Monday, October 23, 2017

MTA BROOKLYN BUS DRIVERS AT SPRING CREEK DEPOT DUMPING THEIR UNION

For people looking for precedent for public employees in NYS decertifying their union and starting a new one, look no further than Brooklyn where the MTA bus drivers at the Spring Creek Depot have signed pledge cards to drop the Amalgamated Transit Union and start their own union.

These workers have been without a contract since 2012.

From the Chief Leader (Most of the article is behind a pay wall.):


Spring Creek Drivers Look to Bolt ATU To Create Own Union

By BOB HENNELLY
Bus drivers who work out of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Spring Creek Depot in Brooklyn are one step closer to breaking away from Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 and forming their own union after winning the right to vote to do so when the Public Employment Relations Board last month ordered a decertification election that is expected to be held in November. Read more
Since our October 5 post came out on what it would take to fix the UFT internally or for the high school division to oust the UFT and start a new union, we have received some inquiries and several commitments to help with fragmenting the high schools into a separate bargaining unit but not enough to make anyone at the UFT sweat.
Due to the fact that the UFT is a huge union, we would need a monumental effort with at least a hundred high school activists (or middle school or elementary school activists for their divisions) obtaining scores of signatures to get a showing of interest petition to the Public Employees Relations Board. 30% of the approximately 20,000 high school teachers would need to sign the petition to get it to PERB.

Our main point in writing the October 5 post was to say that bolting from the UFT and starting over or fixing it from within would both require massive undertakings. If teachers in much larger numbers than are currently involved, are willing to become active, we can make a difference. If, however, folks have given up on the prospect of a real union, then conditions in the schools will continue to deteriorate. It's too late to just blame Michael Mulgrew for that.

Union power comes from a rank and file willing to do whatever it takes to improve working conditions, not from a leader. Leaders can only help move the center of gravity in the right direction. Our colleagues need to be persuaded that it is in their interest to become involved in a militant, activist union.

As my colleague now retired Chapter Leader from Bryant High School Sam Lazarus repeatedly says:

"The two problems with the UFT are the leadership and the membership." 

We can't solve the leadership problem without first activating the membership. It is up to all of you and make no mistake about it, nothing will be easy.

13 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Bus drivers as a whole are much smarter than the average teacher.

Anonymous said...

How are on earth are UFT members supposed to give Unity/UFT the heave-ho when fewer than twenty-five percent can be bothered to vote for a contract or in union elections?

It's a sign of delusional/magical thinking for people to think that tens of thousands of teachers who don't even know exactly how and why they're being screwed over, will somehow educate, organize and mobilize themselves to replace Unity/UFT.

The example of the bus drivers may illustrate the process of dumping a union that members are dissatisfied with, but as James correctly points out, the UFT is a huge institution, and trying to replace it would be orders of magnitude more difficult than what these bus drivers are attempting, due to the far larger scale involved.

Anonymous said...

We could do it with high school teachers only.

Anonymous said...

Mod Def less emotional��

Michael Fiorillo said...

Anonymous 12:48,

With high school teachers as a separate bargaining unit of a different union, the odds shift from all-but-impossible to highly unlikely. At best.

Anonymous said...

I am in with 12:48

Anonymous said...

Me too.

Anonymous said...

It is totally possible for high school teachers to have their own union. NYPD has it's own patrol officers union, captain union, detective union, sergeant union.

James Eterno said...

Detectives are pretty much the same rank as patrol officers and they have their own union. There was a separate high school teachers union in the 1950s that successfully waged a strike. It is possible but not here on line. People would have to be willing to hit the schools and talk to the other teachers to get them to sign a petition. Organizing a union is very difficult work. It requires real committment from activists and new activists.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, membership lacks 2 very important criteria for ever challenging
the UFT leadership: BALLS

Bronx ATR said...

I'll get you 60 signatures James. Now we need 99 more to get 60.

James Eterno said...

Sadly, you have a point 8:11 but has membership ever been asked to step up in the last 25 years? You never know what might happen if membership was asked to do union battle.You might find they have the requisite stones.