000.
That's the election in a nutshell. Retiree votes always go up -- in fact the 2016 election they topped the limit and were a bit prorated.

Contract impact: There was a lot more unhappiness with the 2014 contract than the 2017 -- will that impact the vote?

The breaking of the opposition: Last time there were two choices on the ballot -- Unity and MORE/New Action - with Solidarity running as individual candidates. This time there will be 4 choices. Will that lead to bigger turnout or less?

The high school vote: Will the total of the 3 opposition votes in the high schools add up to more than the Unity vote? This is complicated somewhat by MORE not running any candidates in this category.

There are probably more issues to dissect but I am going to head in to the AAA at 120 Broadway to check on the vote count. Today is also a delegate assembly and I didn't bother to prepare a leaflet so if I get bored I may just go to a movie.

Here is what Portelos posted on FB: