*Report-back from UFT Delegate Assembly of December 14, 2016*
I raised our motion, “NYC Schools Must Be a Sanctuary For Immigrant and
All Students” at the UFT delegate assembly.
Prior to the meeting, Charlie, Mia and I handed out about 400 copies as the
delegates streamed in. Distributing in the lobby were the usual suspects,
Unity Caucus, ICE and New Action. MORE was notably NOT handing out flyers,
save for the omnipresent retiree Norm Scott (more on the MORE later.)
As UFT president Mike Mulgrew approached the platform, I handed him a
leaflet and advised him I would put it up on the “resolutions” point. He
was cordial, calling me by my name, said he’d call on me at that time.
After Mulgrew’s report, followed by Q&A, they opened the floor for
resolutions.
I was called on first, and Mulgrew told me politely to consider time
constraints. I followed the procedure for “motions for next month’s
agenda” – first, present the motion and then be the speaker “for.”
I told the delegates that I would not read the “whereas-es” because they
were basically to inform the members of current New York law regarding
immigrant rights, and to document the specific threats made by the incoming
Trump regime.
I then began to read the “Resolves.” I didn’t get past the first one,
which said that the UFT should state that “police and immigration
authorities will not be allowed on school premises under any circumstances.”
At this point, the Unity hack Dave P popped out of his chair to cry ”point
of order” that the whole motion violated the Taylor Law.
[So much for any idea that the absence of the actual word “strike” might
prevent the bureaucrats from totally dismissing the motion at the get go.
Nope, they smelled it in a nano-second. These formerly Shankerite Unity
Caucus hacks are nothing if not bloodhounds of self-enforcement of the
Taylor Law, which they regard as written for them with the explicit purpose
of heading off mass struggle. In any case, we wanted the more liquid
formulation to “shut down the schools.”]
Mulgrew quickly shot down Dave's objection, saying it wasn’t a “point of
order” and I should proceed. It was clear Mulgrew wanted this motion put on
the floor, for his own purposes.
I then continued to read the “resolves” in the motion.
Then I said, I’ll be the “speaker for.”
I said (paraphrase) that our November D.A., the day after the election, was
very powerful, because delegate after delegate, spoke of their passion to
protect the thousands of immigrant students in NYC schools.
I said I was aware that the union was already working on proposals, such as
having an “immigrant advisor” in every school, currently being discussed
with the Chancellor, and the UFT “solidarity day.” But, I said ,we need to
take this much further, we need committees in every school, composed of
teachers, school staff, students and the parents, not only to monitor the
situation.
We need to make the schools a place of sanctuary, welcoming for parents to
come with any concerns or threats made to them, we need rapid response
teams and phone chains in place to respond immediately to any threat of
deportation. And we need to organize across the schools to actually *stop*
the deportations if they occur.
That the *migra* in NYC would likely not come into the schools where we
will protect the kids; they were much more likely to break down doors in
the dead of the night. I said, I know people have some worries, that “we
can’t do this because of the law,” and “we can’t do that…” But, I said, we
are the biggest union in NYC, we have powerful allies like the TWU, we have
strength, and we need to do what we need to do, Because we are not going to
let our students be dragged out of the schools or out of their homes.
There was fairly strong applause as I finished and sat down.
Howie Schoor, the convener of the Executive Board then spoke against. He
repeated that the UFT couldn’t just stop the INS coming in, we had no
right to stop them, we couldn’t shut down the schools, because that
violates the Taylor Law and would lead to teachers getting fired and that
would be terrible.
The adult ed chapter leader sitting next to me (she’s rather naïve and
new), said to me, “hey I’d be willing to get fired for that, what’s wrong
with these people?” Even Michael Friedman, my own personal Unity hack
chapter leader came up to me later and said “Howie was wrong, that we
couldn’t get fired for violating the Taylor Law, just fined…..”)
The vote was taken, the delegates duly voted it down, having taken their
cue from Schoor’s diatribe. I looked toward the “opposition” section of
the hall and saw about 30 or so cards vote yes, not sure how many total in
the hall).
Mulgrew then said, well, he would tell us one thing, that “even ‘tho some
of the “resolves” weren’t do-able under any circumstances, probably a
violation of the Taylor Law,” that he had already told the DOE that “if you
try it there will arrests of teachers, that this is a decision every person
needs to make themselves, but I your UFT president will get arrested,”
because ‘I will not let kids to be dragged out of our schools.”
So it seems he wanted my motion to come up, in order to make his own
statement, without having to put anything down on paper. The implication
is for “civil disobedience,” of course, not workers’ mobilization.
Other points of note at the D.A.
· *Opt Out Campaign.* In the Q & A, a delegate asked whether we
could be penalized under ESSA if the students who “opt out” of high-stakes
testing went above 5 percent. (ESSA IS the new federal school’s program,
following “Race to the Top” (Obama/Duncan), which followed Bush’s “No Child
Left Behind.”
The answer from Mulgrew was yes, we the NYC schools could lose pot-loads of
money if that happened. This was a not-so-veiled barb at Jia Li and
Change the States that their Opt Out campaign was supposedly going to
“hurt” children if we lose the Title 1 Federal funds (the standard UFT
leadership response to why we have to obey Common Core or whatever national
mandate, because the funds will be withdrawn and kids won’t get their lunch
and so forth).
· *NY State Constitutional Convention* The UFT is campaigning big
time for a big “No” vote in November when the electorate will be asked to
vote on whether to have one. Apparently, the voters are asked to vote
every 20 years on whether to have one. If people vote yes, then every
piece of law in the NY State constitution can be up for a change. The
rightwing intends to use this method to outlaw collective bargaining,
impose right to work, take away pensions and many other item
- · *Argument in the Executive Board over the “Resolution Calling for
Respect for All ** People.”*
The MORE E-board members (they and New Action now have the high school
seats) were incensed about the machinations over this motion. The actual
motion is one of these blabbermouth, do-nothing resos about not having
anti-racist, anti-immigrant, anti-gay speech in the schools, noting the
upsurge in the current atmosphere.
The motion in question starts with two whereas-es: “”Whereas, the
presidential election campaign rhetoric targeted communities on the basis
of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identify and religion, and
displayed abusive behavior toward women, has threatened the nation’s
promise that all people are worthy of respect” and
“Whereas, the presidential election campaign rhetoric has outlined an
education agenda overtly hostile to public schools and teachers, promising
to prioritize vouchers and charter schools at the expense of public
schools”….
At the D.A., Peter Lamphere (ISO/MORE) put up an amendment to change
“Whereas, the presidential election campaign”…. To “Whereas, the Donald
Trump election…”
Peter said that was the initial wording of the motion in the E-board, and
that the leadership changed it behind their back to take out the Trump
wording.
This sparked furious responses from Staten Island delegates and LeRoy Barr
(secretary treasurer) about how a “lot of UFTers” voted for Trump and we
have to win them back to the right path, and we can’t be hostile and we
can’t insult them, yakety yak. I asked out loud to people around me, “A
lot of people?” Who? “ Delegates snapped back “Staten Island.”
So, the line from the AFT is that the union is NOT going to criticize the
Trump government , work with them where possible, go to court where not,
and dance around the issues; probably, fighting over school vouchers,
right-to-work, and trying to defend immigrant students (“within the
confines of the law,” as they say…).
So here you have both sides of reformism: The Weingarten-Mulgrew
bureaucracy doing the conciliation dance around Trump; and the MORE
social-democrats wanting an anti-Trump Democratic Party popular front.
Interestingly, MORE these days is focused on pressuring the bureaucracy to
implement this or that program. A lot of the more political people,
(new-leftists, mass action types) have retired recently (Gloria, Lisa
North, Keith Brooks, etc.), leaving the field to mainstream Democratic
Party types (Mindy Rossier) and even Republicans (Mike Schirzer).
· *C**oming January demonstrations*: Mulgrew said the UFT just
learned that the Trump people will forbid any demos around the Washington
Mall (we don’t know where they will be permitted). If people want to go
the Washington, the AFT will provide buses for whoever wants to go (MORE
is pushing for this). The UFT will probably demonstrate at the many demos
that will take place in NYC, but might go to DC, they were non-committal at
this point.
· Mulgrew ended the meeting, wishing everyone happy holidays and a
good rest because “when we come back, it is war.”
Attachment:
161214 CSEW motion deportations lflt.pdf
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Attachment:
161214 Reportback from UFT Delegate Assembly.docx
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