Justice League and UFT Unity

Last night I watched Justice League with my young nephew. I spent my misbegotten youth reading comic books, so I love superhero movies. There've been some great ones lately--Wonder Woman and Black Panther. There've also been some really awful ones. Batman vs. Superman was abysmal, except for the five minutes when Wonder Woman showed up.

Justice League is really not very good. It tries to tell too many stories and introduce too many characters, and doesn't develop any of the new ones sufficiently. Superman returns from the dead and still has no evident personality. If we're gonna have an overweight Batman, it should probably be Kevin Smith instead of Ben Affleck. At least he'd be interesting to listen to. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman is great, and the director often showed her face for no apparent reason, just so you could say, "Look, there's Wonder Woman."

Nonetheless, as a UFT member, I was struck by the bad guy with the big horns. I don't remember if he had a name, but his goal was to put together three boxes of some kind of power and therefore create Unity. (Evidently no one had advised him that Al Shanker did that years ago.) Not only that, but he had an army of flying monkey/ insect creatures to support him. These creatures bled green slime when wounded, and there was more than one scene of superheroes being slimed by them upon their demise.

The thing about the flying monkeys was that they had no loyalty. They may or may not have signed loyalty oaths, but once they smelled fear on the guy with the big horns, they were ready to turn on him with no hesitation. This is problematic. I mean, think about all those people in Unity whose job it is to sit around and write lies about people like me. How many of them does it take to create a handout at the DA saying people who don't tow the party line are disloyal? If you can write lies about us, you can pretty much write lies about anyone. That's just one reason not to depend on people who lie.

In a union, who or what merits your loyalty? If you're part of the Unity Caucus, you've signed an oath to support whatever positions the caucus supports. This opens up a world of free trips and patronage gigs. You might find yourself working after school giving advice on pensions of something. If you hit the jackpot, you might find yourself with a full time job in some office or other. You'd hope this would be by merit, but the primary qualification is signing away your opinions to the Unity Caucus.

If you do that, you agree to support Common Core. You agree to support junk science evaluation. You agree to support the Danielson Rubric and oppose any reduction in observations until and unless UFT leadership does the same. In fact, despite vocal protests from a Unity Caucus member at the last Executive Board meeting, you agree to support the ATR. This is required, because it was part of the 2005 Contract, and you supported that too. So when you get up there and complain when we demand elected representation for the ATR we're supporting the ATR, you're being disingenuous. It wasn't us who supported it--it was you. You probably don't know that, because the likelihood of this coming up at Unity get-togethers hovers around nil.

Now here's the thing--should the gravy train slow down, and should the budget call for fewer flying monkeys, someone's gotta go. Will they turn on leadership? Probably not. That would require independent thought, and that's something you need to suppress or avoid if you're gonna support punching the faces of anyone who opposes Common Core. Nonetheless, the problem is people who don't think things through suffer from lack of vision.

It doesn't really matter whether you have no vision or have chosen to consciously shut it down. Regardless, you're just along for the ride and you aren't a leader. Thus you get people in positions of authority who observe Barack Obama pursuing the most anti-teacher agenda in history and they say, "Hey, let's unconditionally support this guy." You get people who look at Hillary Clinton's unwillingness to embrace universal health care, a living wage or affordable college. They decide, "Hey, let's support her way ahead of time. That guy Sanders is a wild-eyed fanatic, what with his crazy ideas about universal health care, a living wage, and affordable college."

When Clinton stands in front of the  AFT in Minnesota and declares we can learn a lot from public charter schools, whatever the hell they may be, these folks applaud. They lecture you online and to your face that you're crazy to support Sanders. "Remember McGovern in 72?" they ask. Yet even now, none of them are asking, "Remember Clinton in 2016?"

You can love America without loving Trump. You can love the union without loving Mulgrew. You now face a turning point, though. Do you give up on America altogether? Aren't you part of it, and if Donald Trump is President, isn't that partially your fault? If you don't love UFT leadership, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to quit the union and say screw everyone else, I'm keeping my 1400 bucks? That'll certainly weaken union, us, and make the Koch Brothers happy with a job well done.

Of course, if I were running the union, I'd want to reach out to rank and file. I'd want to show them that I'm listening. Instead, we get the same old imperious nonsense, sitting up on their 14th floor Mount Olympus looking down upon us as though their omniscience were beyond question. High schools? They voted the wrong way. Screw high schools. The ATR? They're lucky to have a job. Screw the ATR. Class sizes? We negotiated them 50 years ago and that should be good enough for anyone.

I believe in union. I will work to maintain it. But this isn't a one-way street. UFT Unity owes us their ear. While they may be totally unfamiliar with this concept, it's their job to represent us, not to do any damn thing they feel like and send flying monkeys out to tell us why they are right and we are wrong. UFT leadership has woken up to the fact that, due to their utter failure (among others) to mobilize the electorate, we are in crisis.

But they've still failed to take even baby steps toward doing what their prime directive ought to be--listening to their members. If I were them, I'd be taking serious stock of how to do that. Otherwise teachers will have to wait for members to rise up on their own a la West Virginia or Oklahoma. Given the culture of complacency that has three of four UFT members failing to even vote in union elections, that could take years, decades, or centuries.

We haven't got that kind of time anymore.

E4E Sets Agenda at UFT Delegate Assembly--Screw Class Size, Ignore Poverty, and Hope for the Best

There are few things that upset me more than the pernicious influence of Bill Gates. Gates is why we have junk science as a regular part of our evaluation. Gates is why we moved toward small schools, which even he now admits was a bad idea. Gates is why the entire evaluation system was scrapped and why it's repainted and refurbished every year or two.

Of course leadership doesn't see this quite so clearly, and that's how Gates became a keynote speaker at an AFT Convention. Randi Weingarten seemed to embolden the troops as they ridiculed teachers who protested him. The Gates offshoot in the UFT is called Educators 4 Excellence, and it's run by a couple of newbies who gave up teaching almost immediately after forming it to do whatever it is they do on the Gates dime. If you want to know more about them, read Chalkbeat. E4E is their go to for quotes from teachers, or in the case of their leadership, ex-teachers.

Leadership got together with an E4E member and whipped up a resolution about incorporating innovative reactions to discipline as opposed to suspension. You see, a lot of people of color are suspended. A lot of homeless students are suspended. And in typical Gates fashion, we turn away from the root cause of of school issues, poverty.  Gates deems it too complicated to bother with, and focuses on school issues instead. Last night, we followed his lead and did the same. The fact that Gates has never done anything that actually worked is neither here nor there.

I'm all for using whatever works to solve issues. But the resolution we passed last night continues our longstanding policy of ignoring the issues and playing along with the reformies. This policy is precisely why teacher morale is so very abysmal. You don't really see that if you're spending all your time sitting around 52 Broadway.

I'm not E4E, and I wouldn't be in a million years. I'm merely one of half a dozen people elected by the high schools to represent them. Leadership's attitude toward the high schools, essentially, is go screw yourselves. I'm not particularly sure how they expect that to win members come Janus. For example, an issue near and dear to my heart is class size. While we alone can't address poverty, we could improve learning conditions for those who suffer from it. In stark contrast with the outlandish ideas Bill Gates pulls out of his wealthy ass, we know that more attention from teachers can actually help children.

I brought this up months ago. Howard Schoor said they'd be happy to meet with us. Despite reaching out multiple times, they were never happy enough to actually do it. A few weeks ago, at the Executive Board, we decided the hell with it and put up our resolution. We proposed that we push to follow the C4E law mandating smaller classes, as opposed to placing numbers in the contract.

UFT Unity chose to strike down the clauses in our class size resolution that focused on class size. The guy they sent up to propose the changes didn't appear to even understand what he was reading. They then voted, lockstep as always, as per loyalty oath, to remove those clauses. Why bother with voting your conscience, if you have one, or repping the members, as though they matter, when there are gigs to be had and conventions to attend?

Mulgrew was in a huge hurry to get through 7 resolutions in 20 minutes, and that's probably why he didn't even give me enough time to stand up when he was looking to debate the anti-suspension resolution. After I walked, they may have done the class size resolution. This one was last on the list, I believe. I'm not sure whether or not they considered it the least important, but I certainly did. Toothless as it was, it made no difference whatsoever. Maybe I'm going about things the wrong way. My approach was to run in a David and Goliath election for a seat I thought we had a shot at winning. When we won, I thought we'd be able to make a change.

One thing we do is stick member issues in their faces a few times each month. It's quite clear to me that Unity would sit around and do nothing but rubber stamp the leadership if we weren't there. Nonetheless, maybe running in democratic elections isn't the way to go if you want to influence leadership. Maybe, instead of fighting for rank and file teachers, we should just join E4E. Evidently, that's who leadership listens to these days.

Your Door Knockers at Work

There's an interesting piece in The Chief ($) about reaching out "in building unity," and judging from this photo, it's pretty easy to see why. Note that the young woman in the photo is wearing a Unity Caucus t-shirt and appears to be in a UFT hall.

Now I'm not a fashion consultant, but I have to say that it's pretty inappropriate for anyone to knock on doors wearing a shirt like that. I'm not remotely sure that was the case, but she is clearly sending a message to Chief readers.

It is, however, a pretty good representation of union leadership, whether she intended it or not. The UFT is run by the Unity Caucus and has been since its inception. It's actually not something they widely broadcast. I barely knew it existed until 2005, when I started taking a much closer look at UFT politics. Until then they existed only as a name on a ballot that turned up every two or three years.

Unity Caucus is an elite, invitation-only caucus, a veritable gravy train of perks and gigs for those who sign up. As I write frequently, it requires its members to sign a loyalty oath. It basically says you may disagree within the caucus, but in public you must fall in line with all caucus positions. This can be frustrating, especially if you sit on the Executive Board every two weeks determined to speak what you see, as opposed to what you're told. There are seven of us in the opposition. You can recognize us because we're the ones asking questions. We're the ones bringing resolutions demanding things like, oh, following the C4E law to reduce class sizes, or giving ATR members a meaningful vote.

At the Executive Board, I watch dozens of people sit around, saying and doing nothing until and unless they're instructed otherwise. These are the people, hand-picked by leadership to represent your interests. The only problem is they aren't actually permitted to do that. In fact, they've signed a specific document pretty much promising to tow the line whether or not it serves your interests. Make no mistake, this holds us back.

Sometimes I feel the only thing I really own is my voice. I can't and won't sign an oath to give it up. That this is the price of what they call activism speaks volumes as to what our problem is. I'd actually love to work with and support the union. Sometimes I get called to do that, but not all that frequently. It's too bad we can't work that out. It kind of breaks my heart to see people whose only redeeming quality to the union is the ability to sit down and shut up. This is about the least useful quality an activist can have. But if you want to entertain working for UFT, it's the only one that matters.

We're now facing an existential threat. The reaction of leadership is the same as it ever was. Pay flunkies to work around the office, doing something or other, and continue to erect brick walls to keep the activists the hell out. That's an ass-backward approach. You are either a leader or a follower. UFT policy is to actively discourage leadership. That's bad organization, and it's also bad teaching.

I go to work each and every day and try to draw out the voices of my students. Given that they don't speak much or any English, that's not precisely a walk in the park. Sometimes I have to pry it out of them. Sometimes I feel like I'm a dentist with a pair of pliers trying to extract a recalcitrant tooth. Sometimes I feel like I'm holding them by their knees and shaking them up and down until something falls out. I never stop trying though.

UFT Unity seems to go about things differently. It's like they are emulating Michelle Rhee and taping their student's mouths shut. After all, if they're open, who knows what could come out of those things? Sadly, come Janus, listening to rank and file will become essential if we are to survive. Sadder still, leadership has almost no experience doing this, and as far as I can tell, little to no inclination to start.

It's gonna be a long and interesting year.

If You're Not With Us, You're Against Us

I don't know how to put that more delicately. I really have to wonder about people who won't pay into union. As soon as Janus passes, I'll be supporting them. I'll be paying for their representation. I'll be paying for negotiations on their behalf. I'll be paying for any salary increase or benefit that's negotiated for them.

I read comments from people who won't pay. They say Mulgrew sucks. He did this, he didn't do that. Or Unity sucks. Or whatever. I've had this blog up for 13 years now, and I've done my fair share of complaining about leadership. But I've also taken action. For nine years I've been chapter leader of the largest school in Queens. I've run against the Unity Caucus in both state and city elections, and a few years ago I actually won a place in the UFT Executive Board. It was a minor miracle, but high school teachers have often voted against the machine. That's why Unity rigged the election so we could no longer select our own Vice-President.

It's often frustrating to work in a situation in which you're hugely outnumbered. You bring up a resolution and 95 people are vehemently against it. They explain why and it makes no sense at all. One of the people we ran with for Executive Board got frustrated after his second meeting and stopped coming. I can understand why someone might feel that way. I can also understand anger at the leadership, particularly from woefully mistreated people in the ATR.

But still, no matter what leadership does, no matter what they fail to do, it's on us. We voted for them, sort of, when three out of four of us failed to vote at all. If we are so apathetic that we can't drop a ballot in a mailbox, we have little right to complain. Leadership plays a role in that too. While it's nice to see them reaching out, organizing in schools, and sending people to homes, it's disconcerting to think this is the first time in my 30-plus year career they've bothered to do so.

It's a pretty rude awakening to go from expecting all to pay to having to reach out. Leadership still surrounds itself with loyalty oath signers and that alone keeps them isolated. They hire idiots to represent us and promote them for no reason other than loyalty. Sometimes loyalty oath signers comment on this site. They say the stupidest things and I'll read a few months later they've been promoted. Maybe one of them is your district rep. and you have all my sympathy.

But still, it's our union. It's on us to work to change it. It's a delicate balance. I wouldn't bother to do this work if I thought it had no value. When principals pull crazy nonsense, or harass and abuse people because some moron at "legal" said it was a good idea, someone has to fight. The only people who can do that are you and me.

I'm up for it. If you don't pay, you aren't. And I'm really torn about what to do when people I represent don't pay. Right now when people get in trouble, I try to find out how and why it happened. I ask questions. I scour the contract to find violations. I asked a UFT official if I would have to represent non-members and I was told yes, I would.

I send out a weekly email to my members. I have an email address I devote to union business. When members contact me, I respond. Sometimes I know answers right away. Sometimes I can find answers on the UFT website. Sometimes I ask my district rep. Sometimes I go to contacts both in and out of leadership. But I can usually answer questions pretty quickly, one way or another.

A former chapter leader of mine had a different approach. If you asked him a question, he'd say, "Put a letter in my box." I used to do just that, but one day he told me that 80% of members didn't bother. That's a good way to cut down your workload, but if that's your goal, why did you take the job in the first place?

I'm not sure what to do about people who don't pay. I guess I could get really enthusiastic and show them how dedicated I am. On the other hand, I could drop them all from my email list and tell them to put a letter in my box when they have problems. I could move them from my "right away" files to my "when and if I get around to it" files.

I guess I have to go to discipline hearings them when they get in trouble. But it's hard for me to keep up with my reading. Maybe I could bring a mystery novel with me and read it while the principal does whatever. Maybe I'll forget about all those rules the principal has to follow when he puts a letter in your file. Maybe I won't hear those details because Miss Marple was making a crucial deduction when they came up. Who knows?

Is it ethical to do that? I don't know for sure, but it's hard for me to imagine feeling very bad about it. Is it ethical to withhold dues?

Absolutely not.

The Right to Freeload

 Like everyone, I'm all excited that I get to continue to deduct 250 bucks for school supplies. Boy, those GOP politicians may not be the bottom-feeding slugs everyone seems to think they are. On the other hand, we can't deduct union dues anymore, and at $1400 a year, that wipes out what I save from deducting school supplies several times over.

Make no mistake, Janus is all about the right to freeload, a right the GOP seems to think was carried down from Mt. Sinai along with the Ten Commandments. Even now, I have no respect whatsoever for anyone who wants to benefit from my paying union dues while he or she keeps the money and buys a new Whatever at Walmart.

Janus means collective bargaining is a political act, and if I believe in more work for less pay, I don't need no stinking unions gumming up the works. Of course I'll take whatever the union negotiates. Maybe I'll donate it to the More Work for Less Pay Institute, but more likely I'll buy a big screen TV, or a new iPhone, or something else made by veritable slave labor in China, which I evidently not only support, but also wish I were part of.

By this logic, I shouldn't have to pay taxes. I'm hard pressed to think of anything Donald Trump does that I support. I don't support his playing golf every weekend on my dime. I don't support his profiting from it. I don't support the tax bill. I don't support making it harder for defrauded students to have loans forgiven. I don't support the wall. I don't support coal companies pouring poison into streams. I don't support the destruction of labor union.  I could go on.

But Trump and the GOP are about pulling the beating heart out of things Trump doesn't support, like working Americans. I mean, as long as you're working to take millions of people off of health care, why not also make it difficult to impossible for them to organize in jobs that actually may provide it? Why not take away the dues deduction so as to further discourage even more people?

And if that isn't perplexing enough, I don't really support my union leadership either. They're profoundly undemocratic. They've rigged the elections so high schools get no voice in the AdCom that makes all the big decisions in the union. Even before they did that, high schools had no voice or vote in NYSUT or AFT. We now continue that grand tradition with no voice or vote in NEA either. It's a great honor to pay the same rate as everyone else, though.

Theoretically, the Delegate Assembly is the highest body, the Executive Board supports the DA, and AdCom supports the Executive Board. In our system, though, most voting members of the DA have signed a loyalty oath to support AdCom rather than rank and file.  The very first question I heard when our current substandard contract was being sold at the DA was, "Gee, Mike, what happens if we don't approve this contract?"

You see, if the contract were not such a stinker, there'd be no need to even ask such a question. The delegate I was with, a soft-spoken young woman, turned to me and said, "Arthur, an elementary school student could see how unfair this is." And there was the answer, a blatant appeal to fear, that we'll have to get in line behind 160 other unions and that retro was not a God-given right. Of course, as Howard Schoor reminds the Executive Board at meetings, it isn't actually retro. That's because anyone who resigned, was fired, or died (!) doesn't get the money they earned back in 2010. Too bad for them. After all, all they did was work for it.

And now leadership comes to me and demands that I put together a Janus committee, to get people to pay dues. Meanwhile, I'm an elected member of the UFT Executive Board, and when I remind them of the fact they vote as a bloc and shut us out, they call a point of order and don't even let me speak.

I will form a committee. But we will be discussing more than just Janus.

A Modest Proposal

Yesterday I gave some thought to leadership's request that I organize a committee to persuade people to continue being duespayers. UFT leadership has asked me to select three people to run this committee. I thought of two, and I approached the person I deemed best to lead. The first question she asked me (and I swear I did nothing to provoke it) was, "Why don't we have our own union?"

I was pretty shocked. I blog all sorts of things but send out a newsletter that's a lot more tame. I try not to directly address union politics, though I guess my coverage of the Executive Board meetings, which I  share, reflects things like Unity curtailing our few privileges and making sure I don't get to speak. It's a good question. I think I picked a smart leader. Sadly for Unity, smart leaders think things through.

When you consider the fact that the person we chose as High School Vice President, James Eterno, is off, you know, teaching and stuff, it kind of grates on you. If you consider that not a single person we chose has voice or vote on NYSUT, NEA, nor AFT, it grates a step further. So our conversation didn't get too far. Back on topic, she said she was uncomfortable speaking in front of crowds, and I told her I'd happily help with that. She said she was better one to one, and that was pretty much what this job was going to entail anyway.

Then we came back to the elementary school teachers, the middle school teachers, the nurses and the retirees not only making decisions for us, but most definitely making decisions we did not. What the hell is up with that? How do you rationalize shutting 19,000 members out of decision making? The only answer I can come up with is that Michael Shulman went and won High School VP back in the eighties. I guess that makes it his fault. If only he'd have had the foresight to lose, Unity wouldn't have unilaterally taken our vote and choice away from us (for our own good of course).

Sure, that's bend over sideways and backward logic, but it's better than the real answer, which is that high school teachers exercise free choice and leadership cannot tolerate any dissent or debate whatsoever. They want it, they want it all, and they want it now. Anyone who disagrees can sit down and shut up, and they're prepared to rig the election if necessary to ensure that result. In fact, they've already rigged the election and that's why we have no representation on bodies to which we pay dues.

One UFT employee told me he was sorry I felt we had no representation. I'm sorry he felt I felt it, because it's simply the way things are.

Maybe dues should be proportionate. For example, elementary teachers have 100% of their chosen representation, so they should pay 100%. I don't remember how many names were on the ballot, but I do know I put an X next to MORE/ New Action. Let's be conservative and say there were 100 names. We got seven of our choices. Therefore, high school teachers should pay 7% of dues. Let's be generous and round it off to ten.

That means we should be paying $140 a year. That's maybe six bucks a paycheck. The other $1260 per member we could devote toward promoting our interests. We could pay people to negotiate separately for us. We could try to negotiate, for example, reasonable class sizes as per the C4E lawsuit. We could negotiate fewer observations for teachers who do well with two. We could take strong stands against abusive administrators, even though they're union members. All of those things are opposed by Unity, and that's a good part of why we voted against them.

We could start our own paper, New York High School Teacher, and cover stuff that our elected leaders do, as opposed to the ones the retirees chose on our behalf. And if patronage job holding, loyalty oath signing Unity picks told our reps at the Executive Board to sit down and shut up, it wouldn't matter. They wouldn't be making our decisions for us anymore.

What's the issue with that?

UFT Executive Board Takeaway December 4th, 2017

Executive Board meetings are getting more interesting, though I'd hesitate to call that a good thing. First of all, Unity is clearly hijacking the questions period to spread the word about how wonderful they are. Predictably, they're not doing a great job.

Full disclosure--I know and like Carlos, the first speaker. Alas, he was far from persuasive about PD. PD is what you make it, and the experience I've had with it is that it's 99% a waste of time. I have heard others sing the praises of useful PD, and I'm all for it if it can be delivered. But theory and practice are two different things.Until and unless you're part of great PD sessions, no speaker on this earth will persuade you it's worthwhile.

There's also the issue of CTLE, which means many educators will recoil at PD regardless of the quality. When the geniuses in Albany declare the PD has to be accredited or you'll forfeit your teaching credential, it's hard to sit and focus on how useful something is. You're thinking, "Holy crap, I  need a hundred hours in five years or I'm gonna be working at Walmart." If you don't meet that challenge it won't matter how good PD is.

The next speaker was a better story, but it was brought by a district rep who could easily have done so during reports from districts. Disgraceful though it is for Unity to hijack the very little time allotted for lowly members, it was inspiring to see a paraprofessional bold enough to take the position of chapter leader. It was great that they were able to fight back an abusive principal who wanted to dump her for doing the job.

We then went to questions. Mike Schirtzer got up and spoke of class sizes. The ones in his school were "equalized" only days ago, in December. (For those unfamiliar with the term, equalize does not actually mean we make class sizes equal. It means only that we come into compliance. So while you have 34 students, another teacher could easily have 25.) He said that students were crying when they found their programs changed so late in the term. The fact is we give them ten days to come into compliance. Many principals can't be bothered, waiting until the day of arbitration to fix things. I once sat at the arbitration until 5:00 while my administration worked on the program.

I've been writing and thinking about the Committee of 300. I had a question about it, involving several factors. One, of course, is the observation process that makes members crazy, which I'd like to see addressed. I brought a resolution about it to this committee and they took it down with blatant strawman arguments. Every single person in the room, aside from the high school reps, went along with this logical fallacy. I wanted to know why I should suppose that the committee of 300 would be run any more democratically or reasonably than the Executive Board. I wanted to know why we could not make robust public demands like PSC was doing.

I was in for a surprise. I kind of expect them to give a flimsy response, or no response at all. But this time, in a flagrant display of anti-democracy, they did not even allow me to speak. They're deeply offended when you refer to the fact that every single one of them votes alike. That's because it directly implies they've signed a loyalty oath and would support a piece of cellophane-wrapped processed American cheese for President of the United States if anyone on the dais instructed them to.

Given that I wasn't allowed even to speak, they managed to answer my question much more thoroughly than they generally do. The Committee of 300 is a sham, designed to persuade members that there is democracy involved in contract negotiations. There will be no representative democracy, however. Leadership will do any damn thing they please, and there will be 290 rubber stamps doing whatever they're told to do. There will be some token voices of opposition but they will be outvoted, shut out, shut down, shut up or all of the above. The top down mandate is alive and well in the United Federation of Teachers and, facing Janus, leadership revels in it.

Another factor in this I can't help considering is how out of touch they are with working teachers. I teach every day, and every day I have to deal with difficulties in my classes. The whole, "sit down and shut up" thing is about the last I'd consider. I try to get kids to work within the framework of the class, to find something they can do. If I ran my classroom the way leadership runs the Executive Board, it would be chaos. (Of course, I haven't got the luxury of making 95% of my audience sign a loyalty oath to support me no matter what.) 

Mulgrew appeared for five minutes and gave us a pretty gloomy view of the contract, saying DC37 was eagerly negotiating and asking for very little. At least it isn't us this time imposing a crap pattern on the entire city. It was certainly us last time, and as far as I can determine, the pattern we imposed, 10% over 7 years, is the lowest ever. However, if DC37 imposes a crap pattern on all of us they can put a thousand people on the 300-member committee and it won't make a golly goshdarn's worth of difference.

UFT Unity thinks they are the beginning, the end, and the total package. They have hundreds of patronage employees ready to nod, pat them on the back and tell them what a great job they're doing no matter what. In the era of Janus, by steadfastly refusing even to hear member concerns, they are doing favors to no one, themselves included. 

Compare and Contrast

I may have mentioned somewhere on this space that I am a member of the UF of T. That's the NYC city teacher union. From time to time, I may have a question or two about leadership, and I occasionally post said questions on this space. The other day I pointed to a union that actually made demands, and went on to point out how different that was from the UFT approach.

A fellow UFT member sent me a letter from PSC President Barbara Bowen, and it appears that she, right here in New York City, has taken a similar approach. This is an excerpt:

Dear Members, Earlier today I sent a formal request to Bill Thompson, Chairperson of the CUNY Board of Trustees, to begin negotiations for a new contract.  The letter calls on the CUNY Board to settle a contract with a 5% raise in each year; additional salary increases for those who are lowest-paid; an increase to $7,000 per course for adjuncts; improved job security; material support for department chairs; and improved working conditions for all. The letter also reminds the Board that we will not tolerate excessive delays in this round of bargaining. Now it’s up to you to show how serious you are about winning these demands. Make a commitment right now to be part of the PSC demonstration outside the next Board of Trustees meeting, on Monday, December 4 (download a flier). We need to start strong\

The letter goes on, but I'm sure it's evident to you that Ms. Bowen is asking for something--to wit, annual raises of 5%, and additional raises for lower paid workers. This is a stark contrast to the UFT policy of not asking for anything, at least as far as we know. It kind of makes me wonder whether the UFT policy of making no public demands whatsoever is the best we can do.

Let's look back a little. In 2014, we publicly asked for nothing. While we did ultimately get more than nothing, we managed to establish the lowest pattern bargain ever--10% over 7 years. You can argue that we got retro payment, though Howard Schoor at Executive Board insists it isn't. He calls it "lump sum payment." The reason, I suppose, is because a retro payment would be payable to everyone. This particular payment is unavailable to members who resign, are fired, or die. In fact this was a great bargain to the city.

While it's great that we get the money, a lot of people get left out. I'm thinking of all of the above, plus an adult ed. teacher I spent some time with. She was recently fired by a superintendent who appears to be less than reasonable. How is it fair that she worked all those years and will now be left out of money she seems to have earned? That's why, I guess, it's a lump sum payment, and not retro, even though it's based on salary and time worked.

In any case, there appear to be two ways of bargaining. You make demands, like the city does, like PSC does, or like the communication workers do. Alternatively, you create a 300-member committee, discuss things only within that committee, tell absolutely no one outside of it what you asked for, and hope for the best. That's the tried and true approach. And hey, maybe a year or two after the contract is signed, you'll learn that UFT asked for something you didn't know about. For example, Mulgrew told the DA, last year I think, that UFT had asked for a minimum of 2 observations as per NY state law. I was pretty surprised by that. After all, it was already two years after the contract was signed.

Oddly, despite Mulgrew's claim, which I happen to believe, and despite the fact that UFT originally asked for fewer observations when we allowed Reformy John King to arbitrate for us (one of the worst decisions in my living memory), many Unity supporters passionately defended excessive observation. Fortunately for them, UFT members won't find out our demands, if at all, until and unless Mulgrew blurts them out at some future DA.

Will UFT demand anything you or I want? Who knows? It's an open question. PSC knows what their leadership is asking for. If they don't get it, at least they'll know leadership tried. Generally, negotiation is one side asking for more, the other offering less, and meeting somewhere in the middle. It boggles my mind that UFT leadership finds it unacceptable to let membership know its demands. It boggles my mind that said demands are supposed to come from a 300-member committee dominated by people who've signed loyalty oaths to do whatever Unity Caucus instructs them to.

This is not remotely democratic, and when Janus comes down the road it's gonna be a tough sell. "We will decide what's best for you, we won't tell you what it is, and we will negotiate a Contract based on information we didn't and won't share with you." Maybe leadership thinks people will jump all over themselves to pay $1400 a year for that service.

I don't share that particular optimism. There's still time to correct it.

The UFT Committee of 300

Someone told me yesterday that, as a member of the Executive Board, I am automatically on the Committee of 300, tasked with the negotiation of the UFT Contract. I'm torn between being honored, confused, or confounded.

It's nice to earn a place in such an important decision-making body. But then, I've been observing UFT leadership for around 12 years, and democracy is not their particular strong suit. It's great that they include opposition voices in something as fundamental as contract negotiations, but will they really listen? Do they even have to?

On the Executive Board I watch them vote in lockstep. The voice comes from on high, or more accurately from one of the microphones, and they instantly oppose dumping the evaluation system. It doesn't matter if they all supported dumping it at NYSUT. They instantly oppose reducing the minimum number of observations to 2, as per state law. They instantly oppose placing teeth in the class size regulations. After all, there's a committee, so all these violations must not even be happening.

It's nice to form committees, but it's no substitute for, you know, doing stuff. I'm not personally persuaded that the 300-member committee makes the decisions. Let's say, for example, that 200 of the 300 members are from Unity, and have all signed loyalty oaths. What are the chances the other 100 of us could persuade them? Let's say there are 250 of them and 50 of us. Let's give a more accurate estimate of 290 to 10. How do you think the vote's gonna go?

Let's say I'm on that committee with my fellow high school Exec. Board members, and leadership proposes More Work for Less Pay. The upside is we will win public support. People are sick of seeing prosperous schoolteachers riding around in their 89 Hondas, and once they see us working extra time for less money they will rally to our cause. Here's the thing--the media hates us and everything we stand for. They'll call it a cynical publicity stunt. Best case scenario--the Post will praise it for a week, then go back to vilifying us. That's what happened in 05.

And we'll argue precedent. But what difference will that make? The call will go out to support the More Work for Less Pay contract. If we don't sign it we'll have to get behind 160 other unions and wait. The cupboard is bare. There is no God-given right to More Work for Less Pay. If we don't accept this it could be terrible.

Meanwhile, we're sitting on the committee. We aren't allowed to reveal that we're discussing More Work for Less Pay. Then, when it comes out, they say, "We discussed this with the Committee of 300. We voted on it. The Committee contained members of the opposition and overwhelmingly favored More Work for Less Pay. After all, it's the best we could do. The mayor demanded even More Work for even Less Pay, but we stood firm. That's the kind of guys we turned out to be."

I'm not sure about the whole Committee thing. If I can't reveal what happened, and if I could be characterized as having supported the More Work for Less Pay Contract, it seems kind of pointless.  On the other hand, turning it down would be rejecting a chance to vote. I tend to vote every chance I get.

What would you do if you were me?

Getting Out of the Classroom

I've been giving a lot of thought to that concept of late. Norm Scott was on fire at the generally staid Executive Board meeting last night, and excoriated crazy administrators, of which there are many. How many times have you gotten bad advice from administrators? I sit in meetings with them all the time, and I get a very good picture of who's on the ball and who isn't.

Once I sat for forty minutes while an administrator lectured a teacher on the virtues of formative assessment. In short, this entailed equipping students with cards of red and green. When the students understood, they'd hold up green cards, When they didn't, they'd hold up red cards. I honestly couldn't see why this method was any better than asking, "Does everyone understand?" Kids nod, you move on and hope for the best, and who knows what's really happening? But hey, use the cards and you're highly effective. Don't, and you suck.

Anyone who harbors an ambition to get out of the classroom ought not to be a teacher. The best administrators I know love being in the classroom. They're thrilled to work with kids and want to do so more often. These are inspirational leaders, and these are people to whom you pay attention. Alas, they're not the only ones around here doing this job.

There are the others, the ones who don't want to do this job but have it anyway. They're the ones who hear about some outlandish thing like the cards and determine it's the only way to teach. And indeed, it may be the only way they know. After all, the classroom was such a terrible place they had to get out. How do you think people like that feel about skilled teachers who do the job? How do they feel about imaginative individuals who create classes they couldn't?

Norm spoke of communities rising up at CPE 1 and Townsend Harris. This was what removed two principals who never should have had the job. There are plenty of communities that don't rise up as well. I thought it was foolish when Howard Schoor gave all the credit to Michael Mulgrew for improvements at CPE 1. If I were Mulgrew, I wouldn't want that credit, because with it comes all the blame for all the vindictive and crazy principals still sitting at their jobs.

In fact, a whole lot of UFT employees have gotten out of the classroom. Eight days ago I listened to a bunch of people who never taught under this system tell us how wonderful it was. They say they're in schools, but who knows what that means? Do they visit the Unity chapter leaders to find that yes, this is still the best of all possible worlds? Do they ask the ones to whom they've given patronage gigs how good the system they negotiated is?

Whatever they hear is not remotely what I hear. At our UFT meeting today, teachers wondered why leadership didn't endorse our initiative to reduce minimum to two, as per state law. Further observation could be reserved for teachers needing more support, or better ratings. I don't buy the argument that it's difficult to fabricate multiple observations. Liars are fairly consistent. Once people break my trust, I expect them to lie all the time.

We had a chance to have a leader who was in the classroom under Danielson. In fact, the high school teachers chose James Eterno as Vice President. Because Unity cannot tolerate dissenting points of view, because they know what's good for us, and because they know everything, they rigged the system so as to disenfranchise high school teachers. And rather than work with us, they sneer and go on doing What They've Always Done, because it's the only thing they know how to do.

That's pathetic. If you can't figure out how to work with anyone who hasn't signed a loyalty oath to never question you, you have no business being a teacher, let alone a union leader.

With Janus on the horizon, that's where we stand. I hope some Unity leader knocks on my door, but I'm not holding my breath. It's for lowly teachers to do the work of perpetuating the Unity machine in the name of preserving the union.

I believe in union. I don't believe in leadership that sneaks around behind my back for no good reason. I don't believe in paying dues to NYSUT and AFT but having no representation. I'm particularly upset at my 20,000 high school brothers and sisters being shut out of the leadership of our own union.

What does leadership say to that? Who knows? The silence is deafening.

If APPR Is So Great, Why Do People Want Out?

Last week at Executive Board, UFT leadership told us that the APPR system was the best thing since sliced bread and that everyone loved it. The proof, they said, was that there were so few ineffective ratings this year.

This is kind of like the argument that the Open Market system is better than the UFT Transfer system, the one that got me out of John Adams before all the Adams teachers had to reapply for their jobs. (If I recall correctly, most didn't bother.) Because more people transfer, it's better. Too bad you're an ATR with no chance of ever getting a job again, but those are the breaks.

At my school, when we opened, a few teachers were a little upset. They each taught one class and then accompanied their students to various worksites. For the last few years they'd been rated via S and U, but this year they were told they were under Advance, Danielson, and all the wonderful baggage that accompanies it. Despite what leadership told us, they did not get up and do the happy dance.

In fact, they asked me if I could get them back on the old system. Now why would anyone do such a thing if the new one is so cool and fantastic? But they did. Last I heard, their request was sitting on a Very Important Desk at 52 Broadway, and they haven't gotten an answer back. So I don't know. Maybe they're right.

There have also been several people with .6 comp-time jobs asking me about this. My understanding is if 40% of your teaching day is spent, you know, teaching, that you fall under Advance. So if you teach 2 or more periods, there you are. This is what people at UFT tell me too. Of course, I can't blame people for trying.

There are some things that District Reps and UFT employees don't get. The first thing they don't get is that leadership can be wrong. There's a famous quote from Upton Sinclair:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!

That applies here. The best way to get ahead in the UFT, as far as I can see, is to sign a loyalty oath and swear utter fealty to leadership. Various UFT employees have explained to me that the loyalty oath is not a loyalty oath, but if it barks like a loyalty oath, and quacks like a loyalty oath, it's a loyalty oath. Every time I go to the Executive Board or the DA and watch them vote as a bloc I'm reminded. They all love the observation system, each and every one of them, even if they hate it.

They do hate it, of course, if they actually teach. All teachers hate it. The administrators, unless they are frothing at the mouth vindictive psychopaths who get off on making teachers' lives miserable, all hate it too. It's pretty well worth hating. Imagine you have 40 teachers in your department and you have to observe each one 4 times. Then you have to write them all up and hold meetings for each one. I can't figure out how you do anything else.

We hate it because it's hanging over our heads each and every moment. When are they coming in? Will it be on a day when I'm actually talking with the students instead of doing some rubric heavy piece of incomprehensible degrees of knowledge stuff? Will the kid who never pays attention not pay attention? Will I look bad because it's 95 degrees outside and 105 degrees inside? 

Those questions sound ridiculous, but teachers know they're not. The problem is that people in leadership are not really teachers anymore. Some of them teach one class, but they aren't rated as we are. They're rated by--get this--S and U, the thing they say is so awful that no one could tolerate it. No one in leadership has ever been rated by Advance. None of them understand the stress that causes people to go to great lengths to get out of it. In fact, a member once told me that his supervisor threatened him--if he didn't get a .8 position instead of his .6 position, he was going to rate him ineffective. That member died weeks after having told me that. 

I think of him every time someone comes to me with one of these questions. Leadership doesn't. It's funny that, on a state level, they supported the end of APPR but won't do so for us. They say it doesn't work for the rest of the state. Here's a news flash--it doesn't work here either. Having a demoralized and terrorized teaching staff helps neither us nor our students. 

And doing nothing about it won't help UFT a whole hell of a lot come Janus either.

Put a Letter in My Box

That was the advice I got from a former chapter leader. What do you do when you get advice like that? Me, I'd write a letter and put it in his box. I can't remember whether or not there was any follow up.

I do recall, though, that the main advice I got from the guy who I replaced was to say that to everyone and everything. "80% of them won't do it," he confided. I also recall the first time, as chapter leader, I had a UFT rep visit our school. She shared these very same words of wisdom with me. I'm thinking they likely came from on high.

When I became chapter leader I made it a point to get every email address I could. I opened a new gmail account and sorted the addresses by department so I could mail to one group at a time. I get email all the time and I answer it instantly. It comes to my phone and buzzes my watch. I figure it's my job to either respond to member queries, or find someone who can, but what do I know?

At UFT Executive Board they never tell me to put a letter in their box. (I don't even know whether or not they have boxes, and if they did their locations would probably be top secret.) I stand up and ask questions at virtually every meeting. At the last two, the response was some variation or other of, "We'll get back to you." When I cited Class Size Matters research on overcrowding, Howie Schoor questioned their assertion, based on DOE figures, that half of our students were in overcrowded conditions. He then said he'd get back to us. I've now had two reps from Class Size Matters offer to explain their research to the board. I told Howie the good news, but he hasn't seen fit to respond.

It's pretty clear to me that put a letter in my box is code for, "I'd rather not be bothered." I see increasing evidence this is unofficial leadership policy. It's telling that UFT's website offers no clue that members are free to address the Executive Board. It's only because the high school reps invite and enable people visiting that they've heard from so many abused teachers this year. I have no doubt the majority would rather approve the minutes, tell one another what a great job they're doing, eat the crappy sandwiches and go home twenty minutes later.

As for immediate action, I get mixed messages from UFT leadership On the one hand, I hear that we need to organize pre-Janus. The Constitutional Convention seems an ideal opportunity to foster that. I've got 300 members in my school. Thus far, after many meetings, I've amassed just six or seven buttons and two bumper magnets. I wore the button and every time someone asked about it I gave it away. I now have none. I got one bumper magnet at the citywide chapter leader meeting, and it's on my car. (The only reason it's still there is because I tend to park my car outside the building, so no one asks me about it.) My district rep. gave me one more, and I gave it away within minutes. I'm amazed that they've failed to utilize such a simple, consciousness-raising organizing tool effectively.

In fact, last week I stayed after the Queens chapter leader meeting for a con-con meeting. I already know about con-con. In fact, I recruited a whole lot of people to COPE, for the first time ever, so as to fight it. I went there specifically to collect swag I could distribute to members. Instead, I endured 30 minutes of a two-hour lecture, learned there were no more bumper magnets, and mercifully left before I had to hear the other 90.

As for organizing post-Janus, I'm just not sure. For me it's a moral imperative to pay union dues. But my most dreaded task as chapter leader is collecting $15 a head, per year, for our Sunshine Fund. Some people tell me the UFT didn't get them LIFO, the day came out of their bank, and therefore they aren't giving the union any more money. I tell them this money goes to a luncheon and gifts for members but they don't care. Some people tell me they have phone and electric bills. Some say they don't feel well-served by UFT but won't say why. I'm not confident they'll instantly agree if I ask they send $1200 a year to 52 Broadway.

A few weeks ago at Executive Board, some genius or other in leadership decided it would be a good idea to abridge our right to bring resolutions. It was odd because we weren't all that focused on resolutions. We had just come from a very positive meeting with HS VP Janella Hinds and were looking to work together. We walk out, go down to the meeting, and they essentially inform us we can go screw ourselves.

Here are a few things to ponder:

1. Technically, membership should guide the Delegate Assembly. The DA, theoretically, is the highest-ranking body in the UFT.  Executive Board should support th DA, and AdCom should support the Executive Board. In reality, AdCom makes most of the decisions for UFT and are never voted down by Executive Board or DA. 20,000 high school teachers have no democratically elected representation on AdCom.

2. NYSUT is the NY State teacher union.20,000 high school teachers have no democratically elected representation on NYSUT.

3. AFT is the national teacher union. 20,000 high school teachers have no democratically elected representation on AFT.

4. A whole lot of chapter leaders join the Unity Caucus. They all sign loyalty oaths and do as they're told. Many are motivated by patronage rather than activism. To be successful post-Janus, UFT needs to emphasize the latter over the former. Leadership is spectacularly unprepared to do that.

5. None of the high school reps have UFT jobs. We are activists, each and every one, doing the work regardless of what leadership does for us (or to us). Leadership seems to feel that spitting in our faces is somehow productive. Thus they demand advance notice of resolutions, even though we all teach full-time, come from all over the city and have very limited time to meet.

I've actually been trying to work with UFT leadership on multiple levels. I didn't attend the meeting with Janella just to pass the time. I have 500 other things I could be doing. I can't speak for the other high school EB members, but that anti-resolution resolution dialed my good will back by a good two years.

And hey, for every action there's a reaction. Unity doesn't consider things like that, and that's why we're facing, for example, Janus.

This was one of the stupidest moves I've ever seen, and stupid is not what's going to save the United Federation of Teachers. You want real activists to help and support you, UFT leadership? You might try treating us with a modicum of respect.

Otherwise, put a letter in my box.

Exec. Board September 25 Takeaway--The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

So last Monday was a mixed bag. Let's get to the good. I was inspired by the women who spoke on child care. They managed to gather 80,000 signatures in support. Mulgrew spoke well, and said he would use that to work for us. He also said that he wouldn't settle for a crap deal like the one imposed on the non-union workers. I have the feeling that any agreement we hammer out would apply not only to us, but to other unions as well.

I was fascinated to hear that the women didn't know about Executive Board, had no idea it existed, and that there was nothing at UFT.org to even suggest it was possible to visit and speak. Things must've been great over there before we not only showed up and started asking questions, but also started inviting others. Secretary Howard Schoor, last year, showed amusement over questions, making jokes about them. On September 25, his position was, "If you hate someone, have them run for Executive Board." Hilarity notwithstanding, it speaks volumes on how some in Unity feel about having to endure free speech from rank and file twice a month before climbing back onto their pedestals.

Two years ago, some woman from Unity told everyone at the DA that women on maternity leave, and everyone on leave would have to wait for the "big magical chest" to open before they got the last payment. Now, it sounds like they will get that payment this year, this year's payment next year, and everything else a year later. Did anyone know that when they voted for the 2014 contract? I sure didn't. Not only is there no maternity benefit, but there's also an effective maternity tax. Unity voted it up before even seeing the MOA, which made no mention of it anyway. (Then, in case anyone has forgotten, there are those raised medical copays no one knew about when we voted.)

Adult ed. is alive and kicking, and Mulgrew spoke in unequivocal support. Of course the adult ed. situation has been going on for some time, and we heard from them last year as well. Let's hope that a meeting with the chancellor might do something to curb the terrible leadership she imposed on these teachers. Of course, words aren't deeds so we shall see. Mulgrew stayed over a half hour, which I've never seen before. Are we moving toward a situation where the President stays for the entire meeting? Probably not. If I were him, I wouldn't want direct credit for the way Executive Board is run.

There was much talk of a District Rep. who members suggested did not rep the district all that well. Howie Schoor characterized it as personal attack. If those stories were true, I'd want to tell them too. I have heard UFT people telling others they still had a job so they were alright. I knew one who, upon a complaint from someone suffering from cancer, astutely pointed out she was alive and somehow expected her to be consoled by that. I haven't heard the outright negative statements like you're screwed or something, but I know how I'd react if people spoke to me like that. You'd probably be reading about it here.

I presented research done by Class Size Matters and based on DOE stats. Schoor questioned its validity rather than addressing it. In a way, I don't blame him. Class size is out of control, and overcrowding is epidemic. UFT can form committees and study groups from now until Doomsday and the problems won't go away. It's nice that we placed class size into the contract half a century ago, but an update is long overdue. It behooves union leadership to address this crucial issue and they are failing utterly. (Schoor also claimed never to have heard of the 2014 law requiring de Blasio to pay rent for charters, which pretty much made my eyes roll to the back of my head.)

Despite all the grievance hearings I've attended (and I attend them twice yearly), the problem is getting worse. Some of the arbitrators are troglodytes, and it's frightening to imagine the future of UFT members can be in their hands. A week ago, a $2400 a day arbitrator ruled that it was OK for principals to cut up old programs the day before last in June, stick them in mailboxes and say they'd given complete programs. That was his learned interpretation of article 7A1. Imagine what would happen if your principal asked for your lesson plan and you gave him one from last year. Meanwhile, at class size hearings, brilliant arbitrators rule that if you have oversized classes, you get one day off from C6. That way the kids in oversized classes get less tutoring, so it's a WIN-WIN!

I'm still waiting for an answer to my question from the first meeting--whether UFT supports the NYSUT opposition to APPR, the resolution for which they voted unanimously. It's odd, because I've heard from leadership how wonderful this system is, how wonderful the system before that was, and how wonderful the system before that was. It's like everything that happens is the bestest thing ever, I know we said last year's was the bestest thing ever, but this year's bestest is even bester. Teacher morale, ironically, gets lower each and every year, despite how bestest it gets. And yet they voted to oppose this bestest of the best. Go figure.

I was surprised to hear Jackie Bennett defend using 7th grade scores as baselines for 8th grade teachers. These are tests for which there is a statewide moratorium. They don't count for the 7th grade teachers either. They are basically treated as meaningless by the state, and boycotted by a whole lot of students. But there you go--Unity voted against test-based evaluation but is pretty bullish on using the most discredited tests in the state as a baseline to judge teachers.

It was pretty ugly when they moved to the resolution about resolutions. I was shocked they felt the need to further restrict us. It's not like it's a fair fight to begin with. It's not like we have anything resembling proportional representation. It's not like anyone at Adcom represents those of us who voted. It's not like we have any vote or voice in NYSUT or AFT, to whom we pay dues. You'd think they'd be happy with that. But that's not enough for them.

They vote down absolutely everything we bring just because we brought it. But that's not enough. Evidently, they need more time to try to muster arguments against things that are often not even debatable.

With one word from the dais, they all vote as they're told, and upon request, argue for it passionately. After all, there are those after school gigs and such they've literally signed a loyalty oath for. The free trips to Schenectady. All you have to do is get up and say ATRs are delighted to dump their careers immediately for 50 thousand bucks, or it's empowering when members are guilty until proven innocent at 3020a.

Unity makes the rules and may change them at will, as Howard Schoor pointed out. If I can go to a forum in which I'm outnumbered 19 to 1 twice a month, where they vote against us just for the sake of voting against us, I can adjust to whatever.

For me, it's ironic, because I just came off of bringing in a resolution through a UFT official, having it blended with their own, personally motivating the resolution and having it passed unanimously. I am more than happy to work like that. But if that's not good enough for them I can also write a resolution in ten minutes. I can make copies, leave them around the tables at 5:30 and make them vote down things that teachers want, twice monthly. I'm flexible like that. I can do other things too. I have a lot of ideas.

All I can tell you is that if I were a union head facing Janus, I would move to increase democracy rather than suppress it. I would move to heed member voice rather than acquire better earplugs so as to avoid hearing it. I would embrace activism rather than build walls around it.

Here's my tip of the week--bet dimes to dollars that come Janus, NYPD and FDNY keep a far higher percentage of members than we do.

Rick and Morty and Unity

I have a confession. At night I watch cartoons on Adult Swim until I fall asleep. One of the most bizarre cartoons they show at night is called Rick and Morty. It's about a grandfather who's some kind of scientific genius dragging Morty all over the universe.

The other night, there was an episode about a group called Unity. It's this being or consciousness that's constantly replicating itself. It does this by vomiting in the mouths of its victims and taking over their bodies. See the video below for an example.

You may not be surprised that I saw parallels to our union, what with the organization having the exact same name. The pale looking guy in the middle is Rick, and all the blue people around him are Unity. So that could be me at a chapter leader meeting, except for the scientific genius part. Of course this episode took it a little further. Evidently Rick was having an affair with Unity, seemingly in the form of the young blue woman to his left, your right.

Now as far as I know, signing up for UFT Unity does not entail having someone vomit in your mouth. Rather, it entails signing this loyalty oath, which used to be available on the Unity website. For some reason, they took it down after PJSTA posted it publicly. The best way to advance in the union is to sign it. If you don't, well, that pension consulting gig might elude you.

I'll tell you the truth--I really like some people in Unity. I'll tell you another truth--I really don't like some other people in Unity. They don't seem to have a code about how they treat non-Unity members. So some people in Unity are reasonable and open, while others are kind of defensive and proprietary. I figure it's better to be reasonable and open, particularly if you purport to represent the union, but that's just me.

Now I understand forming a political caucus. I'm part of one, as a matter of fact. I also understand espousing a particular series of values. I share a lot of Unity's ostensible values. I'm absolutely pro-teacher and pro-union. I don't believe in abuse by administrators, and I think we need to take a stand against Boy Wonders  (even if they're girls).

Sometimes, though, I'm not sure. I don't understand why we supported mayoral control, ever, and I'm not sure why we didn't oppose it vehemently when it came up this year. Though it hasn't been as bad under de Blasio, there's no guarantee he'll be around forever. We suffered through 20 years of GOP mayors here in deep blue NYC, Also, de Blasio's mayoral control has been far from absolute, as the state did an end run around it, forcing him to pay rent for charters. (Of course, my bursting at the seams school has 4728 incoming students, and no one's forcing him to pay rent for us.)

I certainly understand the argument that, in times of crisis, we need to pull together. The only thing is, I can't recall when we were not in crisis. It wasn't time to oppose when we were facing Bloomberg, or Cuomo, and it isn't time to oppose when we face Trump, or "the Presidential Election," as Unity calls him. I can only suppose it wasn't time to oppose when we faced Giuliani either, though I wasn't involved with union politics back then. Is the answer, then, to keep your mouth shut forever and ever and just hope for the best?

Of course not. Unity is wrong sometimes. The Democrats, with Unity's early endorsement, lost the last national election because they presented the populous with a warmed-over agenda that consisted largely of, "We aren't Trump." In fact, I voted for Hillary in the general precisely on that basis. But I enthusiastically pulled the lever for Bernie Sanders in the primary.

We're gonna have to pull out all the stops after Janus. It might not be good enough to say, "Well, you still have a job," when you're sent out to teach subjects you don't understand and rotate schools week to week. It might not be good enough to say, "Well, we did the best we could," when Moskowitz takes over your school and places a non-union test-prep factory in its stead. It won't be good enough to hear "Fifty years ago we sacrificed money for class size regs," while you stand in front of 50 kids in a trailer and try to persuade them that anyone other than you takes them seriously.

And whether Unity knows it or not, that's why a vibrant opposition is necessary. There are voices that need to be heard, and with three out of four teachers not even voting in union elections, I'm not highly optimistic union is a prime concern for them. We all sink or swim together, and I'll work toward the latter. If we want everyone to pay union dues, we're gonna have to stop pandering toward a privileged class. That's the sort of thing that empowers the likes of Donald Trump, and it ain't gonna work for us.

UFT and the Politics of Identity

A little over three years ago, I ran for Executive Vice President of NYSUT. It was an illuminating experience on multiple levels. One thing I learned was that there were a whole lot of unions that didn't run like the UFT. I'm gonna count that as a positive, because real union power comes from the bottom up, always.

My coach in that campaign was Beth Dimino, who was the President of PJSTA. One of the things she first suggested was specificity in how I spoke of the UFT. There's leadership, and there's membership. A whole lot of us fail to make that distinction, and speak of UFT as though it means Michael Mulgrew. In fact, Mulgrew corrected a member at the DA who said UFT did this or that by saying, "You are UFT." There's a point on which we see eye to eye.

Of course, though Mulgrew said that, and though I agree, I understand quite well why people don't feel it. Leadership makes decisions in a bubble, and feels it ought not to be questioned. With seven high school teachers on the Executive Board unshackled by loyalty oaths, that's become a little more difficult. It's now part of their job to answer our questions, and that is what they spend much of their time trying to do at the otherwise largely humdrum UFT Executive Board.

A problem arises when their decisions appear arbitrary, but they overcome that through numbers--there are 95 of them and seven of us, so we cannot win a vote. However, that's not the only problem.

If you look a little deeper, you'll see something more serious and pervasive. Essentially, they cannot offer a believable rationale for some of their actions. I'll refer you to the UFT High School Executive Board Blog. There, you can see their arguments against us when we proposed resolutions against abusive administrators, and against excessive class sizes. You can see our resolution in favor of CPE 1. You can see how we questioned the ATR agreement and asked for member voice. You can see how we demanded Trump's name be included when we condemned the bigotry for which he and his minions opened the floodgates.

It's certainly possible that they have a rationale they cannot share publicly. Maybe they share it at top-secret Unity Caucus meetings, but I doubt it. It's one thing to have a justification with which reasonable people may disagree. It's quite another to make up the best nonsense you can muster off the top of your head with and hope for the best. And here I will share the next level of the problem--Unity has promoted an awful lot of people based on loyalty rather than ability. As a member and chapter leader, I've seen this in action for years.

How many times have you called the borough office to get inaccurate or terrible advice? How many people have gone to retirement consultations for the same? Do you think it's a coincidence that members opt to pay people for retirement consultations rather than chance UFT advice? How many chapter leaders have gotten bad advice from District Reps until they looked up facts themselves?

I've watched UFT hires come to borough offices and say outlandishly stupid things to groups of chapter leaders. I've had Unity chapter leaders admit these things to me privately, but not one would stand up at a meeting and say it. I have to respect that they'd go even that far, because a whole lot of them will not. I've had Unity chapter leaders complain to me at meetings, and then leave me hanging in the wind when I got up and repeated what they complained about.

I'm not surprised when I field face to face personal attacks from UFT employees. I'm not surprised when they contradict me without knowing what they're talking about. I'm not surprised when they tell me what I must think, fully expecting compliance. I'm not surprised when they recoil in shock as I tell them to go ahead and dump me from Unity Caucus. I'm not surprised when I'm publicly ridiculed at chapter leader meetings for calling VAM junk science, even though both Diane Ravitch and the American Statistical Association side with me. (Now I'm reminded of Trump supporters who deny global warming.)

But it's a big problem when people who can't or won't think for themselves are promoted solely for loyalty. It's a big problem when lazy minds who've simply faked their way through are placed in positions of authority. It's not a surprise when they rationalize anything no matter how absurd, nor is it a surprise when they glibly lie to do so. (And again, look at Donald Trump for exhibit A.) This needs to stop.

I will also say that I have encountered some very smart and capable people in leadership. I've seen a handful of people who really belong there. I always hope to find more people like that. Leaders have their own voices. They are not just parrots, repeating what they are told, and they are not weasels, rationalizing whatever they are told be it right or wrong.

Mulgrew was right--you are UFT, and I am UFT. We live UFT, and we breathe and bleed UFT whether we know it or not. If we wish to make UFT stronger, we speak the truth. We stand up for ourselves, and in doing so, stand up for our students and communities. We measure and monitor when leadership is right, and when they are wrong. If leadership builds a brick wall to keep us out, we have no choice but to kick it down. But if they build a bridge, we can cross it or meet in the middle.

I can go either way.

Forging the UFT Unity Wllderness

This school year I went to UFT Executive Board twice a month. The only one I missed was the last one, as I'm told that was some catered affair with waiters and such, in which we celebrate our achievements. I was not in a particularly celebratory mood after a year of unnecessarily adversarial episodes.

There are seven of us who represent the high schools, and 95 who ostensibly represent everyone else. We are outvoted at every turn, so it can be discouraging. I can generally shrug it off, as I am not surprised when Unity fails to display capacity for growth or change. The only time I was really quite upset was the night I brought a substantive and detailed class size resolution and they voted it down based on nonsense. However, I got over it and I doubt they will be able to shock me again unless they suddenly turn supportive.

If you've been reading my notes, the thing that most stands out is that virtually nothing would happen if we were not there. They'd probably just eat their cardboard sandwiches and go home. Once or twice Unity tried to change that up, but the questions they had people ask were generally so stupid they'd have been better off keeping their mouths shut. Fortunately for Unity, its members are quite skilled at keeping their mouths shut. That's mostly what they are selected to do, since their loyalty oaths explicitly prohibit them from unapproved utterances.

Sure, sometimes they call the question if, perish forbid, we are discussing something the High School reps brought up. (Recently Secretary Howard Schoor praised a Unity member for calling a question after having said precisely nothing all year.) And sure they'll get up and speak against anything we bring up if they're told to do so. Will they make credible arguments? Probably not, but it doesn't really matter when we're outnumbered 14 to 1.

So now maybe you're asking why I even bother to go. There are a few reasons. For one thing, I've never seen leadership in the position of having to answer questions from lowly teachers before. How could we not take advantage? Because I take notes, I've gotten into the habit of preparing my questions word for word in advance. This way I need not record my own comments while others are speaking. Often the answer is something like, "We'll look into it." Sometimes they follow up and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they say, "We'll take it under advisement," and what I hear is, "We'll ignore it utterly."

But there's a good takeaway here. See if you notice a pattern:

Let's pass a strong resolution against abusive administrators, the bane of our existence. 

No.

Let's pass a strong resolution to enforce and improve existing class size regulations.

No.

Let's offer unequivocal support to CPE 1. 

No.

In other areas we fared better. We asked questions about supporting immigrants and UFT actually held an immigration forum. There was an expansion of workshops for immigrants all over the city. There was much discussion over the Netflix documentary called 13. UFT eventually held a showing and discussions about it. No one knows how else they may have been influenced because outside meetings, when given a choice, Unity never talks to us about anything. When we asked who changed Trump's name when bemoaning racism to "the Presidential Election" the answer was "the leadership of this union," as though that should end all discussion. It did, but only because we then knew no one would personally own up to it.

We supported just about every initiative they brought up. We opposed their waffling on Trump and their support of a homophobe for city council. But when they're in campaign mode, they say we reflexively oppose everything they bring up. In fact, they are describing themselves, not us.

I'm glad to do this work and I don't regret a thing. There are people in leadership with whom I work eagerly, and there are times when we can work behind the scenes without worrying about caucus politics. My goal is to help improve things for working teachers, and I absolutely believe the MORE motto that our working conditions are student learning conditions. I'll support all efforts that move in that direction.

But it's sad to see UFT Unity as the reflexive Party of No. They can do better, and I hope at least some of them know it, Five decades of unfettered power have not had the effect of making them reflective or visionary. People hired by virtue of loyalty tend not to be our best advocates. Time after time I see them scrambling to justify leadership positions (and thus their part or full time jobs) regardless of actual ground conditions. We're under siege like never before and we need to do better. I'm ready to help, and I'm fairly certain all my fellow High School Executive Board members are too.