Does internal union democracy help organizing efforts? What to tell charter school Teachers being organized by the UFT/AFT?

Leo Casey, who threw around terms like "Trotsky" and "Rosa Luxemberg" in his usual red-baiting attempts to taint those who disagree with the UFT leadership, is possibly the single most intellectually dishonest person in their entire operation - and even his colleagues know it.

Lack of UFT/AFT democracy will retard charter school organizing

I attended a Left Forum panel headed by Leo Casey last Saturday where he and and an AFT charter school organizer talked about how essential it is to organize charter school teachers. I agree. But left unsaid was the Godzilla in the room: what do you say to charter school teachers about the state of democracy, or lack thereof, in the UFT/AFT?

I won't go into the gory details here. But I will say that Leo's fellow panelists congratulated him for sitting through the assault those of us in the opposition put him through. They loved the debate. But where is that same debate taking place within the halls of the UFT? Not at the highest level, the AdCom. Not at the Executive Board where every single member (including the 8 New Action) were endorsed by Unity. And certainly not at the Delegate Assembly.

And not in most of the schools that are controlled by Unity Caucus chapter leaders (see the signs of how some district reps are attempting to undermine Fight Back Friday because they perceive the organizing efforts of GEM, NYCORE and Teachers Unite as a threat. (Isn't it interesting that the "official" caucuses ICE and TJC have laid back on this even though many of the individual members are involved?)

But then again, Leo Casey, who threw around terms like "Trotsky" and "Rosa Luxemberg" in his usual red-baiting attempts to taint those who disagree with the UFT leadership, is possibly the single most intellectually dishonest person in their entire operation - and even his colleagues know it.

So it was with some interest that I came across this item at Gotham:

The Times’ labor reporter is taking questions about unions and labor law. (City Room)

With this excerpt from Steven Greenhouse:

Does internal union democracy help organizing efforts? 

There are those who, perhaps with a cynical view of life, contend that internal union democracy hurts unionizing efforts because one needs a tough, forceful union leader, perhaps like Jimmy Hoffa, to take charge and push people to organize. But I disagree. I think internal union democracy is needed to show potential union members that unions are democratic, responsive organizations, that they listen to union members and their wants and needs. Besides, internal union democracy is vital to help stamp out union corruption. Repeated eruptions of union corruption have badly embarrassed the labor movement and of course made it harder for unions to recruit new members.

So, yes, I support the idea of organizing charter school teachers. But the UFT/AFT efforts will go nowhere until the leadership democratizes the union. See the ICE 2010 platform for a list of 16 suggested reforms. (It could be 50). Part VI: For a militant, progressive, democratic UFT

Oh, and it would really be nice to see New Action, once the major voice in calling for a more democratic union, come back to their roots. But then again, that might jeapardize their seats on the Executive Board, which is precisely our point as to why the UFT/Unity Caucus is a one party system in control for 50 years.

Now just watch the Unity slugs claim I should just be quiet because the charter school operators and ed deformers will use the undemocratic nature of the UFT/AFT to defeat organizing efforts. I even noted that E4E made these points on TV.

So, the answer is in this Feb. 18 Ed Notes blog:  
Mr. Mulgrew, Tear Down This Wall



AFTER BURN: THE RIGHT SAYS WE HAVE THE HIGHEST CORP TAXES IN THE WORLD. WHAT WORLD ARE THEY LIVING IN?

But Nobody Pays That
G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether
By DAVID
KOCIENIEWSKI<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/david_kocieniewski/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
Published: March 24, 2011

General
Electric<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/general_electric_company/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,

the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1
billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2
billion.

UFT Election Back Stories

Gotham Schools' Anna Philips has a report on the upcoming UFT elections (ballots go out March 7 and must be returned by April 6 - count is April 7 and is open to UFT members). I left a comment.

The reason Randi got 74% in her first election was that New Action, the main opposition at the time, was still a force and able to pull a quarter of the votes. Now they have sunk to below 10%, with many of those coming from retirees.

For a comparison of voting patterns over the lst few elections, see a spreadsheet we prepared 3 years ago at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pgxRf3gM4qtyBFmTshSW1fQ&hl=en

You wiil note that Randi's % dropped in 2007, but her vote total really dropped from 42,000 to 35,000 between 2004 and 2007 while the number of retirees voting for Unity remained constant at over 18,000 votes. Can it be that half if Unity's votes come from retirees? It's late and my eyes are bleary. But here's the skinny on the HS vote.

Elaborating on the high school executive board seats and why they are up for contention:

First of all, our 6 great candidates.

From ICE
Arthur Goldstein, CL of Francis Lewis HS, who you all know very well from his writings on Gotham.

Michael Fiorillo, former CL and current delegate from Newcomers HS who has also commented very astutely on many issues at Gotham.

John Lawhead, CL of Tilden, a soon to be closed school. John used to be at Bushwick HS which also was closed, so he is an expert on the politics of closing schools. He is also has been an expert on the high stakes testing issue for many years and has taught many of us in ICE the implications of the high stakes testing game.

From TJC
Kit Wainer, CL from Leon Goldstein HS, who headed the ICE-TJC slate in 2007. Kit has been a long-time activist and is one of the founders of TJC.

Marian Swerdlow, FDR HS, also a long-time activist in UFT politics and a former delegate.

Peter Lamphere, CL of Bronx HS of Science, who has been active for many years.

Some facts about this particular piece of the election

These 6 high school seats have been Unity's problem for over 20 years (the high school vote always split around 50/50), as they consistently lost them to the opposition, which used to be New Action.

But in 2003/4 New Action started making deals with Randi - they wouldn't run against her if she wouldn't run Unity candidates for these 6 seats, thus ceding them to New Action. Many New Action members also got part-time jobs at the UFT.

This dirty deal led to the formation of ICE (many from the Education Notes circle) for the 2004 elections and an alliance with TJC, which had been around for a decade but had never run in an election before 2003. Both groups had a lot to learn and had to build a new infrastructure from scratch.

With Unity not running candidates for these seats, the direct confrontation with New Action led to ICE-TJC winning those seats, which placed people like Jeff Kaufman and James Eterno (who has been on the EB as a New Action rep but left them over the Unity deal) on the EB. As someone who had been attending the EB meetings for a while, they brought a breath of fresh air to the meetings over their 3 years on the board, forcing Unity to address many issues, including the rubber room (Kaufman's short trip to the RR as an Ex Bd member made some headlines and his experience there and support for his colleagues, plus his legal background, brought many issues into the light.) Their voices were loud and strong in fighting the disastrous 2005 contract.

In order to still these voices, in 2007 Unity guaranteed New Action 3 of the HS EB seats by co-endorsing - which means a Unity vote counted for New Action- and took 3 seats for themselves. ICE-TJC got 36% of the vote and could not top the combined New Action (12%) /Unity (51%) totals, though ICE-TJC outpolled New Action in every division of the union except retirees. (Since New Action sold out their vote totals have dropped consistently amongst working teachers from the mid 20% to single digits in 2007). To make it clearer. New Action got 3 HS EB seats while getting only 521 votes while ICE-TJC received over 1500 votes and got no seats. UFT democracy inaction.

You can see a vote comparison of the 2004 and 2007 elections at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pgxRf3gM4qtyBFmTshSW1fQ&hl=en

New Action also received 5 additional EB seats for a total of 8 as a reward for keeping the independent voices of ICE-TJC off the Board.

We assume that a similar deal will be in operation in this election. If ICE-TJC can increase its vote in the HS to 50%, not an impossibility given the conditions, then the 6 people mentioned above, although an extreme minority out of 89 EB seats, would serve on the Board and give voice to a large group of disenfranchised teachers, paras, secretaries, etc.

And it would further drive a stake through the heart of New Action's bogus claims to be an opposition. If they lose, will it threaten their jobs at the UFT? Probably not, but if you detect an air of desperation on the part of New Action, you know why. Unity will probably offer a similar deal like last time and hand them additional seats in order to make phony claims of bi-partisanship. If ICE-TJC does win these seats, just watch New Action EB members line up on most votes with Unity.

Unlike ICE/GEM people, New Action has been absent from the line of fire of closing schools and charter school invasions (they supported the UFT charter school invasion of 2 public schools in East NY). Will the rank and file be aware of these differences? While the word has been out about New Action to some areas of the UFT, we theorize that a batch of New Action votes come from people who still believe they are the old New Action.


You can follow the UFT elections at the new ICE blog: http://uftelections2010.blogspot.com/

EXTRA! EXTRA!! GET YOUR NEW ACTION HAT

At last week's Delegate Assembly, I got one of the biggest laughs in a long time. There was a crew from New Action, the faux opposition bought and paid for by Unity Caucus - ask unctuous NA leader Michael Shulman to show you his office sometime - and they were giving away New Action hats to people who signed up to run in the UFT election with them.

Now, there's a hat I want to be seen wearing. In the Ed Notes spirit of fellowship for our friends in New Action, we have added our own line of New Action hats. But if you want one you have to wait as most are sold out.