UFT President Randi Weingarten is getting ready to become AFT President. Among the many notable achievements that define Ms. Weingarten's legacy in NYC:
-disenfranchising working teachers to the point that fewer than 25% bother to vote in union elections
-3 extra days so teachers can listen to Klein's flunkies pontificate while kids stay home
-fewer transfer options for experienced teachers
-a sixth 37.5 minute class of "small group instruction" 4x weekly (which the UFT maintains is not a class, while Chancellor Klein maintains we now have small classes in the city)
-no right to grieve letters in your file
-return to lunch duty, hall patrol, homeroom, potty patrol et al on a permanent basis
-UFT silence on the mayoral election as quid pro quo for the worst contract in our history
-bribing New Action, the former opposition party, with patronage jobs so they'd support her
-failure to oppose reorganizations that hurt chances of teachers being placed in regular jobs, thus sentencing many ATR teachers to permanent substitute status
-enthusiastic support of nebulous class size regulations that achieved nothing
-repeated failure to amend the UFT contract, the only instrument that legally restricts class size, to really reduce it
-partnership with Green Dot Schools, which specifically reject tenure and seniority rights for teachers
-UFT support of mayoral control
-achieving the admiration of Rod "The NEA is a terrorist organization" Paige, as well as that of various anti-teacher, anti-union editorial boards
-accomplishing all of the above without bothering to achieve even cost of living increases for rank and file
I've no doubt Ms. Weingarten can continue to build upon her remarkable record on a national level. It may prove marginally interesting to watch her and others posture as though she has not already been assigned the job.
Then again, it may not.
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