The UFT delegate assembly tonight amounted to a Hillary rally. UFT
president Michael Mulgrew gave an hour long speech centered on supporting
Clinton, asking people to sign up for phone banking at the union hall (free
dinner included), praising the big UFT retirees chapter in Florida (where
do retired teachers go to ground, but in the 6th boro of NYC, Miami) for
its big efforts in that swing state.
When the floor was opened for the "question period" (15 minutes for all
the questions), Mulgrew called on me. We had a lot of back-and-forth, in
which I said we should oppose both the racist misogynist pig Trump and Wall
Streeter Clinton and asked my "question": could the union open up more
time to discuss this. As soon as I started to speak against Hillary, the
large auditorium of , say, 600-800, erupted in boos, hollers of "sit down,"
etc. But there was, surprisingly, a good smattering of applause.
Mulgrew was in his "let 100 flowers bloom" oh-so-democratic phase,
explaining to the new delegates that our union membership has diverse
political views, ranging from far left to far right, and everyone should be
respectful, yakety, yak . (The reason for this is for years the
bureaucrats were total anti-communist scumbags screaming at leftists to
shut up and sit down, largely directed at me, and from time to time against
Gloria from MORE. Many delegates were appalled and told him last year he
was bullying women, so lately he changed his tack. We'll see how long that
lasts.
Mulgrew said that all views should be respected, and if someone wanted to
put up a motion about the elections, that would be appropriate.
SO, in the motion period, I presented my motion. The motion is only
permitted to be three lines. I said mine was three sentences. More
back-and-forth about the length of my sentences. I said, I'm an English
teacher, what do you expect? But I was able to present.
My motion:
"We in the UFT should not support either candidate of the Democratic or
Republican parties of capitalism. Donald Trump is a racist misogynist
xenophobe. Hillary Clinton is beholden to Wall Street, and the Clinton
Foundation bears major responsibility for the $5/day starvation wages in
Haiti's sweat shops. We need a workers party."
The chair asked for someone to second the motion. Peter Lamphere (ISO)
seconded it, but interestingly a number of others also raised hands to
second it. The vote was taken. In favor were at least several dozens,
maybe more. I was super surprised. Not surprisingly, it was
overwhelmingly voted down, as Mulgrew and Unity Caucus control the UFT
handily. (Jan jokes that we will likely have state power for communism
before Unity Caucus is ousted from UFT leadership, which dates from the Al
Shanker period.)
Then, after the meeting, people came up to thank me for putting up the
motion, including new delegates from Unity Caucus. I asked PL if they had
voted for the motion, and they said yes. The MORE? Seems like they were
split, the leftists in MORE like Sean Ahearn and Lamphere voting for, the
others either sitting on hands or whatever.....
It was quite a show. We know that every left political outfit on the
planet (or at least in NYC) has people in the UFT (except the SL). But
Class Struggle Education Workers is clearly the left opposition to the
pro-capitalist bureaucracy. No other group had anything to say in their
leaflets or words about support for the Democrats.
