RA NEWSLETTER: Election is coming. Vote for United for Change
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Written and edited by Norm Scott: EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!! Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!
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Unity people fear UFC might beat longs odds and win, forcing them back to the classroom. Then they will find out they are NOT treated like professionals.
Unity calls UFT a union of professionals while allowing people to never be treated like professionals.
I read an astounding Unity hack attack on UFC that made me LOL.
They actually brag about PD which teachers hate. Like I'm teaching a dozen years and I need more PD from people who often don't have a clue.
Professionals actually make decisions affecting their workplace. Teachers are totally ignored in the process. The UFT/Unity never make demands to give decision-making rights to teachers. UFT members are rarely treated like professionals partly due to union not
fighting for them. Faux branding of something that can never be. Like failing to challenge abusive principals.
The same with the bullshit #Wedothework theme - mocking classroom teachers who really do the work while union bureaucrats leach off them.
And how about those attacks on UFC classroom teachers as not ready to run union? Like working at the UFT is not a dream gig for those wishing to get out of the real hard work of teaching.
#ifyoucanrunclassroomsyoucanruntheUFT
Chicago classroom teachers came right out of the classroom to run the union much better than the Unity like machine that had been in power in the big upset 2010 election.
Do you see how desperate some Unity people are over the fear UFC might beat longs odds and win, forcing them back to the classroom.
This seems like a rather obvious electioneering event, especially with all of this literature with her image on it just sent out to members there.... CL Comment
UFT Team High School's facebook page - this is one of only three posts they've had since 2020. It's the only school visit they've posted since at least 2019 if not longer....https://www.facebook.com/UFTTeamHighSchool
Here is clear proof of the misuse of UFT personnel for electioneering. So we are tracking UFT employees, paid for with our salaries, engaging in electioneering on union time. I don't even think they should be engaging in breaking trust with people who pay their salaries on non-union time somewhat iffy.
Naturally, the visit of HSVP Janella Hinds and Queens HS District Rep James Vasquez to Camille Eterno's school was all about union business. I wonder if Unity leaflets were included in the visit as a gift to the staff.
Camille would welcome a visit from Mulgrew for a debate.
Finally we are seeing DAs getting covered with context and political analysis as UFC HS candidate Nick Bacon posts notes on the New Action blog.
The Inside game - Nick Brings the Bacon
The March DA was December all over again, as Mulgrew avoided giving any space to members of United for Change by using every tactic under the sun to silence us, and really all non-Unity members of the Delegate Assembly.
Also see Eterno abridged report:
Autocracy is autocracy, whether in Russia or 52 Broadway.
Unity has a new campaign strategy.... 60, or 130 or 200 thousand glossy flyers to United Federation of Teachers members. And you know who’s mug was missing? Mulgrew’s. His name’s not on there, at least on the teacher ones. I mean, it’s not a surprise they won’t let him debate. If he had a huge lead a debate costs nothing, makes you look open, confident. But this election they are shaky, and not confident in his performance when he doesn’t control the chair. But leaving his grin off tens of thousands of leaflets? ... people are so angry at him, some of that anger gets turned into anger at the UFT, which is bad for all of us.........
Jon Halabi, Campaign Strategy: hide Mulgrew
They may have even done some internal polling. They would have discovered what every teacher knows: Michael Mulgrew is not very popular.
He’s taking the blame for Unity mishandling the pandemic, sending teachers into unsafe conditions, not backing us enough, or soon enough, inventing “instructional lunch.” He’s taking the blame for sucking up to Andrew Cuomo, looking like a dishrag instead of a union leader. He’s taking the blame for the UFT getting pummeled in the Spring 21 primaries – and Adams – one of the two guys we wanted to stop, becoming Mayor. And he’s taking the blame, despite Unity trying to keep it out of the news, for Unity and the MLC trying to privatize retirees’ Medicare.In any case, they are hiding him.
They will try to hide Mulgrew at today's DA. There will be many people taking notes on the DA to assure an unbiased report so look for them over the next few days.
I will be outside with RA people supporting OT/PT protests,
Calling all Middle School educators!
UFT elections are coming up. Meet the candidates ready to bring a stronger union forth on Day 1. We are hosting an informational session on Sunday at 4pm.
Sunday's registration link is here https://us02web.zoom.us/
Mah nishtanah halailah hazeh mikol haleilot?
How is this UFT Election different from all other UFT Elections?
Tentative Ans: The UFC Unique Coalition, Unity on the Attack
UFT Unity is in a lose lose situation. If the percentage of their vote dips below 65 percent there will be a bloodletting in Unity and if not we will have a hobbled union when contract negotiations start in earnest. ....South Bronx School, running with UFC
This year they're (Opposition) making nice, but next year they'll devolve into the same incomprehensible ideological battles on which they thrive."... NYC Educator, running with Unity.
It was perhaps the best lock in all of sports — until it wasn’t. A No. 16 seed had never defeated a No. 1 seed in March Madness until UMBC shocked the world by toppling Virginia in 2018. ... OddsmakersUnity Caucus is the longest running continuous autocracy in the world over the past 60 years - except maybe the Chinese Communist Party -- but I'd maintain that even they have had more internal party democracy than Unity. There are no Las Vegas odds on the UFT election - yet.
Monday, March 21, 2022
This is my 6th UFT election cycle since the 2004 election and I think I've learned a few things - or not. In the past I never expected us to win. There was always hope we would make heavy gains as a way to build a serious opposition to Unity but have always been disappointed.
Some people who are skeptical of the opposition and also of Unity control have told me they want a vibrant opposition that won't win in order to present a credible threat to Unity that would wake them up and make them better. I can see that point of view. If you think UFC can't win, that is one reason to vote UFC - for the health of the union. Even Unity people who hate Mulgrew are thinking that way -- close the gap and get rid of Mulgrew.
The biggest disaster the UFT would face would be a massive victory for Unity with an 80% vote and a breakup of UFC where an arrogant autocracy will continue to make bad decisions and take the membership for granted. And most of all, consolidate the power of Michael Mulgrew. To see just how bad that would be for everyone --
Jon Halabi, who was with New Action, is now independent and also works with Daniel and Nick as glue to keep the UFC coalition working together, hopefully post election.
More Halabi reads:
Saving Medicare: Why is Unity anti-Optout today?, March 20, 2022
Mulgrew on Medicare?, March 19, 2022
Yes, UFT members can defeat Unity / Mulgrew
....while no one is expected to make any financial contribution to Angel's campaign, we recognize that there are those of you who will choose to show him your support. If you voluntarily elect to contribute to Angel’s campaign you must make the contribution by check, mailed from your home (or other non-UFT mailbox) directly to Angel’s campaign headquarters. You may not hand Angel a check on UFT premises or during UFT work hours. --- Leroy Barr, Anthony Harmon, Staff memo, March 10, 2022
Isn't the very presence of Angel Vasquez deep in the halls of UFT power an ad for his campaign? When trolling for funding, the very fact he is so close to Mulgrew increases his fundraising and dampens Jackson's.
Saturday, March 19, 2022
Reading the above, oh the horrors. I don't love most politicians but with Robert Jackson, what's there not to love? Three years ago I went up to Albany with Leonie Haimson and a crew for some hearing and after we had some time to kill waiting for the train and Jackson graciously invited us to his office to hang out. You can't find a more pro-teacher/education anti-ed deformer than Jackson. Which may explain the actions of the UFT/Unity leadership. As James Eterno says - Jackson is too pro-teacher. I'll get into how the leadership of the largest teacher union is fundamentally anti-teacher another time.
But I jumped the gun. I was wrong in
assuming the UFT has endorsed Angel Vasquez instead of Robert Jackson. But if you read the memo below which should have expressed horror at UFT employees supporting Jackson's opponent you can guess why I had that assumption. But I still feel like the UFT/Unity leadership is playing the role of Norman Bates toward Robert Jackson.
Robert Jackson |
I got a call from someone in the UFT media department
Another public system - Medicare - becomes privatized and handed over to the for-profit sector. In traditional Medicare, the government pays doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers directly for patient care. But Medicare Advantage is different. The government pays the insurance companies that sell Medicare Advantage policies a fixed amount every month for each member they sign up. Services unused or denied is profit for the insurance companies.... Fred Klonsky, https://fredklonsky.substack.com/p/moving-retirees-to-medicare-advantage
Angel Vasquez's work for an IDC member. He also works on the 14th floor
at the UFT, where he advises Mulgrew on political policy along with
Cassie Prugh (former Cuomo policy staffer and energy industry lobbyist)
and others.
The UFT has endorsed Jackson’s opponent every time
he’s run for the Senate: Marisol Alcantara, even though she was IDC and
pro-charter. The first time she won and the second time she lost. His opponent this time is Angel
was her chief of staff.
You can link mayoral control in any city to resistance to class size reduction. They prefer to blame the teachers. So note this comment from Leonie Haimson on her blog re State Sentator Robert Jackson and follow the UFT bouncing ball.
Sen. Jackson repeatedly threatened that he would hold back state funding if the DOE refuses to lower class size, as outlined in the his bill S6296A, and the same as Assembly bill, A7447A, sponsored by AM Simon. Jackson also implied that his support for continuing mayoral control was at risk due to DOE negligence on the issue-- and that in any case, he would not support an extension of more than two years.
THERE ARE RUMORS THE UFT WILL SUPPORT Angel’s Vasquez, PRIMARY OPPONENT OF LONG TIME FRIEND OF TEACHERS ROBERT JACKSON? Don't be shocked.
Angel’s Vasquez' LinkedIn profile shows that his only teaching experience was at a CO charter school. Meanwhile, RJ has always been resolutely anti-charter – as well as the #1 proponent of class size reduction in the Legislature, and the sponsor of S.6296A which would phase in class sizes caps at much lower levels starting next year.
WOULD UFT OPPOSE A STRONG SUPPORTER OF CLASS SIZE REDUCTIONS AND MAYORAL CONTROL OPPONENT -- DOING THE WORK FOR ED DEFORMERS.
James Eterno commented: Jackson is too pro-teacher.
Yes Virginia -- the leadership of the biggest teacher union is fundamentally, time and again, Anti-teacher.
Leonie reported this revealing point about Jackson at the recent
State Assembly and Senate Joint Hearings.
The topic of class size was first introduced by Sen. Robert Jackson, the original plaintiff in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, which after many years of advocacy, is finally bringing more than $1.3 billion in additional state funds to NYC schools. Yet the administration plans to invest none of these funds in lowering class size, though the city's excessive class sizes were a central issue in the lawsuit and the court's decision that our students were deprived of their right to a sound, basic education.
... Leonie Haimson continues:
I’ve testified at countless mayoral control hearings since it was instituted nearly 20 years ago. Yesterday’s joint Senate and Assembly hearings far surpassed any of them. You can watch the video here. Sorry to say there were very few news stories about it, because most of the education reporters were covering the Mayor's announcement about lifting the mask mandate in schools. It was their loss, since the questioning by legislators was sharp and had a new seriousness about it, and the testimony from parent leaders was passionate and incisive. - on her blog.
There have been some soundings coming out of fortress Unity calling for tweaks - like shifting some PEP choices to borough Presidents and maybe a seat or two for the city council - still a system where political operatives, not regular people have a voice. Maybe there should be a Unity Caucus rep on the PEP.
But after 20 years of mayoral control, more and more people have grown tired of one person dictating control of 1700 schools, one million kids and their parents, and 125,000 pedagogues.
Here's Mayoral control stalwart opponent Leonie Haimson's full blog postm followed by a Politico and NY Post article.
Why Friday's hearings on Mayoral control were the best in twenty years
and what was said about the need for smaller classes & more fiscal oversight
https://
nycpublicschoolparents. blogspot.com/2022/03/why- fridays-hearings-on-mayoral- control.html
I went to one of my doctors yesterday and he's trying to pressure me into taking an expensive test I clearly don't need. The naked profit motive. Medicare will pay but I'm conscious of how that undermines Medicare in the long run. I'd be acting like Mulgrew. I won't do it. In the podcast I delve into the ideology of the UFT/Unity caucus that leads to decisions like pushing MulgrewCare and also 20 years ago, privatized education like charters.
the advertising, the television commercials, the hamburger
sliders, the endless catered lunches, the agency money, the plane
tickets to Europe — are all, directly or not, contributing to this
enormous cost.” --- This is what Mulgew supports.
Norm - in his usual fog.
Worth the listen! Norm Scott unpacks the failed attempt by@UFTUnity to privatize retiree Medicare with Mulgrewcare@NormScott1has been a tireless union activist & once again proving his mettle in helping to lead organize our petition campaign.
Nice words from my UFC colleagues.
What a pleasure to Zoom meet Noah who interviewed me for his Professional Development: The New York City Teacher Podcast Monday night. He certainly does his research and the hour spent talking to a young NYC teacher was a pleasure - and I just signed up as a patron to get all his podcasts. He has been doing it since July and I am addicted, catching up on back issues. I first heard his of him with his Nick Bacon interview on the Feb. DA which was excellent: Ep 29- What REALLY Happened at the February DA.mp3
Hey Norm,The show is up and ready to be heard! It can be found at the following locations (among others):Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/Patreon: https://www.patreon.podcast/ep-31-mulgrewcare- feat-norm-scott/id1579180451? i=1000553491155 com/posts/63597160 This week Norm Scott, a retired NYC DOE teacher, long-time unionist, and blogger, stops by to tell us all about Mulgrewcare, a foiled (or is it?) attempt by the UFT leadership to deprive retirees of their proper, hard-earned benefits OR balance the books after a poorly-executed contract negotiation by collecting their hard-earned money in the form of new, illegal premiums for the same coverage they have always had. We discuss the parallels between Unity's willingness to privatize healthcare and the neoliberal drive to privatize schools, most notably via the charter movement, and much more!
This week Norm Scott, a retired NYC DOE teacher, long-time unionist, and blogger, stops by to tell us all about Mulgrewcare, a foiled (or is it?) attempt by the UFT leadership to deprive retirees of their proper, hard-earned benefits OR balance the books after a poorly-executed contract negotiation by collecting their hard-earned money in the form of new, illegal premiums for the same coverage they have always had. We discuss the parallels between Unity's willingness to privatize healthcare and the neoliberal drive to privatize schools, most notably via the charter movement, and much more! Read more of Norm's work at ednotesonline.com
More on MulgrewCare
Lander calls on Adams to ditch new NYC retiree Medicare plan after court order - New York Daily News
Emphasizing the cruelty of Mulgrew in opposing true cost-saving solutions to costs of medical services by favoring profit making private insurance and degrading the public options.
"survived the ongoing catastrophe of for-profit medical care.... a ready solution to the problem — which, Maloney implies, is inseparable from the very structures of capitalism."
And one thing we know- in the 60 years of Unity Caucus leadership of the UFT, unmitigated support for the unfettered outrages of capitalism
NYT Book Review By Sarah Manguso
COST OF LIVING
Essays
By Emily Maloney
The illness narrative, ending in financial ruin and decreased quality of life, has become one of the classic 21st-century American stories. In her debut essay collection, Emily Maloney documents the complex intersections of money, illness and medicine. For Maloney, the primary experience of receiving health care is not merely a bodily or spiritual event but always, also, a financial one. She understands on a granular level the relationship of money to being ill, to developing a drug, to housing and caring for patients and, of course, to managing an unfathomable amount of debt. Her broad perspective is hard won; at different times she has been a multiply diagnosed chronically ill patient, an E.M.T., an emergency room medical technician, a drug rep, a data analyst, a medical writer, a medical debtor and an American citizen who has — so far — survived the ongoing catastrophe of for-profit medical care.
The precipitating event in “Cost of Living” is the author’s psychiatric hospitalization at 19: “It wasn’t that I had wanted to die, exactly. It was more that I just couldn’t keep living.” Maloney’s choice of a nearby, independent hospital’s emergency room over the bigger university hospital “where the state might pick up your bill if you were declared indigent” leads to the crushing debt at the heart of the book. “Sitting on a cot in the emergency room, I filled out paperwork certifying myself as the responsible party for my own medical care — signed it without looking, anchoring myself to this debt, a stone dropped in the middle of a stream. This debt was the cost of living.”
As Maloney pries deeper into the machine of American health care, she finds no central mechanism other than that of the eternal money-go-round. By the time she gets to the conference at which doctors are painstakingly comped for their attendance at brunches with “soggy pastries” amid “transfer of value” concerns, I had lost all hope for a ready solution to the problem — which, Maloney implies, is inseparable from the very structures of capitalism.
Each essay documents a different kind of structural failure, caused or complicated by capital and inevitably ending in harm to patients. In one, Maloney is prescribed 26 psychiatric medications for what turns out to be a vitamin D deficiency, hypothyroidism and a neurologically based developmental disorder. In another, as an E.R. tech she is trained to “bill up” — increasing charges if at all possible — but she secretly perfects the occult art of minimizing patient cost without tripping any corporate alarms.
Embedding herself into various corners of the bureaucratic medical machine, Maloney describes everyone she encounters with the same perspicacity. “There’s a fine line between a pain patient and a drug addict,” she writes, “and sometimes patients go back and forth across it.” “Elizabeth … was what we called a frequent flier, someone who was unable to make sense of the world she lived in and so she came to us instead, a kind of tent revival in our suburban hospital, for healing.” A medical student, meanwhile, is “a strange mix of sweaty and cavalier.”
Thanks to her experiences, Maloney is able to see the cracks in what a less informed patient might experience, simply, as care: “At my doctor’s office for a masked annual physical, my internist depression screens me. I know it’s because Epic, the online medical record system he uses, prompts him to do so. Northwestern Medicine is part of a program that uses an installation of Epic that depression screens everyone.”
While working as a medical publications manager at a pharmaceutical company, where she becomes a part of the conference circuit for the first time, she is struck by the sheer scale of the apparatus. “Yes, the research everyone does is important. Yes, the work to take a drug from preclinical stages to the market is huge and hugely expensive. But the rest — the advertising, the television commercials, the hamburger sliders, the endless catered lunches, the agency money, the plane tickets to Europe — are all, directly or not, contributing to this enormous cost.”
Maloney’s essays read as if they were begun in low light, with little sense of where they were going or how far. They start with a question and work things out on the page. They don’t seem concerned about arriving at a grand unified theory of anything. They notice everything and have nothing to prove. They don’t prematurely grasp at an ending. These qualities combine to elevate this collection far above the usual first-person essayistic fare. The challenges of Maloney’s background — familial trauma, poor medical care, occasional indigence — form part of the back story, but they are ultimately beside the point of this book. Her broad authority and the quality of the prose — astute, compassionate and lethally funny — are what make these essays remarkable. Maloney is an exceptionally alert writer on whom nothing is lost, who sees everything with excruciating clarity, including the unassailable fact that in this country, there is currently no tidy passage through the interconnected quagmires of illness, money and care.
Sarah Manguso is the author of eight books, most recently the novel “Very Cold People.”
Listen to Mulgrew brag about the plan he designed and promoted and attacked those of us who were critical. Hear Mulgrew talk about how proud he was about the MedAdv - until he abandoned it after the judge ruled in our favor.
And don't forget -- if you support medicare for all/single payer, backing Mulgrew and Unity Caucus is a total contradiction.
From United for Change blog:
Mulgrewcare Has Failed. Now, We Must Vote Mulgrew Out – #VoteMulgrewOUT
Mulgrewcare has failed because of Michael Mulgrew’s hubris.
Mulgrewcare was hatched in backroom secrecy after Mulgrew’s 2014 retro pay contract fiasco with the city that raided over a billion dollars from the Healthcare Stabilization Fund to pay for raises.
Mulgrew and De Blasio dipped into a fund solely designed to offset the healthcare inflation costs. And then Mike convinced the MLC to follow his lead.
Then, in 2021, when Mulgrew and the UFT-led MLC were backed into a corner by the mayor to replenish this now depleted fund, they designed and tried to sell us all, a privatized Medicare Advantage plan, that penalizes city retirees for their healthcare choices and burdens them with scores of pre-authorizations, to pay for his mediocre labor agreements of the past.
Mulgrewcare would have forced all of our city’s retirees into an ill-conceived managed plan, or retirees who opted out would have to pay well over $2000 to $4000 a year to keep their existing coverage promised to them by the City.
Thousands of retirees stood up and said: NO! They organized, protested, raised their own funds, and sued – AND WON!
On March 3rd, 2022, a Manhattan judge ruled in favor of the retirees who were opting out of this failed, coerced plan. The law says the city cannot charge retirees or active city employees for healthcare unless it is above the cost of the HIP plan. This is the language the judge used in citing the city’s administrative code: “
This section states unequivocally that “[t]he City will pay the entire cost of health insurance coverage for city employees, city retirees, and their dependents, not to exceed one hundred percent of the full cost of H.I.P.-H.M.O. on a category basis.”
The city and unions (the Municipal Labor Committee) were violating the law by agreeing to charge all of our city’s retirees who wanted to keep their current Senior Care supplemental Medicare insurance $191 per month if they opted out of the new privatized Mulgrewcare.
Now, that Mulgrewcare is dead, for now, we must make sure Mulgrew never again places our most seasoned civil servants, retirees, and our current in-service UFT members in harm’s way. He also has designs on our next UFT contract, too, with his penchant for healthcare givebacks and weak negotiating posture.
In April of 2022, UFT members must vote him and his Unity caucus OUT!
Vote United For Change, a coalition slate that stood with our city’s retirees in organizing against Mulgrewcare.