UFT Resistance Caucuses: We Need Them, But Why Not One Big tent?

We really need to just merge the opposition caucuses into one United for Change caucus.... comment on a chat

 

That was original intent of MORE from the ice perspective in 2010 when talks began.  As time went on others in MORE did not want a big tent, more of a boutique caucus which alone cannot win power in the UFT. So I gave up now on one big caucus and went back to forming election coalitions of caucuses and independents ... Norm

Reply: As great as that sounds, I don’t think it’s realistic. There are some issues that I don’t see people agreeing on. The union is just way too big for that. Ideally there would be a few healthy caucuses, like most democracies have a few relatively strong parities

Even with healthy caucuses there is competition for those few activists and a focus on caucus building. Another model would be one big caucus with sub caucuses internally that allowed for internal debates. DSA has that. I actually made a similar proposal at the first big More meeting. Recognize we start out with internal factions....Norm

 

Reply: It seems like one opposition caucus and one caucus that maintains power would pose the same problems as any two party system.

I began this series on UFT caucuses with:

• The Caucus Role in UFT in Elections: The ICE Experience: The Caucus model works very well for Unity over 62 years. Not so well for the other caucuses.

Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024

• Recent (past 30 years) caucuses in the UFT: New Action, ICE, TJC, RA, MORE, PAC, New Direction, TAC - When caucuses begin to fail they often look to merge or form new caucuses.

• How open is a caucus to new people? Does it have guard rails for membership? Do people have to agree to caucus fundamentals before becoming a member? Caucus discipline? Unity is known for its guardrails and discipline.
  

So why don't all the groups form one big caucus?  There are major differences in how each caucus operates.

 

I've been a critic of caucuses even when I was in one, some of which I helped found. I tried to see beyond the often narrow confines of a caucus, with their rules and structures, which often (and still does) drive colleagues crazy. That is why I was most comfortable in the more free-flowing ICE, which I and James Eterno sort of ran (I drove him crazy too). But let's face it, there can be no organized resistance to Unity Caucus without caucuses, so love 'em or leave 'em, we need 'em. In fact in today's UFT world, the more the merrier.

 

I'm constantly criticized for looking back to the past. But as an historian of sorts I don't believe you can move forward without learning lessons of the past. In UFT caucus history, there are loads of lessons to be learned. 

 

Currently, there seem to be 3 major caucuses beside Unity: New Action, MORE, and Retiree Advocate, with Solidarity and ICE considered minor compared to where they stood in the election 3 years ago. Daniel Alicea as EONYC last time was a sort of one man caucus but with tremendous outreach. Now he's joined New Action. But ICE and Solidarity still exist in some form.

 

ICE, which ran with TJC in the 2007 and 2010 elections fundamentally gave up official election caucus status to merge into the new MORE in 2011 with the idea to form a big tent. TJC went defunct while ICE continued with a blog, listserve and meetings. ICE was the biggest contingent in MORE at the beginning, with the International Socialists (ISO) being the second. But there were others: NYCORE, Progressive Labor Party, Teachers Unite,  TJC remnants, and non-affiliated.

MORE began with many internal factions and I proposed formal recognition of the factions which would allow differences but keep everyone together for the purpose of building a force to ultimately defeat Unity. That didn't happen.

Some of us in ICE noticed a certain segment of MORE that did not seem to believe in the vision of winning elections; having Unity in power as a foil seemed to fit their needs. Elections were not important, other than as a means to build the caucus and promote an ideology. I could see that point, though if you declare yourself a caucus how to explain not running? While mostly people were on the left, some see union work as a building block to socialism. Others  saw union work in more simpler terms - use power to improve conditions for teachers and students.

After a few years, it became clear there was a division: big tent vs. a narrow ideologically driven one. That faction didn't seem to want to win, arguing that winning was corrupting. Underneath it all was a belief that you must build a caucus with "the right kind of people" that can take power with a "unified vision". Reject people who don't agree with the dominant ideology and only make alliances with those you disagree with when absolutely necessary, but with the goal of jettisoning those alliances when the caucus is strong enough to go it alone.

Ultimately this faction did just that: It jettisoned the ICE members, actually branding the mostly leftists in ICE as right wing, and purified the MORE caucus.

But even that doesn't always work out and divisions over the 2025 UFT election have arisen, but in a new context of the possibility of winning this time, which has created new pressures throughout the Unity resistance movement.

The retiree and para massive victories created the possibility that a unified opposition can actually win. 

For most of the Unity resistance, that was a no-brainer. But the purists, a minority faction in MORE, do not want to win in a united front because that would dilute their political stances and violate their principles. And I respect that. In a recent internal vote, around 125 voted for a united front (but with specific conditions) and 35 voted against.

There is some irony in that minority position, given how often these very same people bow down to their "allies" in Chicago and LA as caucuses that actually took over their unions -- they obviously ran to win - and not initially with a very heavy social justice agenda. Win baby, just win, first and THEN change the union. As a fan of those movements who was involved with them from the early days of 2009, I have never gotten an answer to the contradiction between them and the so-called NYC version of them. I know a guy doing his PhD exploring this issue between Chi/LA and NYC. I hope he illuminates the differences - I see him heading in the direction I lean - Unity Caucus.

And here's the reality: At no point can one caucus actually win a UFT election without making alliances, so that subset of MORE will go on spitting into the wind endlessly. In my early years in MORE I urged the new caucus not to waste resources in running but to use the election to build outreach but the newbies were so excited to run. After the 2013 election, there was a year or two of stagnation - actually a slow decline over the next few years. That always seems to happen between election years.

One of the Retiree Advocate elected delegates, Lois Weiner, recently wrote an article appealing to these dissidents, an article I have some issues with but don't have the time to address them at this point. It seems the philosophy that has been driving MORE also explains the ICE expulsion:

...building the caucus then contending for power (a chronology I’ve advocated in my work about teacher union reform). To some, joining the coalition without having the caucus we want in place seems a violation of principle.

That's a standard position of the election purists in MORE - running in coalition with people not on the same page as you is a violation of principle. The theory of caucus building by reduction or purges, is very standard on the left but a philosophy that has been a proven failure in NYC and leads to a narrow ideologically driven "club" more than a caucus. Put out dog whistles to both keep people away and attract the ones you want. 

The winner is always Unity.

But here is where Lois Weiner makes her appeal to the "don't run" dissidents by differentiating NYC from the other cities:

The vulnerability of the retiree victory in its chapter election makes joining the coalition and building a progressive politics within it all the more urgent.

Proponents of union democracy and social justice teacher unionism should not wait out this election in anticipation of becoming stronger, more unified in shared principles, more democratic in functioning in time for the next election. The RA’s victory forces those who want a more militant, democratic union, in particular activists in the Movement for Rank and File Educators (MORE), a caucus inspired by CORE, to re-think the trajectory exemplified in CORE’s victory and its subsequent transformation of the CTU. CORE had and used the advantage of time we in the UFT do not have, time to build a unified caucus based on shared principles that fuse social justice with protection of economic protections for members, time to organize on its program to contend for leadership in a union election. Context counts. The comparative size of the school systems and their unions, along with decades of Unity’s rule, which has isolated reformers from possible allies in NYSUT, combined with the machine’s almost untrammeled exercise of power, its punishment of opposition and reward of those who take its orders, converge to make reformers’ task qualitatively different in New York than elsewhere, certainly in this country and possibly the world.

Credit to Lois, who I can't wait to see at the DA tomorrow, for seeing a new landscape. But let me point out a flaw that is a myth on the left - that CORE, founded in midst-2008 as a book club and won power in 2010, managed to build a unified caucus in a year and a half when they ran a campaign based on fighting closing schools and high stakes testing and defending teachers against attack and even attracting right wing supporters. MORE is now 14 years old since people first started meeting. If they haven't emulated CORE by now, then when?

MORE had to make an alliance in 2022 after their disastrous decision in 2019 to run alone (my opposition and reporting on that is what got me kicked out) and finish 3rd behind Solidarity and losing an enormous percentage of their 2016 vote. 

A few months later a key voice in that faction approached me at a DA and said, "you were right, Norm, we never should have run. As you warned it took a lot out of us even running a minimalist campaign." The 2019 lesson was learned and MORE joined UFC. And the majority still think that is correct. 

This time, as Lois points out, building a coalition to defeat Unity is even more imperative.

Next: A Way to Win: Offering a Different Paradigm for UFT elections: Less control by caucuses (not their elimination) and more from the rank and file. Plus the remarkable resurgence of the 30-year old New Action Caucus.

 

Meeting up with a Former Student (part 2) - What we talked about for 4 hours

The most fun thing about seeing students as adults when the last time you saw them they were kids is hearing their life stories. Once in a while they become friends.

 

Original New York Times article about the winning student engineering project

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/20/nyregion/prize-for-school-project-bridges-old-gender-gap.html

 

 

The response to my post about meeting up with Jean who was in my computer classes and part of a gender stem initiative has gotten an amazing response on Facebook from former students, former colleagues, family and friends.While I had often thought about what happened to Jean over the years because she clearly had enormous potential, I hadn't had the kind of relationship with her I had with my regular classroom students and barely knew her.

Every teacher's dream as Long Ago Student Reaches Out

The last time I saw her was 30 years ago. She was 12. 

We met to catch up at 11:30. Four hours later we were still talking about a million things. The past, the present and the future. Her major memory was an overnight visit to my house with four other 7th grade girls, something I would get arrested for that today.

October 12, 2024

 

I only told half the story. I've met with former students over the years and look forward to these meetings. Despite telling them to call me Norm, they still call me Mr. Scott -- to them it's still teacher/student. Those students had been in my class for the entire year, so a different relationship totally than the one I had with Jean, which was based on a short-time frame project we did that included an overnight visit and stay over at my house.

 

When Jean first contacted me two weeks ago the email was as good as any teacher could expect. And follow-up texts showed a level of enthusiasm for our meeting that pumped me up. But would the actual meeting come down to? Chatting and then saying goodbye, possibly forever? 

 

Well, from the first seconds I opened the door to my apartment, Jean's enthusiasm infected me. In my previous post I described how Jean was on a team of girls who built a bridge and were feted at a number of events set up by the Erector Set PR firm. But she remembered precious little of all that, to my surprise. She did remember vividly the visit to my house and that there was a limo ride. So I filled her in on the entire story as chronicled in my previous post. 

 

The plaque given to us at the AMNH somehow survived Sandy hurricane and is still hanging in my basement. Jean is quoted in the article. She didn't remember.

 

 

Jean had indicated that now that she had one child in the school and a 3 year old to follow, and as a new member of the PTA and the SLT, she wanted to know a lot more about how the system functions and what to expect.

She came to the right person. So we did a lot on the school level issues and I explained the district (CEC) and city (PEP) issues but also went back to some history of the local school boards. I knew something about the recent politics at the school and gave her the context and some of the pressures put on the principal.

 

I'm sure it was overload. But then she asked about issues related to reading and math problems and general curricula and she stimulated my aging brain to touch base with my ideas on how kids learn - and how excited I had always been about trying new things. I told her about my attempt to teach chess and do robotics and ideas I have about how you can do an entire curricula by doing theater. I explained that in 5 minutes of a kid reading aloud I could tell if he needed phonics. I'd bet her kid didn't need phonics to any extent, yet the phonics police are out there forcing every kid to go through it. I had to really recall the often frustrating experience in teaching reading to a full class. My MA in reading instruction was geared to one on one where you diagnose the problem with reading through a battery of tests and then design a corrective, all of this impossible in a full classroom. The best advice for improving reading is to read a lot but  reading can be a chore if you have to struggle. I have a thesis: Unlock the block and once you do there is no longer a need to teach reading to that child. Anyway -- as usual I got wrapped up and talked too long - who me? No, actually I did a lot of listening.

I mentioned I taught the "one" (top) class only once or twice and she had no idea what I was talking about. So we went into homo and hetero and tracking based on test scores. She understood how difficult it must be for teachers to teach a wide range of skill levels and we explored the the pros and cons.

Having spent most of the past 25 years focused on ed politics, going back to my progressive education roots was so exciting. And since Jean is interested in trying to get some things going at the school, I can see myself getting involved. The problem may be that the school is in transition to a new principal and we know how that game may work out. When I taught there the principal had zero interest in exciting programs. It was all about testing. So what else is new? Jean was surprised to find her child had been tested in kindergarten. I sadly informed her the "play with blocks" days are dead. 

So that led to the profit and politics of testing and the anti-public, pro charter, attack on public education and how Bloomberg turned the system into one where schools compete. She wanted to know if principals worked together to support each other. I rolled by eyes but promised to introduce her to Julie C who was one principal who is exceptional. I also plugged her into Leonie Haimson's listserve so she can see the educational issues on the table.

As we talked my energy level kept rising. We talked computer programming and neural networks and AI. And I'm sure even more about things I've already forgotten.
 

Jean went through her extensive career path in computer science, finance and her getting hit professionally with the 2000 dot.com crash and then at her next phase the 2008 Lehman Bros crash. And the journey to Silicon Valley and back and the two year see the world tour with her future husband who she met at Stuyvesant, and their marriage in Dubrovnik (one of my favorite places), Croatia.

Well, it was getting on toward 3:30 and I wanted to show Jean a bit of Murray Hill, a neighborhood I've grown to love, walked her to Grand Central to say goodbye, I hope not for the last time as there is so much more to talk about and if you know me, I sort of like to talk.

------

One side story. Jean went to IS 318, the flagship middle school in district 14. She had a vague memory of how she got there. I explained it to her. 

Schools were competitive even before Bloomberg. In late June, 1993 I received a call from the principal of 318. He and I had always been on opposite sides politically, so I was surprised. He wanted to know why Jean was going to a middle school in neighboring Dist 32 and not his school. "We need to keep our top students in the district." I felt I was in the middle of a recruitment war. It was clear that highly rated school like 318 fought for every top level student. The school she had chosen in Dist 32 had a great rep, so I told him I didn't think there was much I can do. He asked me to talk to her and her parents and just ask them to stop by his school. And sure enough, when I had to gather the girls to work on the project the next fall, Jean was going to 318. Of course she went on to Stuyvesant and she mentioned that there were about 20-25% Asian students then.

On Thursday, she had no memory other than she and her parents had visited the other school and somehow she ended up at 318. I connected the dots.

Every teacher's dream as Long Ago Student Reaches Out

The last time I saw her was 30 years ago. She was 12. 

We met yesterday to catch up at 11:30. Four hours later we were still talking about a million things. The past, the present and the future. Her major memory was an overnight visit to my house with four other 7th grade girls, something I would get arrested for that today. 

 

The original New York Times article about the winning student engineering project, here's the link:

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/20/nyregion/prize-for-school-project-bridges-old-gender-gap.html

 

Part 2 is here:

 

Friday, October 11, 2024

 

About two weeks ago, I received an invitation to attend the retirement luncheon at PS 147K of the principal, Sandra Noyola but I was in the midst of a chemo session and didn't have the energy to go. Sandy has an interesting history - a student, para, teacher, principal in District 14. She told me a parent with a first grader at the school had asked her about me and I gave Sandy my email. A few days later I received am email from the student that every teacher dreams of. And I had relatively little contact with her since I was not her classroom teacher. So let me explain.

 

I have gotten together with former students before, but they were mostly from the years when I taught them in 4th, 5th and 6th grade. Any elem classroom teacher will tell you how intense living together for a year can be. But my last such class was in 1985 after 17 years of self-contained elementary school classroom teaching, the infantry of the education system. I left for a sabbatical and another year off to finish my Masters in computer science and when I came back I became a cluster teacher, a very different job and experience with students. This student had me for computer cluster at most once or twice a week. 

But we had one special project that included her and a whole bunch of girls in what we called the Girls Engineering Club at PS 147. That club came about at the inspiration of a colleague, Mary Hoffman, a great special ed teacher, a novelist and avid searcher of scientific inquiry who received a grant for closing the scientific gender gap and was looking for a project. 

 

I had been accumulating Erector Sets and Lego materials in my very large computer lab, with access to an empty room across the hall and was fooling around with early level robotics. And thus was born the Friday after school club, both Mary and I as volunteers. Jean was one of the girls, one of two Asian kids in a school that was 95% Hispanic and black. She told me today that the club gave her one of the few opportunities to bond with other students that she was missing in her regular class. 

I was a big fan of the Gilbert Erector Sets as a kid even if my parents wouldn't get me one. I was in a toy store one day in the early 1990s and saw an Erector set and noticed it was no longer Gilbert but Mecanno, a French Company with an office in the Empire State Building. So I called. A woman with a French accent picked up (I learned later she was the sister of the president of the company). I told her I was a teacher in Williamsburg and interested in using Erector Sets in my classroom and she was very interested. She said no teacher had every contacted them. A few days later she called back and said they were donating 4 sets to my classroom and they were setting up a national contest and hoped I could enter.

It was the end of the 92-93 school year and I got 5 girls from the club together and suggested they use all 4 kits to build as big a suspension bridge as they could - I thought of

the Bayonne bridge, the world's longest steel-arch bridge, as a model.

Anyway, they built the bridge,with a little bit of sagging, and graduated to 7th grade (Jean was the valedictorian) and I left for the summer. I received a call from a PR firm in the fall saying they didn't have an entry from me for their contest. The bridge was looking a bit shabby. They wanted pictures of the bridge and the girls, who were no longer in the school. So I had to track them down and get them to come after school to spruce up the bridge, fix the sag, and low and behold we won the $1500 dollar first prize and a big article in the NY Times that went viral. 

 

The PS 147 Girls Engineering Club made some national and international news and they were feted as special ceremonies at the Museum of Natural History, an evening ceremony at science event, a visit and tour of the operations at the George Washington Bridge and an invitation to the Sally Jesse Raphael show on Take Your Daughter to work day with Gloria Steinem on the panel and they would send a limo to pick us all up.

My only solution to making this early morning call work was to have the girls stay over at my house. I think it may have been Easter vacation. One of the mothers was reluctant. Are you sure you have a wife who will be there? I assured her I had a wife. And so we had pizza for dinner and we gave the girls our spare two bedrooms to figure out the sleeping arrangements while my wife and I huddled through the sounds of pillow fights. And getting 5 girls up at the crack of dawn to get ready for the limo was a slice of parenting.

Well, all went fine and the afternoon limo driver dropped the girls off at the school and us back to Rockaway.

And that was about it for my contact with Jean. 

 

Until yesterday.

Coming next: a 4 hour journey of her wonderful history of adventure through the academic world of Stuyvesant HS through college and grad school at MIT. And how Jean remembers the bridge event. Hint: She vividly remembers the big skylight in my house and how much that visit lodged in her memory, even more than the entire bridge project and how much visiting a teacher's home for the only time meant to her. She remembers having ridden in a limo but had not necessarily connected it to the TV show. Lesson learned: sometimes its worth risking arrest.

Here's the link: https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2024/10/meeting-up-with-former-student-part-2.html

The Chosen: UFT Spends Your Dues Sending People to Conferences

Below is the spending voted on by Unity Caucus controlled AdCom and rubber stamped by the Unity exec bd, many of whom I am sure have benefited by being amongst The Chosen. This is from a recent UFT Exec Bd meeting which takes place every two weeks and each meeting is loaded with these junkets.

 

Before I get to the nitty gritty numbers, let me state I am not against a union sending reps to important conferences. Of course, define "important". The question is who are the people going and how do they get chosen? I see this as another one of the perks they hand out to keep people loyal. 

Motion:       To send 4 members to the National Council of Negro Women, Inc. 61st National Convention on October 9-13, 2024, in Baltimore, MD at a cost of $2,159 per person.

4x2,159 - about $8636. (cause I'm too lazy)  Carried

 

Motion:       To send 4 members to the NAACP’s 88^th Annual New York State Conference on October 11-13, 2024, in Armonk, NY at a cost of $1,058 per person.

4x1,058 - about $4232   Carried

 

Motion:       To send 4 members to the CASEL Social & Emotional Learning Exchange Conference on November 12-14, 2024, in Chicago, IL at a cost of 2,305 per person.

4x2305 - $9220 Carried

Motion:       To send 4 members to the New York State Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (NYSTESOL) Conference on November 14-16, 2024, in Rochester, NY at a cost of 1,635 per person. 

4x1635 -- $6540 Carried

 

Motion:       To send 5 members to the ACTE’s Career Tech Vision Conference on December 4-7, 2024, in San Antonio, TX, at a cost of $2,660 per person.

5x2660 --- $13000

 

Total for this round = c. $42,000 of your dues money. Amen.

 

 

The Caucus Role in UFT in Elections: The ICE Experience

The Caucus model works very well for Unity over 62 years. Not so well for the other caucuses. 

The premise for his and succeeding series of posts is that caucuses in the UFT are a necessity, but I question whether they should be the main driving force in UFT elections. I agree with their argument that they have the infrastructure and I don't preclude them using that infrastucture to support the effort. But they want control and that is where I push back.

That model hasn't worked very well but this time after the retiree and para and TRS elections, which had some caucus, but not all support, there is a feeling the model can work this time if there is a coalition like UFC from 3 years ago. I disagree. The vote totals for UFC were not much better than they were in 2016, but Unity votes slipped. A coalition might win this by default instead of a mass show of support. That would still be a leadership even if not Unity from the top. Without a major influx of new blood, mimicking the success of RA (which did have a massive influx of new blood even if from old people) will be impossible. Also can RA hold onto its 63% support if the Medicare issue fades.

Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024

Technically a caucus is any two or more people who come together over common interests. But in the UFT they mean a group that competes in UFT elections. A group that isn't interested in elections is more of a club.

The very fact there are competing groups that only come together for UFT elections to challenge and otherwise go their separate ways is the best friend Unity Caucus has. Let's face it, caucuses with a major aim of recruiting, generally put their own interests over the bigger picture, which is ending Unity's reign over the UFT. In fact over the 55 years I've been active in resistance groups, there have been few between elections examples of caucuses working together, Unity's best friend. This year, things may only get worse.

Why ICE was different

Let me just say that ICE was a factor in UFC in the 2022 election with James Eterno leading the way. Without James I have no stomach for making a case for ICE to have a share equal to other groups. ICE is not a caucus anymore in the traditional sense but still a collection of people with influence. In fact we are meeting on zoom tonight.

• UFT tribute to James Eterno: https://ufthonors.uft.org/eterno/
  

My experience in helping form ICE in late 2003 was a bit different than how other groups began. It was sort of serendipity.

The major oppo caucus, New Action, had just made a deal to work with Unity. I ran into Michael Fiorillo at a joint Unity/New Action rally and he was shaking his head. "What do you make of the NAC argument that Bloomberg is such a threat we need bipartisanship?" I said that kills the voices of resistance. We should get some of the gang together to talk about it. And so we did.

Teachers for a Just Contract had decided to become a formal election caucus. I had met a bunch of people who were not happy with TJC and its ideoligically driven program that at times seemed to be grafted onto the UFT but didn't touch on so many issues of concern, so I called them together, not to form a caucus, but to discuss the situation. Was NAC right to ally with Unity? Did TJC politics, molded by the ideologies driving the group, work for people? Some of us had attended a few TJC meetings and came away unhappy. 

This pre-ICE group meeting attracted over 20 people, including James and Camille Eterno, Ellen Fox and Lisa North who had left NAC (or been asked to leave). Most people were leftists of some sort but also pushed back against the TJC line of what they saw as a shallow, ideology driven program - which some recognize remnants in the current program MORE, with roots back to TJC, offers today. 

ICE decided to run in the 2004 election to raise crucial issues ignored by others

The meeting and those that followed were very program driven on issues no other group were focused on: the danger of mayoral control, high stakes testing, closing schools, attacks on teacher control of the classroom, class size, and others, all issues fundamentally ignored by the other caucuses. Three weeks later, we decided to form Independent Community  of Educators (ICE), not as a permanent caucus, but for the election in order to put forth our program in the NY Teacher. We did unite with TJC on the high school candidates only and surprisingly we won those 6 seats. It was only after that election that the group decided to stay together as a caucus and be active at the Exec Bd to support Jeff Kaufman, James Eterno and Barbara Kaplan-Alpert out winning HS candidate.

• Independent: Left leaning, we are non-sectarian and not tied to any party or tendency.
• Community: We are part of a broader community than UFT members in a school.
• Educators: We are broader than just teachers and include secretaries, paras, etc.

There is some irony that I helped found yet another caucus when I had always advocated bringing everyone together into one big tent, which I had tried to do with Ed Notes back in 2001 when I called all caucuses together for a few meetings to work together for the next election -- before a fistfight broke out and I gave up.

ICE Uncaucused

The caucus model did not work out very well for ICE. We ran with TJC in 2007 and 2010 with little progress (NAC was still in alliance with Unity and was granted a number of exec bd seats and jobs), which is why we shifted to a non-caucus group called GEM (Grassroots Education Movement) where we did amazing work for two or three years - not focusing on  UFT stuff, we fought charters, high stakes testing, closing schools and made a great movie. Then we got sucked into forming a new caucus (MORE) and GEM died. Some of us think that was a major mistake. It turned out the new caucus model hasn't worked out very well either in terms of taking power in the UFT.

Coming next: 

So why don't all the groups form one big caucus? 

Examining other UFT caucuses on their success and failures.

Offering a New Paradigm for the next UFT election.

 

 

NYC Retirees Protest with National Organizations Against Mayor Eric Adams Monday, September 30, 2024

 

September 29, 2024

Contact: Jessica Bassett, Be A Hero,  jessica@beaherofund.com,

Contact: Dr. Betty Kolod, PNHP NY Metro,  bettykolod@gmail.com,

City Hall Site Contact: Marianne Pizzitola, NYC Retirees, marianne.pizzitola@gmail.com

Aetna Site Contact: Sarah Shapiro, CROC, sarahmorah@gmail.com

MONDAY: New Yorkers Tell Mayor Adams, “Stop trying to take Medicare away from NYC retirees!” 

Hundreds of Protestors to Demonstrate at City Hall and Aetna Offices

“Eric Adams may have just been indicted, but he lost our trust years ago when launched a costly legal battle to take away NYC retirees’ access to Medicare.”

Stop the Steal - of UFT "Official" Retiree Web Page - Striking Back at Unity Caucus War on Internal Critics

Oh Susan Pulice, Puleeeeze!

The admin of the RTC’s Facebook group, along with her Unity caucus accomplices, remain embroiled in scandal as they seek to take away our union resource in plain sight. Arthur Goldstein digs deeper into the hypocrisy of the union’s ruling 1% party over this attempted heist of our dues. Calls for potential crowdsourcing to take legal action mount as the union counsel and top leadership drag their feet seeking to negotiate for their partisan agenda....EONYC

....there is the UFT Official Facebook Group for the RTC. That is run by one Susan Pulice, a Unity member. The most recent number I can find suggests our dues pay her in excess of 38K per year, along with perhaps a UFT pension.... they say, they don’t own the site. It’s in the name of Susan Pulice. There are compelling reasons why RTC should take over the site. They’ve been laid out, in pretty graphic detail, over at The Wire.... You could argue that every single person who signed up on Official RTC Facebook site, myself included, expected it to be a UFT site. You could argue that they did not, in fact, sign up for “The Social Spot—A Unity Community for Retirees.” You could, in fact, argue, that by walking with 6300 subscribers, that a fraud had been committed on those who signed up. You could argue they have stolen our built-in base, and that Unity is fine with that.... You could argue that this site represented itself as a union-sanctioned site. You could argue that the union announced as much in New York Teacher. You could argue that Pulice, by asserting ownership, was actually robbing the union of a resource created in the name of the United Federation of Teachers. You could, in fact, argue that ownership of the site was meaningless, and that the only important factor was who administrated the site....

....Arthur Goldstein, The Wire, Sept. 28

Call the FB police on Pulice.

Unity attacks Retiree Advocate for "consorting" with Marianne Pizzitola while the Unity hacks consort with the indicted Mayor Adams and other corrupt union leaders in the MLC to steal our healthcare.... The Norm.

Unity has a lot of damn gall lecturing us about whom we may affiliate with. We are fighting to make things better for us, and for rank and file. If our so-called leaders won’t help us, we’ll help ourselves....Arthur

There is real danger in taking a conflict-averse stance and rely on back door negotiating alone without bringing organizing muscle behind those negotiations. Yes, negotiate, but with force... Norm

Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024

 

I write here as an individual, not in my capacity as a member of the Retiree Advocate Organizing committee, nor as a member of the newly elected RTC Executive Board and Delegate Assembly, since neither body has decided formally on how to deal with the stolen RTC FB page issue. 

 

I hear there are negotiations between some of the newly elected officers of RTC and UFT/Unity officials over a bunch of issues. Why we have to negotiate what rightfully should be ours indicates the Unity agenda - to obfuscate and obstruct. I don't oppose negotiations to win what we can but I also am not for hiding the crap they do, though some may fear by exposing them we make them more obstinate and put them more in attack mode. I say screw them -- we won the election by exposing them. Democracy doesn't flourish in darkness. 

 

Michael Mulgrew is selling you something you don't really need. Debunking Unity attack dog Ellie Engler

One of the Unity negotiators is the Unity attack dog Ellie Engler, a non-teacher who was known as one of Randi's gals. Mulgrew recently brought her back into the inner circle, along with Dave Hickey, to escalate the attacks. Engler is not very popular. See Marianne expose the UFT concierge fake advertising scam for HSS and MSK call service only: Debunking Ellie Engler UFT (not a teacher). Ellie sounds a bit like J.D. Vance. And I did see a cat in Marianne's video.

And what a joke the UFT service is. I called the MSK call center directly on June 7 and she made a surgeon and oncologist appointment on June 11. She took all my information for getting my records and sent me what I had to do online and when I saw the docs 4 days later they had everything in hand. My operation took place on June 26. Instead of going through a UFT middle person I did it directly.  Who would you trust? An MSK expert call center person or some UFT service? Amen. 

Unity hijacks the RTC Facebook Page

When I heard details about the supposedly "official" UFT retiree Facebook page, obviously pro-Unity, where the administrator in charge was being paid out of our dues to run it, being turned over to private hands and taking its 6k members with it, I LOL. I just love it when Unity does the usual dumb stuff. I predicted that their strategy was to go hard after critics only to have it fall on their faces.

 

Highly Paid and Privileged UFT Staffer Geof Sorkin Attacks UFT Classroom Teacher Using Unity blog

Yes Virginia, Unity has a blog. And it's designed to pump up its own membership whose morale is flagging. Sorkin engaged in a public attack against a UFT member.

• UFT Welfare Fund Under Attack: Unmasking the Falsehoods and Unity Caucus’s fight to Defend our Healthcare

Published Sept. 23 during Sorkin's supposed working hours, 

he attacked middle school special ed teacher and editor of the popular Educators of NYC with 17,000 followers, led to guffaws among the few who actually read it at the idea that Unity Caucus has been fighting to defend our healthcare.

Sorkin, or his ghost writer wrote,

..we must ask who are Educators of NYC? Is this really a substantial group of people that represent a wide range of interests or is this merely one person pushing his agenda?  Would the blog be better known as Educator of NYC? Isn’t it Daniel Alicia authoring this piece? Why make it seem anonymous? If there even are multiple “educators” are they even all New York City based?

 

As the UFT election nears, please remember that having a real plan, from beginning to end, is a vital leadership strategy. Catch phrases are fun, but without substance, they fail. Beware of the sensationalism you will continue to hear from them!

Sorkin's mention of the UFT election is a clear sign of the panic engulfing Sorkin and others at the top levels in Unity. (Unity Grows Desperate: Offers something old (Attacking critics)

 

 

Here is a response.

Sep 24, 2024

 

Geoff Sorkin, Director of the UFT Welfare Fund, a highly paid union staffer making well over $250,000 a year, launched an attack on Daniel Alicea, a middle school special ed teacher during school hours, using the Unity caucus blog as a vehicle. 

Of course, Mr. Sorkin doesn’t have to worry about school hours, or classrooms, or kids because he’s not in an actual classroom. He has the luxury of time spent at UFT headquarters where he wrote his shameful, low energy blog from the confines of his luxurious private office next to Wall Street, where there is AC in the summer, heat in the winter, all you can drink coffee and catered breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner. 

While Sorkin lives a life of luxury, the hard working, dues paying member he chose to attack, was busy teaching our most marginalized and vulnerable children in a special education class in a Far Rockaway middle school. Daniel Alicea does yeoman-type volunteer union work, after his busy school day and while taking care of his own young children at home. For this he receives no all-expense-paid trips to conventions with open bars and state dinners like Sorkin. No, he just gets his below inflation raises and less than average union welfare benefits that Sorkin and a merry band of nudnicks negotiate for “lowly educators”. 

As Sorkin oversees, or mismanages, our bloated welfare fund with nearly a billion dollar surplus, the “lowly members” get bottom shelf glasses with a once every two years certificate worth 150 bucks, dental plans that are only accepted by those fresh of out dental college, or denied prescription coverage despite his and Mulgrew’s outrageous claims that everyone is approved. We rate him **ineffective** on any Danielson rubric. 

Perhaps Sorkin’s and Mulgrew’s political machine is shaking because Alicea has a readership of nearly 17,000 on The Wire  (the same number as retirees who voted out Unity from leadership of the RTC last June). 

Alicea’s newsletter, with its rich, union-first content reaches union members far and wide, including union staffers, while the New York Teacher can be found lining bird cages or in waste paper baskets. While The Wire offers diverse union perspectives written by a variety of NYC educators and advocates and where all members are welcome to read and submit pieces, including Unity apparatchik, Peter Goodman, who has a featured byline there. 

Sorkin, along with many other UFT staffers and officer elites are voracious Educators of NYC newsletter readers.

Sorkin is forced to say what boss Mulgrew allows him to and has to justify his position in light of a deluge of damning revelations about his failures managing our benefits.

Sorkin wrote about the Welfare Fund having some unionized support workers but he failed to share that Sorkin himself, and other at-will employees in his department, are not allowed to be unionized and would be fired immediately if they spoke out against their Unity bosses. He’s left to flail and make wild conspiratorial allegations of imaginary attempts to dissolve the UFT welfare fund. He also failed to tell us that one of the alternatives to the disastrous healthcare cost savings deals Mulgrew made, was a consolidation of  the city unions’ welfare funds to increase and leverage our buying power that was on the menu of agreed-upon cost saving choices in our 2018 MOA, Appendix B. 

Would we be better served with our hard-earned benefits out of his and Mulgrew’s hands? Clearly.

Nonetheless, Sorkin somehow found the time to write a lengthy, bloviating, unsourced attack piece, but can’t be bothered to share any updates with members on the pathetic state of our healthcare coverage, the ever-rising co-pays, the worst mental health coverage in the public sector, a pitiful dental plan, nor our union’s deteriorating relationship with the most important cancer treatment center in the country. He does have time to disparage a teacher of special needs children to detract eyes from his patronage operation’s inability to deliver and the Unity sinking ship. 

Perhaps we need new leaders to bring about much needed change who actually know something about the classroom while raising kids and supporting families on underfunded, eroding healthcare.

 

 

Unity Grows Desperate: Offers something old (Attacking opponents) and new (Servicing Members)

 

Unity response of "we heard you" after retiree and para loss? Attack, Attack, Attack, Lie, Lie, Lie

Is the Unity retreat a sign of panic or a regular event? Here I will do those Unityites who want to sleep late next Sunday instead of attending the retreat (I hope they serve better bagels than they at RTC meetings) by revealing Barr's message.

We know how Unity leadership operates - they give marching orders. But maybe this time they want to hear what people think from the Unity faithful. NOT. Inside word is that Barr is being blamed for defeats in chapter elections - a glaring error was mistakenly sending out the retiree flyer with the para ballots. Was that the reason for the 75% vote for Fix Para Pay? More dumb thinking at the top.

The special Unity meeting 8:30 AM with retirees is a new wrinkle in the regular Unity meetings and indicative of a strategy to win back control of the retiree chapter from Retiree Advocate and try to undermine RA. Unity lost all 300 delegates, many of whom were leadership at one point, and now are no longer in the DA. But they can show up at the retiree chapter meetings and at the first one on Oct. 22 we may see signs of their strategy.Will there be a Unity leaflet attacking us for lying, especially since we have an invitation to Marianne and a lawyer for the law suit to give retirees an update. How will that play out since RA received 17K or 63% of the vote. So let's see how Unity plays this as they hope to recover part of that vote for the upcoming UFT elections. If they've lost those voters for future elections, their control of the union is in danger.That 8:30 AM retiree meeting will not be a fun event - and if friendly Unity people attend, please leak to. me.

Mulgrew has urged Bennett to not invite Marianne since he says he wants to focus on the election, which is funny since repeated requests by Bennett to get the retiree chapter involved in the election have gone unanswered. Unity organized a bus to go to Penn, for themselves and never notified the new leaders of RTC despite repeated requests. We also noted the new Unity Retiree tee-shirts at the Labor parade --- if I lost by such a wide margin would I advertise? Those expensive outside consultants Unity is probably hiring are loaded with good advice.

Does Mulgrew have an alt plan? He has a concept like Trump does on Obamacare.

Marianne takes down Mulgrew misinfo on Medicare Adv fake news.

Mulgrew and Gorido, leaders in the Municipal Labor Committee that still  thinks a Medicare advantage plan is better than  traditional Medicare, because they would probably  be the only people on earth that would say that.  Other than the insurance company.  So why are we saying this? 

https://youtu.be/3lZGusvl6N0?si=LBskA_ENBAT9QmTm

Despite Mulgrew making a public relations announcement soon after the RTC election that he was withdrawing support for the city's Medicare Advantage plan, he in fact has been unwilling to show support for the lawsuits that have kept us in Medicare. 

Arthur Goldstein:  Unity, Groping for a Path Forward, Disempowers Chapter Leaders:  They plan to give hand-picked Unity District Representatives the power to contact members at individual schools without CL cooperation.

 Sep 20, 2024

According to St. Michael, the retirees who just defeated his Patronage Cult spread “harmful misinformation.” Evidently, after our doctors told us they would not accept Aetna, we told people doctors would not accept Aetna. Furthermore, after Aetna admitted in NY State Supreme Court that they would withhold care recommended by our doctors, we told people Aetna would withhold care recommended by out doctors.

How dare people contradict Dear Leader? Unity has to get those District Reps into schools clarifying that everything Michael Mulgrew claims is absolutely true (which is especially important when he gets caught in lies).

Reports are coming in that the message is to go into schools aggressively and there are signs of giving special attention to schools with activists who stand up to Unity. Show how tough you are. Maybe pick a fight with the principal. And for sure attack critics of leadership as being anti-union. And to recruit for Unity as early as they can to keep people out of the hands of opponents.
So expect visits. 

Also district meet and greet events.

In some districts they are attacking critics as being anti-union and charging them with being divisive. Why not just cancel UFT elections?

Here is their solution to dealing with schools with chapter leaders who may not be friendly to Unity reps. Arthur reports:

I’ve heard of incidents here and there where Unity big shots called meetings in schools without the cooperation or knowledge of chapter leaders. That was the exception rather than the rule. And from what I hear, these unsolicited visits didn’t work so well. But Unity doesn’t learn from mistakes. Therefore, they’re working on a way for DRs to request emails be sent to individual schools to announce their visits. Unity, Groping for a Path Forward, Disempowers Chapter Leaders

They plan to give hand-picked Unity District Representatives the power to contact members at individual schools without CL cooperation.

So that's how they will try to go around critical internal voices in schools they don't control. No problem for the Unity and most non-affiliated schools where the CLs depend on the Dist reps.

So expect a visit from a district or special rep to call us liars. Marianne responded on her Friday night video: 

I wrote the other day:

There is a full court press by a UFT leadership that is sending the troops into the schools to tell members they are here for them. In one school a special rep said she is bringing the smoke -- probably to cover up for the inability to really help.

A former chapter leader texted:

 

Is Unity crumbling? We see signs of that on the edges at the school level. A number of Chapter Leader defenders of the loyalty oath lost in their school elections. There are almost 400 new CL - a massive turnover in over a quarter of the schools. Those 400 are up for grabs and the usual Unity tactic of bringing them into Unity at the earliest stage by promising them free convention trips and after school jobs may not work on this new breed, many of whom may be open to entreaties from the other caucuses, which elected their own members.

LeRoy Barr, who has taken heat for the spring election failures, is trying everything to save the Unity brand by offering up strange words in their world - we want to hear from you.

You can't operate top-down for 60 years and suddenly switch tactics. One thing we saw in the UFT's 3 Consequential Spring Elections and the 2022 general UFT election: The Unity faithful did not have their hearts in it. LeRoy needs to find a way to pump up a demoralized caucus. Remember: Some key activists on the other side were recently in or allied to Unity. I name Nick Bacon and Daniel Alicea as two leading lights. There are more but I'm not going to name them at this time. I even told LeRoy their dumb policies of repression over bullshit cost them more than they gain.

Mulgrew is Unity's weakest link

The Mulgrew Town Hall last Tuesday and the Chapter Leader meeting on Wednesday were viewed as abject failures by Mulgrew's rambling and arrogance. He even insulted one of his loyal supporters who went storming out and took one of my leaflets after having refused one on the way in. Ka Ching. Mulgrew is the Unity version of Biden, except the Dems had the sense to switch before it was too late.

So can LeRoy resuscitate a dead horse - er - union leader?

-----

Marianne, NYC Organization of Public Service Retiree, takes down Mulgrew misinfo on Medicare Adv fake news.

Mulgrew and Gorido, leaders in the Municipal Labor Committee that still  thinks a Medicare advantage plan is better than  traditional Medicare, because they would probably  be the only people on earth that would say that.  Other than the insurance company.  So why are we saying this? 

https://youtu.be/3lZGusvl6N0?si=LBskA_ENBAT9QmTm

Debunking Ellie Engler UFT (not a teacher)

Marianne debunks other Unity claims on healthcare: https://youtu.be/m8Iylg7aUns?si=2zM4NDv6dsSR47_a

Mulgrew and Unity Delay and Obfuscate New Retiree Electees as he refuses to condemn Med Adv which shows his real intentions

They act civil but behind the scenes they play games. And with the big election of all things -- you know, that one. Suddenly, while the AFT and NYSUT focus on the presidency, the UFT seems to be more interested in congressional races. 

Repeated requests to activate the retiree chapter in the national election have been deflected. Why? A newly elected RA delegate lives in a building with lots of retirees, many from Unity. One of them even asked her what was going on with the election as in the past there was a major outreach to retirees to do phone banking and take buses to other states. This time nada. Is it a plot to blame us for not doing enough if the Dems lose? Just joking -- I'm not that much of a conspiracy theorist. But could Mulgrew be worried about alientating UFT Trump supporters and losing them in the election? Naaaa.

And then there was the Mulgrew denial of being able to carry anti-Med signs at the labor parade. See the Joe Maniscalco article below. 

Marianne takes down Mulgrew misinfo on Medicare Adv fake news.

Toothless Mulgrew Doesn't Do Teeth at Town Hall - Nick Has Notes

Maybe Tomorrow at Chapter Leader Meeting - Maybe Not. 

From Nick's Notes: 

Teeth: when will dental improve. Majority of dental done through welfare fund. Also supplies drugs. Paid parental leave also, and optical. Still in process for RFP on dental. Dental costs have gone up significantly. Dental in welfare fund is regulated. Just because we started RFP, we’re getting movement from companies we work with on the dental side. We make decisions in the welfare fund – have a board there. Drug costs are important right now – we are only union covering some drugs. But negotiating and we will have better benefits when done. Also want to work with Albany about regulation of costs.... UFT Townhall 9/17/24 – Notes and Analysis

I reported earlier on the possibility of changes in the dental plan at today's Mulgrew town hall.

• Mulgrew Does Teeth - Finally Using some of the $800 million UFT Welfare Fund Surplus
  

Well, he came up toothless.

I was in a chat with people tuned into the town hall and there was some head smacking over the rhetoric.

There is a full court press by a UFT leadership that is sending the troops into the schools to tell members they are here for them. In one school a special rep said she is bringing the smoke -- probably to cover up for the inability to really help.

 

Mulgrew Does Teeth - Finally Using some of the $800 million UFT Welfare Fund Surplus

Word from inside the asylum at 52 is that UFT election mania has taken priority and every trick in the book is being tried. In some cases there will be benefits and here may be one.

 

After opposing a reso at the DA calling for using some of the massive surplus to improve
the awful dental benefits that narrowly was defeated last spring after they argued against it, but facing the massive defeats in chapter elections and facing potential defeat in upcoming UFT elections, the Mulgrew administration is responding with some changes, but I bet few will be happy. EONYC provides the history, demonstrating elections have consequences -- sometimes in our favor. So think about that when UFT elections come up next May.

 

Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024

 

From @educatorsofnyc

1. Revelations that the UFTWF is now sitting on over 800 million dollars. A bloated fund that seems to be growing exponentially since 2014 as city unions have agreed to take hundreds of millions from the city’s health stabilization fund for their own welfare funds. Not what the stabilization fund was designed for and causing other healthcare services to diminish, as a result. https://jd2718.org/2024/03/28/uft-welfare-fund-nest-egg-bigger-than-most-nests/ 

 

2. Pressure internally from concerned UFT rank and file delegates and activists publicly asking why top leaders are hoarding millions when many of our benefits, especially dental, are being diminished — affecting reimbursements and numbers of providers leaving the network. 

 

3. After an overwhelming rebuke by UFT retirees who voted out Mulgrew’s administrative Unity caucus out of power from their chapter’s leadership because of his support behind forcing them into predatory, inferior Medicare Advantage … the much-maligned Mulgrew is now reeling and seeking to pander as he faces a tsunami of discontent in an union election year that could mean his Unity caucus is finally toppled after 60 years of unilateral control. 

 

4. After Mulgrew and his henchman, Goeff Sorkin of the WF, told us that the existing money in the fund was needed to cover out of control prescription drug costs and as a reserve fund if there is litigation against the city over healthcare… today their “best welfare fund in the country” will get a reboot. Let’s wait and see what they bring with them today. https://cityandstateny.com/politics/2024/06/after-rebuff-retirees-ufts-mulgrew-bails-medicare-advantage/397572/