James Eterno "defending" MORE
flier 's lack of union bug or labor donated.
Not only that they support cops' PBA against black protest, they don't even
defend basics of bread and butter unionism. What's next? Leaky picket lines?
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
From: James Eterno <jameseterno@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: October 16, 2015 at 11:36:58 PM EDT
To: "marjoriestamberg@xxxxxxxxx" <marjoriestamberg@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: {MORE-Disc} Report-back from UFT Delegate Assembly
Was there a union bug on the Unity literature?
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 21:12:06 -0400
Subject: {MORE-Disc} Report-back from UFT Delegate Assembly
From: marjoriestamberg@xxxxxxxxx
To: pathways-teach@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; UFTerstoStoptheWar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
more-discussion@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; cs_edworkers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Report-back from the UFT Delegate Assembly, October 14, 2015 *
President’s Report
This was the first delegate assembly of the 2015-16 school year, and
President Mulgrew gave an extended report – over an hour-and-a-half (we
delegates have to fight for every nano-second we get to discuss on the floor
or our meeting).
There were two big issues on the floor -- Retro Pay and the Supreme Court
"Friedrichs" pending decision
The first issue was over the retro pay formula and all the non-money we
didn’t actually get that we expected to get. The MORE caucus had a motion for
the UFT to help needy colleagues who aren’t getting their retro, to get
no-interest loans.
This would effect mothers on maternity leave, or others on extended leave,
and the loans could tide them over. That sparked a really nasty fight from
the Unity Caucus people who made sure it was voted down.
The second issue was the ominous upcoming Supreme Court decision which would
outlaw the “agency shop.” It is aimed squarely at bankrupting and busting
the teachers’ unions around the country.
I’ll get to these, but here are the other punch lines from the meeting:
· National issues: Mulgrew was very positive about last Tuesday’s
Democratic Party debate. He skipped over the fact that the AFT (and thus the
UFT) and the NEA have already endorsed Clinton. I will continue to argue
that unions are working class outfits and should not support the capitalist
parties of Wall Street. Besides which, Clinton never saw a war she didn’t
love, and Sanders has shown his hostility to Black Lives Matter; moreover,
all of them support the union-busting “reform” education agenda.
· NY State: There are protracted negotiations in Albany over the
final state regulations for student testing and teacher evaluations. Albany
is insisting on testing regs for kids based on their chronological age. He
said that if you force that on students with IEPs and developmental issues,
and with ESL students who don’t speak a word of English – it is nothing short
of child abuse.
· Teacher evals: November 15th is the final date for the state’s
teacher evaluation law. If there is no agreement, then we have a right to
jointly ask for a waiver and extend the date; since no agreement seems
forthcoming, therefore…...(he said we can figure out where that’s at right
now).
· Good news – there are over 6,000 new UFT members in the schools!
The number of new teachers is way up. And oversize class size grievances are
way down --- this is the difference between the Bloomberg/Klein era and the
DeBlasio/Carmen regime, he inferred.
· Teacher retention will still be a huge challenge; the UFT has a New
Teacher Initiative, with workshops and other resources--- all members should
try to help the new teachers through this really difficult time.
The UFT wants to start a Labor Education Institute (the name will be
changed). This will at first be open to all those who are in the Delegate
Assembly and then expanded. There will be classes so teachers can become
experts in fields beyond their own, or work further in their own field. (I
presume this is along the lines of the various CUNY Worker Education
institutes, but he didn’t specify. )
Retro Pay (or lack thereof). This was the bulk of Mulgrew’s report.
He spent a lot of time justifying how the agreement came out. Bloomberg
insisted that nothing says in law they're required to pay us retro. His line
was part of the whole war against teachers, including school closings, “merit
pay,” trying to get rid of seniority; the threat to lay off 5000 senior
teachers by reversing LIFO (Last In First Out.) Then Bloomberg deliberately
bankrupted the city coffers to say there was no money left for city workers,
and then what he really meant, no money for teachers.
· Mulgrew detailed this background to the complicated retro pay
agreement. He instructed the delegates and chapter leaders to have no
discussion about any individual teacher’s payment, but to refer them to the
UFT experts. That is because the money we got was based on a “compound growth
formula.” Everybody is different, he stressed. Math teachers, help me out
here, I’m not even going to try to explain it. I only know I got peanuts.
The two big issues:
1) Retro pay and the MORE caucus resolution
The MORE caucus put up a resolution: “DA Resolution on Immediate Retroactive
Money for UFT Members on Unpaid Leave for Maternity, Child Care and/or
Restoration of Health.” I thought this had a fighting chance to win; it
seemed obvious and compassionate. Jia Li argued it quite well on the floor
of the D.A. She stressed that even President Mulgrew had stated that people
with medical problems should not also have to face economic problems.
Apparently this doesn’t apply to helping our own colleagues who are
temporarily off salary and thus more needy.
Unity wanted this voted down. The argumentation was ugly: The Queens UFT
liason for maternity and health leaves actually said, “You decided to take
your leave, you got to handle your own business, you have to consider things
before taking leave”. Was this Maggie Thatcher or Marie Antoinette? MORE,
by the way, did not help their case by handing out copies of the resolution
with ads on the back of their flyer for various MORE activities. That was ok
with me, although I’m not a member of MORE, I'm in a different tendency,
Class Struggle Education Workers. But the Unity delegates jumped on the
flyer ads in an orgy of red-baiting (and MORE isn’t even red).
The Unity people also noticed (quite correctly) that the MORE flyer didn’t
have a union bug. The tradition of the labor movement is that all distributed
printed material must either have a union bug, or if the effort is donated by
members, then stating “labor donated.” But this is par for the course for
MORE, showing it’s increasing distance from labor’s struggle.
2) Upcoming Supreme Court decision on Friedrichs v. California Teachers
Association
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 outlawed under Taft-Hartley in 1947. Agency shop means you sign the
union card when you start work. Or not. You don’t have to join the union if
you don’t want to. But whether you’re a member of not, you still get all the
services the union provides (contractual salary rates, no lunch-room duty, a
six-hour-fifty-minute school day [broken down in the complicated PD formula])
etc. You get all that whether or not you’re in the union, and the union has
the right to collect a fee from everyone for the services they provide.
Overturning the agency shop is a scheme to bankrupt the public workers
unions. Specifically the teachers unions which have been the main target of
the so-called “education reformers.” They have been unsuccessful so far, so
now they’re trying to do it through the courts.
There is a huge amount to say about this. Suffice it to say here that
the union should have never allowed the government to be the overseer of our
funds. The government is not neutral, and they are now wielding that power
against us. We need to go back to the union shop, collect our own dues, and
build union power through hard class struggle.
There will be a resolution coming up next month on the UFT’s fight
against Freidrichs. As expected, Unity caucus thinks they can do it through
legislation and electing friendly Democrats. The Supreme Court is not subject
to legislation and they aren’t elected. The only way to stop this is to get
everyone out in the streets in the thousands, across the country. I will be
talking about this more.
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.
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