Report-back from the UFT DA, November 12, 2015 *
*Fracas on the First Floor at 52 Broadway*
Before we even got into the meeting, we had to face down three
burly goons who surrounded us in the lobby and demanded that all UFT
members handing out flyers go outside the building. This exclusion attempt
did not work, as we stood our ground and would not be moved out of our own
union hall.
These guys refused to say who ordered them to throw us out. They muttered
something about “building management”; they got in our face and tried to
push us out the door with our flyers. I would say this was a foray to “test
the waters” and see if UFT oppositionists could be pushed out of talking to
members and leafleting inside our own union hall. We couldn’t and wouldn’t.
Norm Scott has reported on the fracas, see (Video: Taking a
Stand Against UFT/Unity Attempt to Ban Lit Distribution in Lobby of 52
Broadway) and has a note on the history of Unity Caucus’ undemocratic
measures against oppositionists. I can only add cell phone cameras may not
be a game changer, but they come in handy.
What leaflets were being handed out? MORE Caucus had a
resolution in opposition to the Buffalo receivership. Adult Ed teachers had
a flyer against the huge cutbacks in ESL and Basic Ed services for adults,
and the ongoing vicious harassment of teacher in that unit. My group,
Class Struggle Education Workers, had a flyer denouncing the UFT/AFT
endorsement of Clinton and against both Clinton and Sanders support for
corporate “education reform”. All of which are extremely relevant to
teacher delegates.
*President’s Report*
resident Mulgrew started his report by noting that an “incident’ had
occurred down in the lobby. He blamed it on building management. (Who
they? We own the building!) He said since it is our building, UFTers could
hand out flyers in the lobby during the D.A. (like, duh!).
Then he began his report.
*National*: the tide is turning in our favor after the years of teacher
bashing, Common Core testing mania and other markers of the corporate
privatization drive. Mulgrew lauded that Hillary Clinton made some lukewarm
criticism of the charters.
The Supreme Court Friedrichs’ case is the biggest threat to public workers
unions around the country right now. The court’s aim is to throw out the
agency shop for public employees. Mulgrew said there will be a co-ordinated
campaign of SEIU, AFSCME, AFT and UFT to fight it. How will they fight
it? They will be filing an amicus brief with the court and seek the
support of attorneys general in the states to support it. (This is pretty
lame in response to this attempt to financially gut the unions — more later
on this).
*Statewide*, the biggest challenge is Buffalo receivership, where a new NYS
law was passed to override the Buffalo Teachers Federation collective
bargaining agreement. Their plan is to starve schools of funds then close
them, push out teachers, and unilaterally lengthen the school day and
year. Two motions came up at the DA to support Buffalo teachers in this
fight: one put up by UFT VP Janella Hinds, and another by MORE caucus.
The two authors agreed to collaborate on a single motion for the next DA.
What we really need to do is what they are doing in Brazil right now, where
teachers, students, parents and people from the community are occupying a
number of the several thousand schools slated for closing.
*Part 154 Instruction -- Servicing of ELLs*. Mulgrew said Bloomberg
gutted ESL instruction. Now new changes in the state regs have devastated
ESL services, cutting back stand alone ESL classrooms, and even ESL
teachers in the content areas if the content area teacher has 12 ESL
credits. Mulgrew stated the new regs are a disaster and physically
impossible to comply with. For more information, see the informative piece
by Arthur Goldstein of Francis Lewis High School – who posts on NYC
Educator blog. http://nyceducator.com/2015/10/fire-teachers-save-money.html.
He and ESL teacher Aixa Rodriguez had an interview on Spanish Telemundo 47
explaining the devastating cutbacks.
*Local*
*Success Academy*: Eva Moskowitz got caught out when the press reported on
Success Academy’s Fort Greene “got to go list” of students who will be
constantly suspended, and their families harassed, until they are forced
out of the school. At the DA, a motion was passed to call for a state
investigation into disciplinary conditions and high rate of suspensions at
Success Academy and for a moratorium on new Success Academy Charter Schools.
*Q&A*: Questions included the UFT’s position on abusive principals, the
advantages of the new contract’s PROSE schools (juggling working hours,
such as a long 4-day week for teachers in some pilot schools); the state’s
Common Core commissions, the procedures for getting rid of metal detectors
at some schools; what should be done to support ATRs in a building.
*Resolutions*
*Friedrichs v California Teachers Association Supreme Court case. *
Friedrichs will be a watershed battle for public workers – it is aimed
squarely at bankrupting teachers unions across the country. And labor’s
response to this is pathetic, electoralist, and losing, before the battle
is even engaged. Since this issue is a big deal, I want to go into it a
little here. Believe me, it will affect you.
I spoke on this motion, put up an amendment and was able to give my
“cheese-head” speech. (Green Bay Packers fans wear headgear that looks like
a slice of Wisconsin cheddar cheese. It’s the “dairy state,” right? During
the union battle there, we picked up a button saying “Solid Dairy
Forever”!) My point was about the (negative) lessons of the huge Wisconsin
labor battle for collective bargaining rights. Remember all those thousands
of teachers and public workers in Madison in the freezing cold winter of
2011 – ringing the capital by the thousands, day after day for weeks? This
struggle was sold out on the eve of a general strike when the Wisconsin
AFL-CIO labor bureaucracy spiked it in favor of a “recall vote” against
Republican governor Scott Walker. The recall failed as did the whole
electoral capitalist game of Republicans v Democrats .
And now they want to repeat that capitulation, only bigger, in Freidrichs.
If you’re not following this case, or even if you are, here are the
bullet-points:
· The Supreme Court solicited this case from a small group of
right-wing California union-busters who want to outlaw the “agency shop.”
The union shop was targeted by Taft-Hartley in 1947. Specifically the
teachers unions which have been the main target of the so-called “education
reformers.” The union-busters have been unsuccessful so far, so now they’re
trying to bankrupt us through the courts.
· The overwhelming majority of teachers sign up with the union when
they start work, recognizing that it’s there to defend their rights. Agency
shop means you that if you don’t join the union, you pay a fee in
recognition of all the services the union provides (contractual salary
rates, health care plans, no lunch-room duty, a six-hour-fifty-minute
school day, etc.).
· Union dues and fees are deducted by the DOE from our paychecks.
The union should have never allowed the employer to be the overseer of our
funds. There’s a class line here, and the boss and the government are on
the other side. We need to go back to the union shop, collect our own dues,
and build union power through hard class struggle.
· You cannot beat this onslaught through “hard work in the
political and legislative arenas” as the UFT motion stated. This can only
be stopped in the streets. That was the crux of my amendment. Particularly
because the Supreme Court is not elected and not subject to legislative
control, we need a nationwide campaign of massive mobilizations of union
power. The amendment passed, but unless we pull this fight out from under
the labor bureaucracy, Friedrichs will mean a terrible defeat for public
sector labor. Think PATCO air controllers, under Reagan, which led to years
of defeats. And this is being done under the Democrats!
The rest of the meeting was pretty much bread and butter resolutions. A
motion was passed divesting union pension funds from companies with a big
carbon footprint. Mulgrew announced that the union no longer has any
investments in hedge funds. The billionaire hedge fund operators, of
course, are funding oodles of charters because they have “good cash flow.”
That’s it for now.
*As one of your UFT delegates I report-back on the monthly meetings. These
reports are "my take" on the meeting. For official minutes, let me know and
I'll send them along to you.
Attachment:
151112 Reportback from November UFT DA.doc
Description: MS-Word document
