Monday, November 28, 2016

BASIC UNION ORGANIZING IS NEEDED NOW

NYC Educator earlier called for a sea change from Union leadership to prepare for when the Donald Trump Supreme Court or the Republican Congress and President Trump end automatic dues checkoff for public sector unions. They would make union dues voluntary but not union services.

NYC Educator's final paragraph

If there is any chance of our surviving in a Right to Work United States of America, it's time for a sea change in our sleepy and complacent leadership. Otherwise, it's clear the only thing they value are those cushy offices on the 14th floor. I wonder if they'll be able to pay for them with a 70% drop in dues revenue.

I don't know if the current Unity leadership is capable of such a sea change. It would be nice to be proven wrong.

If I was in power, I would do a basic union organizing drive right now, before anything is done to hurt us. I would do what Randi Weingarten talked about when I think she was legitimately embarrassed by how bad the 2005 contract really was.

After that awful contract received a 40% no vote from teachers, the UFT started exploring a no contract=no work policy. To cushion against the blow if we actually went on strike, we were going to look at working with a pro-labor bank (Amalgamated) to try to deduct union dues automatically without needing to go through our employer, the Department of Education.

This of course was only lip service from Randi and when Mayor Michael Bloomberg dangled some decent money for an extension of the 2005 disaster of a contract, Weingarten jumped at it and took an early contract in 2006. That was a major mistake as I see it. We never again heard about taking back the 2005 givebacks or the UFT collecting dues on our own. No contract=no work seems like a foreign concept to UFT leadership today.

Now with our very existence at stake, why not try to do a basic organizing drive around being a real union? That is a way to move forward.


18 comments:

Anonymous said...

James, I have known you for many years. But I disagree with you in many regards.
It is important to organize. However, it is even more important to do rightful things.

Going against students and parents is not right. Unionizing teachers in charter schools and private schools is right.

Let's do the right thing.

James Eterno said...

When did I ever advocate going against students and parents?

NYC Educator said...

Sorry that I pulled that post this morning in favor of a post on the President-elect. I will have it back up, probably, on Wednesday. Thank you for the shout out in any case.

Anonymous said...

I know for a fact that the majority of the teachers at my school who are aged in their 20's would 100% not pay UFT dues if they did not have to. Most did not even vote in the last two UFT elections but did vote for the last contract because of the $1,000 "signing bonus". As mentioned in this blog above, the UFT really needs to start getting it's act together now because pretty soon it is game over.

Anonymous said...

The game is over, the ship is sinking, the tides gone out and a tsunami is coming in, time is ticking away, it's one minute to midnight, the detonator is primed...I'm just sticking around for the show. Enjoy the decline or get out. I'm going to spend my dues on...something fun.

reality-based educator said...

In one way, the irony around Friedrichs II is too good to not point out. Union leadership dodged a bullet when Scalia died Friedrichs I went with him with a 4/4 tie that meant the lower court decision stood. Concurrent to some of the Friedrichs action, our AFT leaders were busy rigging the AFT endorsement process for the WORST presidential nominee since Dukakis and shilling for her every chance they could get. Hillary, meanwhile, instead of campaigning in the Rust Belt or providing some rationale for why anybody should vote for her, spent the campaign pointing out she wasn't Trump and having confetti cut glass shaped to celebrate on Election Night. Alas, trump won, the glass shaped confetti went in the garbage and the AFT leadership faces a mass exodus out of the union after Friedrichs II is decided by the Trump Supreme Court (probably in a year or so.)

Karma for the AFT leaders. Alas, we'll be the ones who do most of the paying for it. I'm sure the leadership will figure a way out to keep the swank even if dues drop 70%.

James Eterno said...

NYC Educator thanks for telling us what happened so we know why the link won't work for now.

Happy that Reality Based Educator is still reading us and commenting here. I sometimes get a bit down about how good his blog, Perdido Street School, is compared to what we are putting out. NYC Educator's stuff is great too.

As for RBE's comment, sadly the bad karma will hurt us much more than the leadership.

Anonymous said...

Don't you get it, it's over.

James Eterno said...

I don't get it. Nothing can stop working people who stand united and don't back down. Trade union is part of my core.

Anonymous said...

Wake up james. Whatever you give back you never get back. the time, the tiny raises, the future or never retro, the abuse by students and Supes, the lax discipline code, the never bumping, the refusal by the uft to enforce the hardship clause based on distance, illegal class sizes not enforced...

Anonymous said...

I look forward to the day that a Friedrichs minded case goes before the supreme court. NY teachers are better served by not paying union dues.

James Eterno said...

You are entitled to give up. I won't. I agree that all of those contractual violations are occurring but it does not have to be this way. We have accepted them by not standing up. I will keep trying to wake others up.

Anonymous said...

The sheep need a shepherd and it's not Mike or Randi. Randi and Mike will end up trading some more of our rights to allow whatever the charters want to keep some semblance of power. It's over.

Anonymous said...

This UFT will have to fall of its own weight and a new union resurrected in its place.Unfortunately this union went from an honest member serving entity to what it is now, a self-serving bloated sister bureaucracy of the DOE. All in the span of 40 years.
What a damn shame.

Quinn Zannoni said...

The UFT leadership says they won't attach Trump's name to a resolution condemning his campaign bigotry because it would "alienate members" -- this after they unilaterally endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. They're not scared of upsetting members -- they're scared of upsetting Trump and his political hit men.

Quinn Zannoni said...

The Trump voting members are already alienated from the UFT for a hundred other reasons, including their support for Eric Garner. We've got a better chance of garnering support from the United Seafood Workers Union than from our UFT Trump supporters.

Anonymous said...

James, as I tried, in my rotations, before the 2014 vote, and the contract got almost 80%, as i was shouted down by UFT reps in every school. Sink or swim, this is the uft, this is our position, we are sinking and crumbling. we know what you want wont happen, nobody cares.

Anonymous said...

Commenter 9:22/6:59 exemplifies the statement that LIBERELISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER