Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. The recent Unity major losses in elections has created a sense of panic in the upper halls of the UFT, and some shake-ups. At the AFT convention in Houston in July Staff Director LeRoy Barr lectured the staff, blaming them and ...
The recent Unity major losses in elections has created a sense of panic in the upper halls of the UFT, and some shake-ups. At the AFT convention in Houston in July Staff Director LeRoy Barr lectured the staff, blaming them and absolving leadership, telling them the opposition was well organized and coming for their jobs and they better start campaigning immediately.
Calling the opposition well organized shows how much LeRoy doesn't know - but I actually have faith that LeRoy knows the opposition real well and was just blowing smoke to scare the staff into worrying about their jobs. (Don't worry boys and girls, those who actually do their jobs instead of being Unity shills will be safe if the oppo wins.)
So, the best thing Mulgrew has going for him is the state of opposition. But expect a Unity full court press- like this:
Need someone to talk to? We're here
I think of the Reagan comment about government and we're here to help. After decades of not helping, Unity lost an election and now wants to help? But do they even remember how?
Mulgrew never takes responsibility and puts blames on others
Mulgrew supposedly reamed out the staff before school started and shook up the hierarchy. Anthony Harmon is off to NYSUT and Ellie Engler has been brought back to be co-staff Director in his place. Where does that put LeRoy Barr? Probably not in the dog house with Mulgrew's dog, but Mulgrew may have ordered him to get rid of his cat if he has one so as not to come on a certain VP candidate's radar. Is Mulgrew blaming LeRoy or his cat for the recent big election losses? Mike Sill, who I like (the kiss of death) has moved into something or other. Insiders say morale has sunk at 52 where people see these moves as moving deck chairs.
At a staff meeting, staff actually received copies of the Labor Notes, "Secrets of a Successful Organizer," a bible on the left, especially in MORE where for years I sat through bouts of the same Labor Notes training where we were told to keep a tally sheet of our staff, something I managed to figure out on my own in the 1970s. After all that training I didn't notice an enormous uptick in organized schools in the last election, but if you want to see a preview of the lessons your beloved UFT rep will bring to your chapter, see the list at the end of this article - and even read up to prep for their visit -- and be ready for How to Be a Good Listener.
See how well they listen to you and how they tell you they can really do nothing about your principal.
So what irony that Unity is trying to emulate the "successful" organizing of MORE, a caucus in its 14th year of existence and not in a position to run head to head against Unity - and never will be no matter how much Labor Notes training they undergo.
Thus MORE may be forced against its will to work with other caucuses and groups in a potentially winnable year, though I imagine from my last days in MORE when I pushed back against those who wanted to run not to win that there is still a faction that either wants to run alone (the Greta Garbo group) or not run at all. The latter is ironic since I was one of the few voices in MORE's first election in 2013 urging MORE not to waste resources on running and use the time to build its infrastructure as a new caucus, one of the many battles I lost in MORE. In the decade since, MORE did build infrastructure, but given the size of the school system, it's still a blip. Maybe next decade.
What's left of UFC? New Action and Retiree Advocate and maybe MORE which is still deciding
The other main strands of the opposition is a resurgent New Action back from the 2019 dead and the new king of the hill, Retiree Advocate, whose victory and 300 delegates are game changers in the UFT. They may be the heart of the oppo movement this year. I will have a lot more to say in about a week on where the election movement stands at this point.
ICE is an open end discussion group -- a listserve and a dormant blog - but we did zoom Sunday night to discuss the state of the UFT election. Always a great and eclectic group of people that ICE attracts. I always come away from an ICE event feeling better -- a reason to keep us getting together where we hear some of the smartest analysis.
Solidarity is trying to make a claim but has internal battles and I maintain without the force of Lydia's personality and leadership it can't be more than bit player -- but watch the squawks of some of them claiming equality with the other caucuses. Squawk away since one of the requirements may be for caucuses to show they are legit by showing at least 25 CL and delegates as proof they have people who can get elected in their own schools.
So fundamentally, the hope from the UFC coalition from the 2022 election would have opposition infrastructure in place for this election died soon after the election ended when MORE lost interest and the rest of the group drifted. That UFC in essence died is the best friend Unity has in its chance of winning as those wanting to defeat Unity were set back to ground zero.
Unity will flood the schools with staff offering to help and Mulgrew promos, but will that help or hurt?
Unity relies on a chain of command -- central - borough- district - school Unity and associated CL to get the message to members. Even in the 2022 UFT election, the Unity vote totals dropped as most rolled their eyes at the glossy flyers. The problem for the oppo was that the members also generally rolled their eyes at them too. The goal for the oppo this time is to turn those lonely eyes to them if they expect to win. And to vastly expand he base from the usual caucus suspects. I ruminated on this point on Aug. 7:
Expect many visits from your District and borough special reps. But also expect most people to yawn. There are weak links in this chain - some clueless Dist reps and most importantly, a waning loyalty at the school level from the Unity faithful. Seeing the possibility of the opposition actually winning next year, some in Unity "light," as they are known, may be rethinking their options. Why not give up your paltry after school patronage job and sign up with the oppo to get an early foothold?
The weakest link in Unity is still Mulgrew himself.
Reports from UFT Chapter Leader training, Aug 28:
It was like a bad PD, person after person talking and I zoned out;
they meant well but they lost the new people like me....
Mulgrew’s rambling about cell phones. It’s not coherent - but maybe that’s because I’m starving. Now he’s talking about “we don’t always go Democrat in fact maybe we will vote Republican one day.” Now he's talking what why it's not that big of a deal if they get rid of the Dept of Ed at the federal level...Aside from the minor detail of civil rights being violated all over the nation, what could go wrong? Thinks ranked choice voting is stupid and dangerous... Elizabeth Perez gave him this big intro and said “he has squirrels in his head” and I can’t stop laughing.... Squirrels in his head would explain a lot. Sounds even worse than RFK Jr.'s brainworm.... Michael droned on and on and talked about how a high percentage of teachers get cancer. The whole thing was awful. And then asked who wants time for questions? No one raised their hand. Who wants to leave? The whole room...MM is the Manchurian Candidate
Oy! Mulgrew so Trumpian and is fundamentally a Republican, so I'm not surprised -- he probably wished he had been invited to the Republican convention. By the way -- while the AFT and NYSUT have geared up to back the Dem ticket, the usual UFT political operation has been dormant until recently.
At one point people believed Mulgrew might be replaced. In the last election two years ago they hid Mulgrew with no photos of him on their leaflets (in contrast to the 2019 election when his photo was all over the place). Then came the disaster of last spring's chapter elections - we know the para and retiree results, but have little data on the school levels -- how many Unity were replaced? How many activist CL and Del were elected? I hear MORE caucus claimes over 100.
If Mulgrew were to be replaced that would have happened already to give the new person some serious time as an incumbent, so that train has left the station. Some think he would take something in the AFT but he's a fish out of water there. And besides, Unity doesn't have a very big bench. Like who can replace him? See if you can come up with potential replacements.
Here are some promos for Mulgrew for your joy of reading.
From congestion pricing to Medicare Advantage, the politically
nimble leader of the teachers union seems to always come out on top, Bob Hennelly, City and State.... WTF
* United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew’s political flexibility has enabled him to almost always come out on top
when it comes to the most contentious issues facing his members, from
the pitched battle between retirees and the city over Medicare Advantage
plans to the ongoing debate over congestion pricing.
Peter Goodman, minister of propaganda for unity reprinted the article on The Wire, prompting this response:
reads like an article in The Onion. The "shrewd political instincts"
of Michael Mulgrew delivered us a sub-inflation contract (aka pay cuts),
an all-out attempt to move municipal employees into a for-profit
Medicare Advantage Plan, and an impending watered-down healthcare plan
for in-service UFT members. In May 2025 we need to vote Unity caucus and
its CEO, Michael Mulgrew, out of office.
What next? Mulgrew for Mt. Rushmore?
Arthur has been doing a daily hit on Unity and Mulgrew.
Bennett Fischer, newly elected RTC Chapter Leader, had been
working for weeks to get signs printed for the RTC. He had to get them
approved here. He had to get them approved there. They had to be this size, not that size. You have to make sure this person knows about it. Also, don’t tell that person until that person knows. Red tape galore... On
Friday, UFT Snowflake-in-Chief Michael Mulgrew told Bennett that the
signs would not be acceptable. He contended all signage must be on
message with the Central Labor Council's theme for the parade. So the
RTC, the leadership of which was elected on the basis of opposition to
Medicare Advantage, was blocked from expressing what we stand for.
Prompting this comment from Sean Ahern:
The RTC’s program to defend Medicare was blocked by UFT leadership
at the rally. I think the RTC chapter will have to be more forceful in
the future. It was like Unity is the Principal who just says no to the
chapter leader who is representing the members grievance. Where is the
pushback? I hope a plan for the Oct DA will not be so quiescent.
Secrets of a Successful Organizer Handouts
We've made all the handouts and exercises from our best-selling book Secrets of a Successful Organizer available for download. Feel free to print them out and share them with your co-workers or use in your next union meeting. Disponible en español.
Hi Everybody, hoping your 2024-2025 school year is off to a good start!
We're asking all UFT members, both in-service and retirees, to please complete the survey below.
The UFT General Election (where we vote for UFT President, UFT Secretary, UFT Vice Presidents, etc.) is coming up in May 2025. For the last few months, a group of educators and UFT members across the city have been meeting and working to plan for this election.
We’re concerned about what is happening to our profession and our Union. If you are interested in protecting your healthcare and pension, as well as your pay, benefits and working conditions, then please complete the survey below. After completing the survey, please send the survey link to at least three other UFT members that you know. Better yet, re-post the survey link on your social media account(s) and/or email the survey link to all your UFT friends and colleagues.
We want ALL UFT members to be involved. The survey will take about 5 minutes to complete. All personal information you provide will be kept confidential. Let's work together to create a more responsive, more democratic, and stronger UFT. Thank you!
In solidarity,
Chad Hamilton
Special Education Teacher
P231K UFT Chapter Leader
District 75
We represent an informal group of UFT organizers and members concerned about the current stewardship of our union. We're interested in hearing from our fellow union members in the lead-up to the UFT election this spring. The members of our group have varying levels of work experience and come from various groups and backgrounds within the union with different views. We all know that the real strength of our union comes from the everyday workers — the ones who show up, put in the work, and keep our schools running. We all agree that getting the pulse of the rank and file is the first step to improving working conditions and quality of life for ALL members.
To that end, this survey represents the most comprehensive attempt to date at getting authentic feedback from the folks who are on the front lines every day. There are six sections that will take approximately five minutes in total, so please respond to the questions and help us get the clearest picture possible of what UFT members want and need from their employer and their union as we approach citywide UFT leadership elections. All personal information will be kept confidential.
As panic and demoralization grows inside the increasingly narrow level of support for Michael Mulgrew's leadership inside the Unity crumbling fortress, how close are we to an evacuation helicopter on the roof of 52 Broadway to take Mulgrew and key supporters to sanctuary in NYSUT or the AFT?
Mulgrew did the usual desparate act of moving deck chairs with a top level shakeup. Co-staff director Anthony Harmon is already on the way to NYSUT sanctuary - was he pushed or did he get out while the going was good? LeRoy Barr's seeming power was also reduced by the return of the incredibly ineffective Ellie Engler, a known Randi operative who is considered the eyes and ears for Randi inside the UFT. And long-time operative David Hickey has been plugged in as a key advisor. Oh, and I hear Mike Sill is now something or other.
Word is a number of Unity Chapter Leaders lost their elections, another bad sign for Unity.
Imagine Unity staff seeing the possibility of losing their jobs if the Mulgrew candidacy continues - compare them to the Dem faithful after the June 27th Biden debate disaster? The UFT equivalence was the June 14 RTC vote count and seeing the stunned disbelief on the faces of Unity honchos.
Randi appeared a few days later at the final RTC meeting under Unity control for at least the next 3 years and said she "heard" us. What she really heard are footsteps coming for Unity control of the UFT in this year's election. And what might a Unity loss and its 700 AFT delegates mean for Randi's control of the AFT? Watch for her helicopter?
Now we know Mulgrew arrogance won't let him leave as Biden arrogance kept him saying he was going to run hell or high water? At that point Nancy Pelosi jumped in and laid things out in a way Biden seemed to understand. It didn't take long after that for Kamala to come into play.
So, in a parallel universe, as internal polls come in showing severe dissatisfaction with Mulgrew, can madame Randi/Nancy pull off a similar swap of Biden/Mulgrew for the UFT in time to save them? Some think Mulgrew would be a candidate to replace Randi at the top of the AFT, but given his performance would anyone trust this guy with the national teacher movement keys?
In this scenario, there is a fly in the ointment: Finding a Kamala to replace Mulgrew. Not all that much in the Unity coffers, though I know of a few.
So until Randi can find her Kamela, Unity will continue to flounder, with a helpless Randi left dangling. And the election clock starts clicking this week.
The lack of strategy and misguided purity is so beyond unworkable that the average person cannot even relate to the positions the left is taking.... Alessandra Biaggi in response to DSA pulling support for AOC
Let's be careful about branding the "left" as monolithic as Biaggi and many others tend to do -- even I do it without thinking. I usually say "certain segments of the left."....Norm
Just Win Baby, Win! ... Al Davis
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
I get a high-five by a retired NYC fireman in a hot yoga class over the RA victory in the chapter election. Of course he and his pals all know about the NYC Retirees and the chief organizer Marianne Pizzitola.
I've been getting get-well calls from many people and one of the more interesting ones was from an old oppo war-horse CL and UFT Exec Bd member, a hard-core lifetime leftist who retired a long time ago. He is one of the 300 newly elected delegates in the RA chapter election. And of course he has followed the Medicare story.
He said something so interesting. That Marianne Pizzitola, who came out of nowhere and is far from a leftist, has taught the left a lesson on how to organize a broad base of working class and beyond, uniting left and right in the battle. Knowing the left as I do (and I consider myself part of the left), that will be a lesson unlearned. On much of the left, ideology trumps practicality and often, winning.
Yes, sometimes winning is important. I remember certain segments of the left making the case against trying to win in UFT or NYSUT elections as being a waste of time. With the big retiree win in the UFT, views may be changing with a unique opportunity to be in serious contention for leadership of the UFT for the first time in its history. A key question is how far will some segments on the left go to mess it up by pushing for their particular ideology even if that reduces the chances of winning. I know that in Retiree Advocate, we knew we were trying to build a winning coalition based on the healthcare issue and avoided getting into ideological entanglements. Thus, our 300 elected delegates have a broad range of political views.
Some on the left are beginning to look askance at some of their fellows and dames as the Biaggi (not a hard core lefty) says above.
Shockingly, there are still so-called leftists who often line up on the right who claim Trump is more the peace candidate than Biden --- do they actually believe this guy is not lying about everything? Yes, some claiming to be leftists can also be naive.
I am still a member of DSA because left politics (and accompanying infighting) interests me. You know the old joke -- put 2 of them in a room and get 3 groups. Splitting into sects and factions seems to be endemic.
But all too often some elements in DSA, a conglomeration of just about every left sect with numerous caucuses, seem off the rails. Remember how they cancelled Jamaal Bowman for daring to visit Israel on a fact-finding mission? When it was clear that right winger George Latimer backed by AIPAC was way ahead, DSA reversed itself but too late to make a difference.
Inside the UFT, we saw MORE, a segment of the left, sit out the TRS election because they heard a baseless ideological-based rumor about a candidate. "Better Unity"? In essence, the message. Or we on the left don't really care about winning but about making a point. Despite that the non-Unity candidate still got one third of the vote.
With upcoming UFT elections, will we see an ideological war break out inside oppo forces or will we see a broad front inclusive enough to defeat Unity.
And by the way, AOC made the most dynamic speech last night at the convention. You can see her future as the heir to Bernie while DSA will remain sanctimonious.
--------
Another segment of the DSA cancelled Adolf Reed, Jr. Reed who focuses on class more than race and that is a big cancel on the left.
The cancellation of a speech reflects an intense debate on the left: Is
racism the primary problem in America today, or the outgrowth of a
system that oppresses all poor people?
Adolph
Reed is a son of the segregated South, a native of New Orleans who
organized poor Black people and antiwar soldiers in the late 1960s and
became a leading Socialist scholar at a trio of top universities.
Along
the way, he acquired the conviction, controversial today, that the left
is too focused on race and not enough on class. Lasting victories were
achieved, he believed, when working-class and poor people of all races
fought shoulder to shoulder for their rights.
In
late May, Professor Reed, now 73 and a professor emeritus at the
University of Pennsylvania, was invited to speak to the Democratic
Socialists of America’s New York City chapter. The match seemed a
natural. Possessed of a barbed wit, the man who campaigned for Senator
Bernie Sanders and skewered President Barack Obama as a man of “vacuous
to repressive neoliberal politics” would address the D.S.A.’s largest
chapter, the crucible that gave rise to Representative Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez and a new generation of leftist activism.
His
chosen topic was unsparing: He planned to argue that the left’s intense
focus on the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on Black people
undermined multiracial organizing, which he sees as key to health and
economic justice.
Notices went up.
Anger built. How could we invite a man to speak, members asked, who
downplays racism in a time of plague and protest? To let him talk, the
organization’s Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus stated, was
“reactionary, class reductionist and at best, tone deaf.”
“We
cannot be afraid to discuss race and racism because it could get
mishandled by racists,” the caucus stated. “That’s cowardly and cedes
power to the racial capitalists.”
Amid
murmurs that opponents might crash his Zoom talk, Professor Reed and
D.S.A. leaders agreed to cancel it, a striking moment as perhaps the
nation’s most powerful Socialist organization rejected a Black Marxist
professor’s talk because of his views on race.
“God
have mercy, Adolph is the greatest democratic theorist of his
generation,” said Cornel West, a Harvard professor of philosophy and a
Socialist. “He has taken some very unpopular stands on identity
politics, but he has a track record of a half-century. If you give up
discussion, your movement moves toward narrowness.”
The
decision to silence Professor Reed came as Americans debate the role of
race and racism in policing, health care, media and corporations. Often
pushed aside in that discourse are those leftists and liberals who have
argued there is too much focus on race and not enough on class in a
deeply unequal society. Professor Reed is part of the class of
historians, political scientists and intellectuals who argue that race
as a construct is overstated.
The most powerful
progressive movements, they say, take root in the fight for universal
programs. That was true of the laws that empowered labor organizing and
established mass jobs programs during the New Deal, and it’s true of the
current struggles for free public college tuition, a higher minimum
wage, reworked police forces and single-payer health care.
Those
programs would disproportionately help Black, Latino and Native
American people, who on average have less family wealth and suffer ill
health at rates exceeding that of white Americans, Professor Reed and
his allies argue. To fixate on race risks dividing a potentially
powerful coalition and playing into the hands of conservatives.
“An
obsession with disparities of race has colonized the thinking of left
and liberal types,” Professor Reed told me. “There’s this insistence
that race and racism are fundamental determinants of all Black people’s
existence.”
These battles are not new:
In the late 19th century, Socialists wrestled with their own racism and
debated the extent to which they should try to build a multiracial
organization. Eugene Debs, who ran for president five times, was
muscular in his insistence that his party advocate racial equality. Similar questions roiled the civil rights and Black power movements of the 1960s.
But
the debate has been reignited by the spread of the deadly virus and the
police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And it has taken on a
generational tone, as Socialism — in the 1980s largely the redoubt of
aging leftists — now attracts many younger people eager to reshape
organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America, which has
existed in various permutations since the 1920s. (A Gallup poll late
last year found that Socialism is now as popular as capitalism among
people aged 18 to 39.)
The D.S.A. now
has more than 70,000 members nationally and 5,800 in New York — and
their average age now hovers in the early 30s. The organization has
become an unlikely kingmaker, helping fuel the victories of Democratic
Party candidates such as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, who beat a
longtime Democratic incumbent in a June primary.
In
years past, the D.S.A. had welcomed Professor Reed as a speaker. But
younger members, chafing at their Covid-19 isolation and throwing
themselves into “Defund the Police” and anti-Trump protests, were
angered to learn of the invitation extended to him.
“People
have very strong concerns,” Chi Anunwa, co-chair of D.S.A.’s New York
chapter, said on a Zoom call. They said “the talk was too dismissive of
racial disparities at a very tense point in American life.”
Professor
Taylor of Princeton said Professor Reed should have known his planned
talk on Covid-19 and the dangers of obsessing about racial disparities
would register as “a provocation. It was quite incendiary.”
None
of this surprised Professor Reed, who sardonically described it as a
“tempest in a demitasse.” Some on the left, he said, have a “militant
objection to thinking analytically.”
Professor Reed is
an intellectual duelist, who especially enjoys lancing liberals he sees
as too cozy with corporate interests. He wrote that President Bill
Clinton and his liberal followers showed a “willingness to sacrifice the
poor and to tout it as tough-minded compassion” and described former
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as a man whose “tender mercies have
been reserved for the banking and credit card industries.”
He finds a certain humor in being attacked over race.
“I’ve
never led with my biography, as that’s become an authenticity-claiming
gesture,” he said. “But when my opponents say that I don’t accept that
racism is real, I think to myself, ‘OK, we’ve arrived at a strange
place.’”
Professor Reed and his
compatriots believe the left too often ensnares itself in battles over
racial symbols, from statues to language, rather than keeping its eye on
fundamental economic change.
“If I
said to you, ‘You’re laid off, but we’ve managed to rename Yale to the
name of another white person’, you would look at me like I’m crazy,”
said Mr. Sunkara, the editor of Jacobin.
“Liberals
use identity politics and race as a way to counter calls for
redistributive polices,” noted Toure Reed, whose book “Toward Freedom:
The Case Against Race Reductionism” tackles these subjects.
Some
on the left counter that Professor Reed and his allies ignore that a
strong emphasis on race is not only good politics but also common-sense
organizing.
“Not only do Black people
suffer class oppression,” said Professor Taylor of Princeton, “they also
suffer racial oppression. They are fundamentally more marginalized than
white people.
“How do we get in the door without talking race and racism?”
I
put that question to Professor Reed. The son of itinerant, radical
academics, he passed much of his boyhood in New Orleans. “I came back
and forth into the Jim Crow South and developed a special hatred for
that system,” he said.
Yet even as he
has taken pleasure of late as New Orleans removed memorials to the old
Confederacy, he preferred a different symbolism. He recalled, as a boy,
traveling to small New England towns and walking through cemeteries and
seeing moss-covered tombstones marking the graves of young white men who
had died in service of the Union.
“I
got this warm feeling reading those tombstones, ‘So-and-so died so that
all men could be free,’” he said. “There was something so damned moving
about that.”
A correction was made on
Aug. 16, 2020
:
An
earlier version of this article misstated the connection of
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor to the Democratic Socialists of America. She has
given talks to chapters of the organization; she is not a member.
