Appeasement

You hear a lot of talk about that word nowadays. The man on the left didn't much care for it. And some right-wing commentators will say we shouldn't elect Barack Obama because he'll practice it. But all Mr. Obama has suggested was that he'd talk with our problematic neighbors. Personally, I don't see how that could hurt anyone.

Appeasement is when you give things to the enemy. Like a good portion of Czechoslovakia.

Closer to home, UFT President Randi Weingarten gave up the right of working teachers to grieve letters in their files. She gave up the UFT transfer plan, which enabled teachers like me to escape crazy supervisors. She gave up the right of teachers in closing schools to work in open ones. She gave up three days a year, and thirty minutes a day. She gave up professional assignments and sentenced working teachers to lunchrooms, halls and potty patrols in perpetuity. She gave up five classes a day and now has UFT teachers doing a sixth class.

One of the responses I got when I commented on Edwize about the awful 2005 contract was on the lines of, "What will the tabloids say if we reject this contract?" Well, we didn't. And we now know what the tabloids say now that we've accepted it. Naturally, they praised it when it was signed. But about five minutes later they began vilifying us as though it had never happened, and they continue vilifying us on a fairly regular basis.

Have Ms. Weingarten and her minions learned anything from this? To their credit, they're hanging tough on the ATR issue for now. Will they continue to do so during the next round of contract negotiations? I certainly hope so. It's the right thing to do.

Unfortunately, doing the right thing does not always precisely suit the needs of the UFT patronage mill, which needs to go to conventions, collect second pensions, and re-invent itself with new Borg-like drones every now and then. Would that it were otherwise. Until it is, I'm afraid I'll have to put my trust elsewhere.