Harris Lirtzman Sees Ugliness of Unity Machine as he Thanks James Eterno

I came out of that DA meeting with an overwhelming feeling of self-satisfied and corrupted power that is prepared to roll over anything that gets in its way.... this is a vicious crew that will not stand for the slightest difference of opinion and we better recognize that....as still a relative "newbie" to the process it was, shall we say, a sort of "road to Damascus" awakening for me.... Harris Lirtzman

Harry in his short time working with MORE (he was once NYC Deputy Comptroller plus loads of other things before a brief career as a teacher) has garnered enormous respect for his astute observations. Yesterday, Harry saw the monster that was Unity and sends a message to all those who say MORE should find ways to work with Unity and their vassals New Action (which sort of/maybe opposes the contract -- so they can claim both sides in the next UFT election).

What totalitarian regimes like Unity Caucus don't get is that their tactics get a retired guy like Harry ready to roll against them. I mean what makes a guy like me keep doing this stuff if I didn't think Unity Caucus domination of the local, state and national unions was so dangerous? I know people think I go overboard at times -- and many true believers in Unity are incredibly hostile towards me.

There were 2 guys from a school there yesterday on their own handing out a NO leaflet. One of them held up a sign saying he is in Unity but demands his right to express his views. Hilton security confronted him about the sign -- I imagine UFT people made a call -- how embarrassing when one of their own deserts. And how scary if others get ideas too.

Look at Syria and how people started coming out of the woodwork to oppose the regime. There is a mindset of dictatorships that ultimately create a revolution. Will this push for the contract in this manner create the beginning of a critical mass of opposition?

And this comment from a MOREista to James:

From my vantage in the back of the room, you beat the living crap out of him. What you may not know is that the monitors were actually turned on at the time and they showed an ultra close up of his face ... getting the living crap beat out of him. It was a beautiful moment.

Boy I wish someone had taped James.

I have to admit I was surprised after Monday night's Ex bd meeting where MORE had 15 people and Mulgrew allowed us all to ask questions -- unprecedented in Ex Bd history. We actually had a nice dialogue of sorts. I mean the EB is basically dead wood and Monday Mulgrew seemed to come to life. So the repression yesterday at the DA gives us a clue -- they are very nervous about the reactions in the schools. I have reports coming in from schools with people saying no overwhelmingly -- we haven't developed a deep enough network into the 1700 schools to really take the pulse overall. 

And it really would have been so easy for them to allow our people to talk -- I mean Mulgrew has some arguments in his favor -- and Harry admits he had some ambivalence. But it was the tactics used that had the impact - and I bet on some other delegates. Here's Harry:

James,

Thank you for your report, as always.

I was never so proud to be a member of MORE as I was watching you from the visitor's gallery yesterday afternoon.

I admit that I may not be quite so fully "anti" certain parts of the contract as many others in MORE are but I was stunned by what I saw happen at the DA.  It was only the second DA I've attended so perhaps I shouldn't have been so amazed.  I told Megan Moskop in a message last night.

I came out of that DA meeting with an overwhelming feeling of self-satisfied and corrupted power that is prepared to roll over anything that gets in its way.  I was deflated but also more than a bit scared, not personally in an "I'm afraid" sort of way, but more of a "wow, this is a vicious crew that will not stand for the slightest difference of opinion and we better recognize that if we're going to keep playing the game."  Don't know if that makes sense.  Of course, this has been apparent to all of you for a very long time but as still a relative "newbie" to the process it was, shall we say, a sort of "road to Damascus" awakening for me.

Not saying we should throw up our hands but there was something menacing about the process.  The United Federation of Teachers was "debating" a contract that it has waited for for five years, which extends for nine years, which is filled with complex provisions, which involves billions of dollars and which is predicated entirely on one assumption, a false one, that "the City cannot afford anything other than this settlement" and our union allowed less than 20 minutes of farcical "debate" on the entire thing.  Mulgrew's slicing and insulting sarcasm as he presided over the sham "ceremony" with the pretense that any difference of opinion was nothing more than another in a long line of "mytttthhhsss" that he was obligated to destroy in the name of integrity and Abraham Lincoln-like "honesty" was repulsive.  I actually think he was more than a little afraid to engage in any form of active "debate" with some of the bravest and most-informed members of his union.

The applause you heard as you walked away from the microphone was the bleating of sheep responding to their shepherd and to the herd dogs that corral them in their pen.

If we plan to engage a full "vote No" campaign and prepare for an election battle in 2016 we need to get very real very fast about how we're going to do any of that in the face of a well-oiled noise machine that is prepared to eviscerate its adversaries.  

Thank you for what you have done and continue to do, James.  You are a brave man and I'm proud to stand with you.

Harry

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Elfrank-Dana Slams Mulgrew on DA

Dear President Mulgrew,

I was surprised by your insinuation that I am against people's right to vote when I objected to retirees voting last night. 

Are you going to let me vote for my District Rep instead of appointing her/him?
Are you going require high school VP to be elected only by high school members instead of having their votes disenfranchised?
Are you going to be concerned that you are elected mostly by retirees, as member voter participation is barely 20 percent at election time? 

If the answer to these questions remains NO, you are sadly, smugly self-righteous.

John Elfran-Dana, CL Murry Bergtraum HS

And here are some more comments from John:

Unity Dominated DA Rubber Stamps Surrender

As expected, the recipients of patronage jobs at the UFT in exchange for their vows of silence and obedience (a prerequisite for membership in Unity caucus) voted for this lousy contract proposal.

James Eterno, Chapter Leader from Jamaica High School, makes a monkey out of Mulgrew showing him he was out of order by not allowing for alternating pro/con speakers in debate and that the time limit was for the question period. The parliamentarian even had to approach the dais and correct President Mulgrew. 

Furthermore, Eterno challenges Mulgrew's assertion that there's "no money" out there to get us the raises now. Eterno cites reports in the press of city budget surpluses that now and in the future. Presently over a billion dollars. That the money can be moved around to get the teachers the dignity other unions got with raises immediately. Mulgrew escaped by ruling him out of order. It's the old adage - "Never argue with the guy who controls the microphone." To read on go to www.MoreCaucusNYC.org 

Mulgrew did had a flash of religion when he said my objection to letting retirees vote on the contract (which for the most part does not affect them) was an affront to voting rights. I say religion because this is the same UFT President who won't let Chapter Leaders vote for their own District Reps. This is the same UFT President that allows your vote for High School Vice President as a high school teacher to be disenfranchised by allowing retirees and elementary and middle school members to also vote for VP, and visa versa (guaranteeing via this bogus "at large" VP a Unity caucus/retiree majority in each election). This is the same UFT President who thinks there's no problem with less than 20 percent of the membership voting in union elections. Hence, my surprise about his smug self-righteousness surrounding voting rights.

 

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Fear and Loathing at the UFT Delegate Assembly Contract Vote As Mulgrew Filibusters

Mulgrew purposely shut down the debate with Julie Cavanagh, his opponent in the UFT elections last year, waiting at the microphone to speak. Mulgrew will never let Julie get up in front of a DA -- look for them to call a fire drill if she ever manages to get the mic.

Who would think that Mulgrew could turn the UFT into a more undemocratic institution than Randi Weingarten? Give me the days of Shanker and Feldman who at least followed basic rules of order. Lesson to people opposing Unity: Don't expect to be able to use the floor at a DA to make any points -- most of your time will be spent fighting for time.


Even I, the ultimate cynic, expected there to be a debate of sorts. The fact that Mulgrew purposely chewed up almost all the time, then called on a Unity Caucus hack to speak and followed with another -- until James Eterno temporarily put a stop to the farce -- means they know their arguments in favor of the contract can't stand up to scrutiny. I mean, how do you jive the DA vote with so many reports coming in from schools where almost everyone is saying NO? Not just from schools where MORE has activists. People at the DA who I didn't know - I was handing out VOTE NO leaflets -- told me their schools were opposed.

Of course this is before the UFT sends out its horde of people -- working on our dime -- to sell the contract with all sorts of distracting and specious arguments. Too bad the number of schools with a strong voice countering the Unity spin are a minority -- how much a minority will influence the final outcome.

This comment from JP at facebook:

Would have loved to have a chance to hear different perspectives; however at today's Delegate Assembly, the vote was pushed through to send the contract to a member wide vote. Four were allowed to speak for and two against before our union leader stopped the debate and went to a vote. The big scare tactic to rush to a vote was the claim that if we don't do this today, we'll be placed at the back of the line while the other 150 unions get negotiated with. By then, we may not get what we have right now. As a union of professionals, is this how we operate? Rushed and without consideration to the multitude of perspectives, questions and to discuss, this is not professionalism. S,o here's our chance before the member wide vote

Join

Vote No UFT Contract Organizing Meeting

Saturday at 12:00pm

Ya Ya Network - 224 W. 29th St., 14th floor

MORE held a post DA press conferences outside the Hilton -- I will put up some video -- and issued a press release - which I will put up with the video -- and will lead a campaign against starting with a meeting this Saturday beginning at noon. All invited who want to give us a shot at winning this vote -- or at the very least, turning this into a referendum on the Mulgrew leadership.

I'll be posting stuff through the day so don't get worn out.

Our pal Urban Ed was at the meeting and has a report:

Urban Ed

How Did Mulgrew Get a Such a Sizable Majority At the DA on Wednesday? - He talked! He talked so long that people who don't usually go to Delegate Assemblies (many of whom feel out of place just being at one) were afraid they'd ...

And here is the first part of James' report on the ICE blog:

MULGREW MANGLES DEMOCRACY BEYOND RECOGNITION AT DA AS CONTRACT IS SENT TO MEMBERSHIP

It was a very sad day indeed in the history of democracy at the May Delegate Assembly.  The meeting was moved to the NY Hilton.  I am going to dispense with my usual lengthy summary of what President Mulgrew said because you've already seen most of it in the UFT propaganda literature or you will hear it when union representatives come to your schools.

Mulgrew made the case for the contract for over an hour and then doubled the question period to half an hour to speak some more.  He finally allowed for debate on the contract after 6:00 pm when there is an automatic adjournment at 6:15 p.m. His basic argument is that the city has no money for raises because former Mayor Bloomberg depleted the labor reserve. The one sided discussion was worse than even the usual DA mangling of democracy.  It was a complete sham.

After Mulgrew finally finished talking, one Unity person (majority caucus of the UFT which does not allow dissent) spoke in favor of sending the contract to the membership for ratification and then Mulgrew pointed to a second Unity member and that is when I sprung forward and called for a point of order.  As everyone who regularly reads this blog knows, debate is supposed to alternate between speakers for and against every topic according to Robert's Rules.  Since there was a speaker for the contract, there should be one against.  The Unity speaker was willing to yield the floor so Mulgrew gave it to me.

I had a thorough speech ready (see below) where I was about to go point for point to refute much of what Mulgrew said.  I started right out on the economics. 

"Up until two months ago at the DA, Mulgrew was telling us that the city has money but they always say they are broke.  I keep reading in the papers that the city surplus is growing."

(Mulgrew in February:
“We look at the city’s fiscal numbers all the time; it is clear to us that there is money out there. We need our teachers to be paid at least at the level of the school districts around us, which we are not.”)

I continued: "The city is not in bad shape financially so why are we settling for so little.  If we take out the 4% + 4% for the first two years that just equals the last pattern (and we won't see until between 2015 and 2020), the pattern we set for the rest of municipal labor is 10% total over 7 years."  That is the worst pattern in municipal labor history (at least as long as I have been around)."  At this point, Mulgrew stopped me and said I was wrong.  I responded that according to Robert's Rules when I have the floor, he has no right to interrupt me. I also told him that I have an interpretation of what's in the agreement and so does he and that doesn't make me wrong.

Someone then called a point of order and said that during the question period we agreed that people would only get 30 seconds to ask a question so I was only entitled to the floor for 30 seconds and my time was up.  Mulgrew said I could make one more point and I responded by telling him that the 30 second rule was for the question period.  I also stated that I sat and listened to him politely for an hour motivating the contract and now it was my turn.  He claimed that was my one point and time was up.  I then proceeded to say that I wished I was being recorded (earlier he said UFT policy is no recording) because the entire membership should be permitted to see how he treats people who are dissidents.  There was fairly loud applause as I walked away. 

Maybe I should have stayed and further held my ground but I felt I blew away his no money argument and other people could handle some of the other issues as well or better than I could.

Unfortunately, they never had the chance.  The opposition's next speaker took his 30 seconds to point out how Mulgrew was wrong on his 30 second rule as it pertained to the question period.  We had one other Delegate who had the chance to speak.

Mulgrew then stopped the debate at exactly 6:15 p.m. and called for the vote.  The overwhelming Unity majority obeyed their caucus obligation and supported the contract.

Time allotted for contract discussion:

• Pro contract side talked for well over an hour. 

• The opposition was given about 3 minutes of which half of the time was spent trying to keep the floor and tell the president he was out of order.  Would you call that a fair debate?

I have written out the points I wanted to make and will instead make them here.  Below that is a statement on health care.  We don't have to make up anything about the contract.  It is bad enough to fall on its own.

Read the rest of James' report.

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UFT Delegate Assembly: MOREistas Comment and MORE

Lets just say the truth. Our union leadership has turned their back on it's members. It rules in a non-democratic fashion. Unity, randi, aft, mulgrew openly advocate for common core, Danielson, and test based evals- NOT ONE teacher I have ever spoken to feels the same.... A MORE Delegate

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When I was elected by my colleagues to serve as a delegate to the UFT Delegate Assembly, I believed that it was my job to represent them by voting for or against resolutions with the wishes of the chapter in mind. Today I voted for a proposed resolution that called for an end to the new teacher evaluation system. Again, I voted with the wishes of the chapter that I represent in mind. Every teacher that I have spoken with in numerous schools dislikes the new evaluation system. So how is it that most of the delegates at today’s Delegate Assembly voted against an end to the new evaluation system? Were they actually representing the wishes of their chapters? Is the UFT Delegate Assembly actually the representative democracy that it claims to be?

The new evaluation system: Stifles teacher independence and creativity in the classroom. Is not the objective tool for determining teacher performance that we were told it would be. In fact, it is more subjective than ever before, especially in the hands of inexperienced and poorly trained supervisors. It was pushed on us without a vote from the membership. From the UFT website:

http://www.uft.org/new-teachers/your-school

“The union is run as a representative democracy. Each school has at least one person, elected by the union members in your school, who joins your chapter leader in representing you at the monthly meetings of the UFT Delegate Assembly. The number of delegates in a school varies with the size of the union membership.”

----- A high school delegate responding to the DA yesterday

Robert's Rules...You mean Mulgrew's rules. The only way to teach the suit about Robert's rules is to hit him with the book... Jeff Kaufman

There is a lot to write about the DA yesterday where MORE placed a resolution calling for repeal of the state ed eval law. MORE was attacked by Unity in their brand new propaganda sheet newsletter obviously in response to the MORE newsletter. They call themselves UNITY/UFT. Volume 1, Issue 1 -- but the same old 63-year old song. In this one they attack MORE - I hope they distribute these to all the schools instead of just the DA because it can only help MORE -- but I gotta rush out to the Portelos hearing (I have to post reports from last week's - hopefully later.) Will try to do more analysis later.

Start off with James Eterno's report at the ICE blog:

UNITY DOMINATED UFT DELEGATE ASSEMBLY VOTES FOR MINOR TWEAKS IN THE TEACHER EVALUATION SYSTEM WHILE MORE CAUCUS CALLS FOR REPEAL OF EVALUATION LAW

The positions of the two main  caucuses (political parties) within the UFT on the topic of teacher evaluations emerged clear as day at Wednesday's UFT Delegate Assembly in Manhattan.  Michael Mulgrew's Unity Caucus passed a resolution calling for small changes in the teacher evaluation system called Advance to be negotiated with the new mayor. On the other hand, the Movement of Rank and File Educators introduced a resolution calling for a full scale repeal of the evaluation system law (Education Law 3012c) that ties teacher evaluations to student test scores. 
Most of the Unity dominated Delegate Assembly, including a huge group of retirees who do not have to work under the new system, agreed with the President that evaluations only need to be tweaked but there was strong support for  MORE's position to scrap the whole system among the Delegates.
As usual, President Michael Mulgrew ignored Roberts' Rules of Order in conducting debate. No speakers were permitted to oppose a Unity Caucus resolution reinforced the UFT's support for the evaluation law.  However, the UFT is calling for a moratorium on using the results of high stakes tests for teacher evaluations until alterations to the local portion of the Measures of Student Learning portion of the system can be worked out in contract negotiations.  The Unity sponsored resolution was on the regular agenda.  It was introduced a few minutes after Delegate Megan Moskop from MORE introduced a resolution for next month during the new motion period calling for the UFT to support legislation to scrap the entire teacher evaluation law.

Just to be clear - Megan is on the left

Read James' complete - and amazing given he did this so fast -- report.

And kudos to the MORE and MORE amazing Megan Moskop who first came to us in July and is now getting up at a DA and going straight at Mulgrew. Megan is also a TFA alum, a sign that the quarter (maybe) of TFAs who remain in the classroom beyond a few years are real reformers. Megan and her ilk must be Unity's nightmare: Twenty-somethings creating a new face of the opposition.

Here are the comments from the MORE listserve. I'm posting without names because I don't have time to ask everyone.

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Below are comments that Mike Mulgrew made about Common Core.  If you want to read more about the UFT Delegate Assembly then click on the link below.  MORE had a resolution to repeal the evaluation system.  The DA is controlled by the Unity Caucus of the UFT.  All of the UFT leadership is Unity.   The vote on the  MORE evaluation resolution did get many more votes than usual.  I would say that over 1/3 of the DA voted for it.  

Mulgrew on Common Core:
How did you all like the talking up of the Common Core?  WE are in a big time competition with" those" countries.  Our kids can't compete.  The big companies are going to "those" countries because our kids don't and won't have the skills.  Those countries that we are competing with started up grading their education years ago.  He even said that RIGHT NOW in NYC there are 110,000  jobs that cannot be filled because there are NO workers with the skills? Really?  Of course he also threw in the part about not going back to the days when Alabama and  (another state) did such a "great" job of educating their students that ALL students graduated from HS. 

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Lisa- your retelling of Mulgrew's talking points are sickening. I watched a short segment on WSJ TV last night about education out of curiosity and they had/used the exact same talking points. When the president of our union sounds exactly like a talking head/some edu corp CEO being interviewed by the WSJ, something is very, very wrong.
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One of the most disturbing things about Mulgrew today was the way in which he kept saying that our members were "tired" and "not ready for action"  I feel like this came up several times.  WHAT???  I think people are tired of stupid systems, and ready to take action against them. 
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Let's not forget to throw this back in their faces. The UFT's own high stakes testing task force that Lisa and Terry were a part of in 2007 found that the research does NOT support the use of hst to make any major decisions. I forwarded this to Mulgrew and Unity members I've known over the years, and I still have not gotten a response or explanation.

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To add to what's been said, Mulgrew also threw in that the test results will be even better measures once class size is put into the equation. Yes, of course, he always adds that testing should not be the only measure. But if class size is such an important element, why has our union not pushed for this in our contracts?

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Lets just say the truth

Our union leadership has turned their back on it's members.

It rules in a non-democratic fashion

Unity, randi, aft, mulgrew openly advocate for common core, Danielson, and test based evals- NOT ONE teacher I have ever spoken to feels the same

Unity wanted this  eval scheme- just ask Leo Casey

They rule without the consent of the governed -'15 percent active UFTers voted them in

They allow mayoral control

They sold off our rights

Time for a change

Time to expect MORE from our union

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Assailed Teacher on the ICE blog proposes an idea that John Elfrank-Dana has been floating for years

Assailed Teacher said...

Thank you for your report James, as always. As a Chapter Leader, I refuse to go to most DAs because of the way Unity makes up the rules as they go along. Whatever Unity wants, Unity gets. I really think MORE or another dissident caucus should hold their own DAs, pass their own resolutions and implement them as if Unity does not exist. If another caucus acts as the union long enough, people will start to believe it. That is how CORE won in Chicago.

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