This information from the UFT was forwarded to me by a fellow blogger who figured we were getting questions on the raise.
DOE just confirmed that the Hbank members will receive their increase, with arrears back to 5/14, on their 5/29 checks.
The DOE is not taking away the 2.5% increase that teachers and other UFTers waited patiently for. There is over a half year of 0% raises in the current contract. However, that is the least of our concerns now.
The blogger I am referring to is JD2718. (I still haven't figured out what that title means.)
Here is part of his latest piece. It is strong.
The threats today are massive. They are coming from all three layers of government. Cuomo points at Trump, but at the same time he kicks us as hard as he possibly can. Trump in turn is performing for his base, who delight when he turns on New York. And de blasio? I can’t even.
That is why our response has been so massive? But what response? I see some newspaper columns. That’s not enough, guys. This is not business as usual. Where are the petitions, the campaigns, the phone calls, the email drives? Where are the virtual phone banks getting members and parents involved? Where is the outreach in solidarity with the rent cancelation and tax the billionaires community groups? Where is the recognition that this time is unlike any we have experienced.
Where is the semi-threatening potential job action language? (even if you would never follow through). Well, we have that, in the form of pronouncements from leaders. But has there been any preparation? Any involvement of membership? Any sign that the membership will be mobilized, for anything?
The strength of a union lies in its potential for collective action. We must begin to wield this power. The threats today are far greater than at any time since you became teachers. You need to toss “business as usual” out the window, or allow someone else to lead.
Business as usual won't cut it. I have been trying to say that too.
19 comments:
We need to err on the side of militancy.
I know this is difficult to hear but the poster who said that the plan is to walk IN to a school is right. Yes, it's only, as several in reply to the poster said, that the poster has the facts wrong. And when the facts are known, that kind of courage, the courage to walk IN will be the courage to walk OUT. That kind of courage is what will be needed and it will be there when the common pain exceeds the confusion.
What will we focus all that courage and pain on? That is the question. When demagoguery is all around us, we will need to prevent splintering and fracturing. We will need a common focus. Without it we will merely achieve what Occupy achieved: nothing. To walk out, to sick out, to put your body, your life into a movement, to occupy, to camp out in the circus or factional and leaderless pandemonium, will fail, again. We need focus to build a very large movement that is built primarily with teachers, students, families.
In that movement we will need to fight for the role of technology. For the biggest threat to workers, including teachers, is tech. We can't take a no technology stand, but we can't embrace it either. Mayor Bloomberg is back. Remember him? Remember ARIS? Cuomo has hired Bloomberg to do the virus tracing. We can't stop this. We can't take on the billionaire robber barons. Been there. Done that. Lost. We can, however, as many of the Unions our City have, negotiate the use of technology to protect skill and save jobs from our greatest threat: automation.
Yeah, Michael Mulgrew is going to protect skill and save jobs. He will give away the store to protect UFT dues. That's what is most important concern is.
Big guys are taking care of themselves. We better be able to fight back.
Washington Post
Nearly 300 public companies got more than $1 billion in stimulus funds, leaving some small businesses without, Post analysis shows
The publicly traded companies receiving money from the Paycheck Protection Program include 43 companies with more than 500 workers, the maximum typically allowed by the program, according to data compiled by The Post. Several other recipients were prosperous enough to pay executives $2 million or more.
As of Thursday, public companies had reported returning more than $125 million, according to the analysis.
My issue with mulgrew is that there is never even the hint of us fighting back against city hall. That was what he learned from weingarten.
How can Mulgrew fight? He is still working out how to extract his head from de Blasio's butt. He may have it figured out in a few months. He doesn't want layoffs only because it means less union dues. Mulgrew will sell us out on the work rules in a half second.
It's not up to Mulgrew. It's up to us. All of us give the union its power.
FOCUS: We will need the parents.
Right now, though the idiots with power continue to describe us as babysitters, parents in NYC, and in most cities across the country (the opposite is the case in suburbs and rural districts) have come to appreciate more than they did prior to the virus, the custodial, the cognitive, and the social functions that can only be delivered, in a class, in a school yard, in a lab, in a gym, in a shop by tax-supported public schools. We need to nurture this partnership.
FOCUS: Technology & Automation
This is not Katrina and New Orleans Charter takeover.
This is Bloomberg is back. This is his failed izone project back and backed by his money. This is ARIS again. This more tech and automation.
We need to be the ones deciding what tools work, what tech works, how we will use technology, and this, like our current lesson plan, must belong to the teacher, must be in any format the teacher decides works for the teacher and the students in the classroom. This will be, like the current battle over lesson plans, a constant struggle, as administrators and the people who back them will try to force specific tools and technologies on teachers. Many of these systems and technologies will automate us and others in the building out of work. There is no money for state pensions, salaries. This is what Washington is funding: tech and automation. There is plenty of money for technology and the current packages that have been sent to the states can be used for technology that undermines teacher skill and replaces teachers. And schools are spending that money now to reduce costs. This has to be addressed now. We can use technology when we decide it is the best tool to teach the students and when we are certain it will not undermine our skills and replace workers.
Parents will be with us if we are saying we are not going into unsafe buildings.
Happy 6th Anniversary to the worst contract in history.
What a joke we are projecting fear on what the may do to us,,,,they have taken our money now, not projected. If the raise is delayed for a pay period(why?) we have worked 7 days for free, without pay, this is not projected, it happened. They sent us in and our colleagues died, not projected, happened, lets forget about this and talk about what we may do, IF?
James, yes, I agree the parents will support us if we refuse to go back to unsafe schools. But the current framing of this discussion threatens this partnership because there is nothing in the discussion that defines when schools are safe.
We agree that fear is the enemy. Why is there so much fear? Everywhere? Teachers are not the only rabbits. We have a working class on the run. Why? Why are teachers so afraid to file a grievance, to come to a union meeting, to stop being exploited and bullied, when job security is very good, when unemployment (headline) is (was) 3.5?
Though teachers are not yet part of the precarious work world, teachers fear it like the plague. It's all around us--a global weakening of workers. From liberalism, to neo-liberalism, from globalism, to off-shoring and outsourcing, and most of all, from automation, the workers of the world are, paradoxically, united by technology and weaker than ever. It's a tragic paradox; we need tech to temper the excesses of tech. This is not like when radio, film, TV, the PC, even the mobile device were introduced to classrooms. This has been a threat to our skill and to our profession and now it has knocked down our doors and is making slaves of us. We need to understand this and I don't think it's something we get. Pundits like Ravitch and Larry Cuban (who wrote the book on this threat and then was turned) talk about misuse and abuse of tech, but rarely, if ever, advocate teacher autonomy and latitude. This is one of the keys to tamping down the fear.
The matrix, the taxonomy, the rubric, the BS brain research, the guru the guru the guru. Deform and more Deform. But teachers have not pushed back at the analytical school. It's a nightmare. It comes from the same place as Chicago School Economics. Read the Economist editorial today? Get the teaches back to school. Why? The Economy Stupid. And back to school with more tech to professionalize and undermine solidarity.
We need to focus on NYC. We can focus on kids and parents and teachers. This can work. Parents and kids are not happy with the current at home instruction. We need to express our concerns about how this system will fail. That means returning to schools. That means ensuring that schools are safe. That probably means a vaccine. That means months and months. The insecurity will increase and fear will spread. The pain will become more common.
Also, to gain support of parents and students we must also dispense with the hero and war rhetoric. We are not at war. Nurses are not soldiers. This kind of rhetoric peddled by the politician and the robber baron is a false narrative that will collapse. We are teachers and what we do is teach. This is a vital and noble profession that must be respected. Not easy to convince an anti-intellectual society of the value of smart people who make a small living teaching children, but in NYC, where we have more intellectuals per square mile than any place on earth, where immigrants bring this respect for teaching, we can nurture this and make it part of our ficus.
Stop bashing kids. Please. I know it is venting and venting is good, but we need our students, we need to love them, not what they do, not what they often are, and sometimes are, but what we hope they may be someday.
Cuomo: No physical school until the end of June. Summer decision will be made by the end of May.
Hi James, and thanks for the shoutout.
When I was a kid, my parents called me JD - that could be for Jonathan David, but it sounds like juvenile delinquent, which is why they thought it was funny. Some relatives still use it, including my mother and aunt most of the time... You can try, I'll still answer to it.
2718 is a "math number" - I was very math-y in high school, but I was not disciplined or patient enough to compete with the kids who learned scores of digits of π, 3.14159 - I'm a math teacher, and that's still all I know by heart. So I found another cool number, e, Euler's number, which is the base of the natural logarithms, and learned about ten digits, which is more than anyone else knew, because no one else cared. 2.718281828459.... It's like declaring yourself the king of the cucumber eating contest. Not much competition.
Anyhow, when I moved from compuserve where my old email was (75762.2762@Compuserve.com) to gmail, I had the bright idea of using my joke initials and my joke math victory together. jd2718
Jonathan
So glad I'm not the only one here who supports the 2nd Amendment!
After all, we are told cops are racist and the government is fascist, right?
Anonymous Anonymous said...
We need to err on the side of militancy.
Friday, May 01, 2020 9:36:00 AM
Blogger James Eterno said...
Agree 100%.
Friday, May 01, 2020 9:39:00 AM
FYI: mil·i·tan·cy
/ˈmiləd(ə)nsē,ˈmilətnsē/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: militancy
the use of confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause.
"there are signs of growing militancy among workers"
Let's be very clear what I mean by militancy and not take anything out of context. When I talk militancy it is worker militancy that has absolutely nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment or any violence.
I totally agree with Bernie Sanders addressing our striking colleagues in Chicago last year.
From In These Times:
Brnie Sanders to Chicago Teachers: Worker Militancy Is Key to Fighting the Corporate Elite
Now I know the history Jonathan. Thanks.
To be clear 9:36, we need labor militancy like job actions. Not violent militancy.
As technology continues to infiltrates our lives, there has been a rise in depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. The mannerisms of young people is lacking. Educators need to push back and take back the schools. This pandemic experience provides the platform to give voice to educators as the experts in the field of education.
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