In an interview in Capital Pro, NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi says directly that the challenge to his presidency is nothing more than a UFT power grab.
Speaking about the April election (Iannuzzi) told Capital on Monday that the race "is not about policy. It's about concentrating power and potentially limiting voice."
He said Andrew Pallotta, his No. 2 who is spearheading a slate of candidates running against him, including presidential candidate Karen Magee, is "a U.F.T. selection," referring to New York City's teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers. Pallotta was a U.F.T. official before coming to NYSUT.
"I get that. I respect that," Iannuzzi said. "My job, my responsibility is to be sure that any group of elected officers represents the entire state, and that's what I plan on doing."
Nice to hear the truth. Please read the whole piece here.
I would so enjoy seeing Iannuzzi win and then watching what he and his team would do at NYSUT without being tied to Mulgrew or Randi Weingarten. It would be a whole new world.
3 comments:
I wish I could vote!
Convince people to vote for Iannuzzi. If your CL is Unity, put the pressure on
It's OK to fantasize about Dick Iannuzzi transforming himself into Willie Stark and inspiring a groundswell of NYSUT delegates to support him by blowing the cover off the UFT machine and its manipulation of unionists outside the city. But the fix is already in and Iannuzzi was part of the fix before he became the fall guy and a target for the "revive" slate. It isn't going to be much of a contest.
The interesting thing is how strenuously Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten are working to make sure Andrew Cuomo faces no viable liberal challenger, say a dark horse like DeBlasoi oonce was.Last week in Albany Weingarten declared that she believes in Cuomo's " redemption."
Sounds like Revive NYSUT? Not a coincidence.
She also issued an AFT press release to regret CSEA's Danny Donohue's poor choice of words in calling Cuomo a moron and a monkey.
http://www.pef.org/pef_files/docs/press_releases/pef-aft_rally_followup_01312014.pdf
Donohue was referencing Cuomo's nauseating slogan, the state is open for business. In calling it "monkey business" he was referring to the streamlining and shrinking of public services to make way for more outsourcing and privatization. Poor choice of words indeed.
Weingarten has for a long time seen Gates, Broad and other billionares and their philanthropic enterprises as partners in education reform. Nobody's going to upset this apple cart just because the public is outraged about common core, the over testing, or the privatizing of student data management.
We are so used to Mulgrew being called a Cuomo ally we don't bother calling him on it or the mess Cuomo's leadership has wrought. And so in every new crisis the UFT leadership and Weingarten see new opportunities - for themselves.
Post a Comment