WHERE TO NOW PRO-UNION UFT DISSIDENTS?

The anger in the comments that followed our posts last week on the AFT Convention was understandable and very well placed. At the convention in Pittsburgh, union leaders bragged how virtually everyone is staying in the union after Janus gave us the option to withhold all of our union dues. Some here called it a premature victory lap.

The UFT-NYSUT-AFT leadership headed by Michael Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten's Unity Caucus has deteriorated into being a weak appendage of the corporate establishment wing of the Democratic party and it is not changing. They are probably incapable of doing anything any differently. Even so, I will not come out and say we should rescind our membership in the UFT. It is the lesser of the evils compared to not having any union at all or having an even weaker one.

The problem with the UFT is not that difficult to explain. Unity Caucus demands loyalty as a condition of joining their caucus.To become a Unity member one must agree "to support the decisions of Caucus/Union leadership in public or Union forums." Dissent is not allowed. Anyone outside of the caucus is basically shunned or ignored.

The Unity people go to the AFT Convention or NYSUT Representative Assembly where they vote as a giant bloc. The sheer size of the UFT gives them the opportunity to dominate the AFT and NYSUT because the Unity/UFT leadership can afford to send 750 Delegates to AFT and NYSUT. Those Unity UFT Delegates control committees because the UFT is by far the largest local in both the AFT and NYSUT. After Janus, teachers in the comments here are making a strong case that by withholding union dues, we can starve the Unity beast and force them to change. There is one fatal flaw in that argument. I have asked in response to cite one example in history where a weaker union with fewer members has led to improved salaries and working conditions for workers. Nobody has yet responded. Merely leaving is not the answer.

We can all agree that Unity cares more about Unity Caucus than the rank and file. They have power and they will not relinquish any of it under any circumstances. That control is more important to them than representing union members. How do we change this? Opting out is not the answer. You might save some money and cost Unity some bucks but you are making the situation worse for yourself and everyone else. A commenter said it best the other day:

I'm not opting out. So you got a bad contract last time? What kind of contract will a fraction of the membership win for all? It's not the Koch bros, but the politician sitting opposite you at the bargaining table that you need to worry about. What politician wouldn't like to win some points with the general public by "saving money" (giving us less)?

I was under a terrible AP. (G-d help us all, he's now a P). The union leadership needs to address the bad admins, excessive observations, fair student funding... Any leadership that's not taking care of business needs to be voted out.

This robust argument has one major shortcoming. It is impossible to vote Mulgrew/Unity out. UFT elections are essentially rigged in a very sophisticated way. Anyone who has ever completed Political Science 101 knows that in order to win elected office, a candidate needs to be able to have the voters answer yes to these three simple questions:
1-Do they know you?
2-Do they like you?
3-Do they trust you?

There are close to 200,000 UFT members who are scattered all over the country. Most are not working teachers. Nobody working in a school could possibly get to enough of them to have any possibility of winning a UFT general election as a dissident. We have explored the UFT election farce in depth as recently as last October. Nobody is winning anything beyond the high schools and maybe the middle schools because an opposition group could never get to voters spread out over 1,800 schools, many other worksites such as hospitals and charter schools and of course the retirees who live all around the US and beyond.

Mulgrew/Unity has access to the membership regularly through texts, Facebook, Twitter, the NY Teacher, email along with face-to face meetings with members hosted by Union staff and officers. They pretend to be democratic by allowing one ad buried in the NY Teacher and an email at election time for opposition groups. It is not nearly enough to answer even the "Do they know you?" question. Best case scenario is winning 12 seats (high schools and middle schools) on a 102 member Executive Board. The rank and file knows the opposition in the high schools and somewhat in the middle schools. Having twelve Executive Board seats may move Unity an inch or two in the direction of the membership but there will be no fundamental changes.

I outlined in that October posting what it would take to form a separate high school union. Since there are about 20,000 high school teachers, we would need about 6,000 signatures (30%) on a petition before we have a new contract to go to the Public Employees Relations Board to ask for a separate bargaining unit for high school teachers. It would take about 100 activists to obtain 60 signatures each from high school teachers exclusively. Maybe ten people stepped up to volunteer to obtain signatures when this was raised. It's not enough to scare Mulgrew or Randi into altering how they do business. I can't advocate for that high school union since people aren't willing to do what it would take to form it. Teachers have to step forward beyond anonymous comments.

It would take an even greater effort to get a referendum to decertify the UFT as the teachers' bargaining union.

Enter once again Norm Scott of EdNotes fame. Norm has had it with the Unity Caucus and the opposition caucuses. In his latest post, he recommends a kind of targeted nuclear option because of the difficulty organizing everyone.

Here is the start of Norm's piece:
Warning to Unity trolls --- many of us are discouraging people from pulling dues - telling people to stay in the union. That may not last forever.

If the current structure of the union stays the same there will be moves to get people to not just not pay dues but to take that money and fund a move to organize an alternative. You guys will go nuts and attack the shit out of them and accuse them of dual unionism. You will say they are being funded by the Koch bros (they used to say Ed Notes was funded by Bloomberg).

But imagine even 100 people kicking in $1400 bucks to start an ad campaign to get people to join them. They would say how pro union they are but that Unity has failed some crucial tests of unionism. 

Norm's conclusion:

Let's see what happens over the next 3 years. The danger is if the Koch type people use e4e to do exactly this. Don't think Randi is not aware of this danger and that is why they are trying to co-opt E4e.

So, the Unity machine may be able to keep membership through threats and intimidation. But one day some people may just decide to look for an alternative.

I think teachers have to do more than look for an alternative. They have to become that alternative.

Maybe something can get up and running on social media. Norm has suggested that teachers who want change should start a Facebook group and get as many people as possible to agree to collectively threaten to withhold union dues unless the UFT agrees to a series of changes such as each division (high schools, middle schools, elementary schools, functionals [non-teaching UFT members]) electing their own vice presidents instead of every UFT member voting for the divisional VPs at large. Other reforms would be Chapter Leaders or members in a district voting for District Representatives instead of Mulgrew appointing them or proportional representation for the UFT election (get 20% of the vote, then you win 20% of the seats on the UFT Executive Board, the AFT Convention Delegates and the NYSUT Representative Assembly Delegates). These are good ideas but maybe teachers have their own suggestions on what to fight for. Teachers have called for two observations per year, placing Absent Teacher Reserves in schools that they choose. How about calling for a union that protects its members as a primary goal and makes everything else secondary in this dangerous time for working people? All of this will amount to nothing if teachers are not willing to come out of the shadows and fight for it.

I have been an activist since 1995. I have never been so pessimistic. I find myself promoting a union whose leadership I think has led us to this state by conceding in so many ways to management, thus making the bulk of the rank and file indifferent toward the union. On the other hand, if the people working in the schools are not willing to come together for some kind of alternative, then yes Unity is better than having no union or one where thousands and thousands drop out. We will have even less leverage than we have now.

As John G stated on EdNotes, "For those of us who would like the union to reform, the options are between 'sucks' and 'sucks more'." 

It doesn't have to be that way. We have each other. That sounds overly sentimental but it's true. If enough UFT members come together in that union spirit, it can make a difference. If it is every teacher for herself/himself, then a middle class lifestyle for teachers will slowly melt away and all of us who fail to take action will be playing a part in the melting process.