The retirees weren't apathetic. Almost half of them voted.
Who was it who said, "Withdrawal in disguist is not the same as apathy."
Didn't she mean Apathy Fools' Day?
Jeff Kaufman comment on Diane Ravitch praise for Randi's victory:
Usually Diane’s analysis is right on but her analysis of Weingarten’s victory is totally misplaced. While it is true that she garnered a significant percentage of the vote the fact is that less than 1 in 5 active teachers actually voted.
The winner of the election, as a good friend noted, was apathy. The union gave up so much to the city in the last two contracts teachers and school staff feel totally powerless to fight the DOE and their newly created patronage system.
When teachers lost the right to have meaningful input in education in our schools our children also lost. We won’t win this back until our members feel there is some hope for some change and that the union is not just another partner is their de-professionalization.
Jeff Kaufman
H.S. Representative
UFT Executive Board
(part of the opposition, ICE-TJC, which lost all of our Executive Board seats in this election).
To: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [nyceducationnews] from Diane re Randi's re-election
Subject: please post on the parent blog
On March 29, Randi Weingarten was re-elected as president of the United Federation of Teachers by an astonishing landslide, capturing 87% of the teachers' votes.
There are many reasons for the size of her victory, but I would single out these in particular: The fact that the New York Post and the New York Daily News regularly tried to demonize Weingarten made her a hero to rank-and-file teachers. They knew she was taking a beating in the editorial columns because of her defense of the union. If the Post and News had hoped to strengthen her position as the spokesperson for teachers in the New York City public schools, then they could not have done a better job.
Credit must also go to Chancellor Joel Klein, who kept hammering away at the union long after Mayor Bloomberg signed a long-term contract with the UFT last fall. The more that Chancellor Klein and his spokespersons continued to talk about how they were going to diminish tenure or introduce merit pay or do other things unilaterally that would either be rejected by the union or required its cooperation, the more they turned Weingarten into a champion of teachers' rights.
It was ironic that the Department of Education put out a press release claiming that it was starting its campaign to limit the granting of tenure on the same day that Weingarten was winning her big victory. What the Department did, in fact, was just to send out an electronic notice to principals about which teachers were supposed to be certified as qualified for tenure--or not. This is hardly deserving of a press release. The administration has been in charge of tenure review and approval since the day it took charge in September 2002. Why has it taken nearly five years for them to figure this out? The announcement seems to be an inadvertent admission by the administration that it has been asleep at the wheel all these years, not paying attention to its fundamental responsibility for the awarding of tenure to qualified teachers.
Diane Ravitch
The News and the Post will use the apathy factor as evidence that a majority of teachers agree with their take on the role of unions in the DoE. They will claim that since the opposition to Weingarten was vehemently in favor of expanding union protections that those not voting must be opposed to such protections and desire to support the "reforms" of Klein and Bloomberg. They will further take the retirees vote, if they mention it at all, as the last gasp of dying trade unionists who are responsible for the mess Bloomie and Klein are trying to clean up.
What will be the UFTs rebuttal? Frankly I can't see one that will be effective. Randi can't get 20% of thea ctive teachers to vote for her. How will she say that the 54,000 who didn't vote aren't agreeing with Tweed?
Randi pulled off the best April Fool's prank for many reasons:
Teacher apathy.
New teachers.
Unity control
The less than stellar campaign from the opposition.
I don't think Diane is in any way putting down the other candidates as much as sending a message to Klein that Randi won in spite of their efforts to destroy our union.
I do not think Diane undersands that Randi is slowly destroying our rights one contract at a time.
"Randi pulled off the best April Fool's prank for many reasons:
Teacher apathy.
New teachers.
Unity control"
Another knock on new teachers!
Would the next person who claims we all love Randi so much more than you veterans, or that we're more apathetic, please produce some numbers to that effect? And also deal with the fact that retirees, who are more experienced than any of you, are demonstrably voting for her in droves?
The union's current decadence is not a new phenomenon, but the product of many years. We new teachers weren't around for all that--you were.
Teacher]
Most new teachers are very busy people, struggling to learn the craft and also having to go to school. Once they get a few years under their belts we will see those who stay become more active. Already a few of the Teaching Fellows I mentored 3 years ago have popped up at union events.
I spent most of the Del. Ass. last Wed hanging out with a 6th year teacher who is active in social justice issues and works at a small high school in a building with a lot of other small schools. He had invited us to the school during the election. He was livid at the red-baiting lit sent out by Unity. We watched Jeff Zahler's vicious attack on Kit and we both thought Kit's response could have been stronger.
It looks like this teacher and some others will be more involved from now on. There are more politically active new teachers, mostly on the left that I think will begin to see the union as a potential force for change and we hope to build alliances with them. If he starts "working the building" with 6 schools, a guy like him is worth a lot to the movement.
One of the purposes of this election was to expand the number of people who can become a core of organizers in their schools in the future. It is only by having enough people at ground level that can match the Unity machine that we can make changes. Political campaigns without a critical mass of troops will not work. That is why the campaign looked so ineffective. There just were not enough activists to carry it out. It was not just apathy but fear played a role as many people I approached as far back as last spring backed off because of fear of both BloomKlein and the union.
While the vote doesn't reflect an increase in people, we have seen an uptick in these valuable people (we measure numbers in single and double digits as each one has the potential to bring in votes in the future.) We hope people like you will join us in the struggle whenever you are ready.
I was a new teacher once (1967). In my first week on the job we went on a 2-week strike. The next year we went on a 3 month strike. I was almost oblivious and went along like everyone else. I never intended to stay in teaching anyway. I was also still going to school.
It wasn't till sometime toward the end of my 3rd year that I began to check out the union in my school because our new principal, who was affable, did not seem competent. I was appointed to a new school the next year and at that point became active in the union.
Your comments reflect your interest. Take your time. If the delegate position in your school becomes vacant take a shot at it.
TeacherJ:
Apathy is not a "new teacher" syndrome. I saw it when I was CC. Teachers figured out it was better to get "in good" with the principal rather than stand together. However when it came to this vote, the majority to teachers are now "New".
My new CC was a strong ICE supporter, but since becoming CC has yet to bring any "controversial" issues to policy meetings with the principal.
So I too am losing faith in this process too.
Understand that a majority of new and mid level teachers are not as union conscious as you are. They say "how high" when the principal says "jump" even if it violates the contract. Hopefully things will change once they become tenured. New teachers supported the '05 contract for the money, and unfortunately the majority of ALL teachers voted for the new one, again for the money. New teachers are now the majority in many schools, and principals now are empowered to keep it that way.
Retirees are a different story. They are no longer in the game and do not know what is going on. The only news they get comes from NYTeacher.
Maybe they should be out of the vote, but with Randi in control that will not happen. And I am not sure if other unions keep retirees from voting.
Also not as many teachers, including new ones, are into anything union political the way new teachers were in the 60s and 70s.
Apathy is not a "new teacher" syndrome. I saw it when I was CC. Teachers figured out it was better to get "in good" with the principal rather than stand together.
I sincerely hope you can get new teachers to rally around the importance of our contract, but finding one who wants to grieve, in fact finding senior teachers who want to grieve, under the new guidelines is an uphill battle unless the whole school supports the action.
Years ago teachers stood together. Today we see too many cliques, and some of them report back to the principal. I have always stated both on Edwize and here that the union needs to reach out to the new teachers and make sure their is strong support from the higher ups to support their struggle. I would like to see all grievances handled by the DRs instead of the teacher or the chapter to prevent any retailiation.
We need to empower schools, but unfortuantely that is not happening unless all teachers, including new ones who are now the majority, fight for that change.
I am happy when any new teacher stands up for their rights and is aware of the circumstances. But Unity controls the message, and the opposition needs to find other ways besides blogs and leaflets that get tossed to get the message out.
I hope those like you will run for Chapter Leader and help make this union as strong as it once was.
We had 3 elementary school teachers at the ICE meeting this past Friday - their first meeting.
All are teaching in the 18-20 year range. The election defeat strangely, seems to have galvanized people.
2 of the teachers are in the same school in Harlem and have seen all types of supervisors and chapter leaders. The school had a great CL who left because of not getting the support of the members and was under attack by the admin. Now things really suck and people realize what they lost. These teachers say the union has been totally useless and they are both under tremendous harassment by the admin. They seem to be looking to ICE for some assistance. We do not have too many answers other than to give people the feeling they are not isolated. But we also believe in fighting these battles publicly, not hide like the UFT tells them to do. Attack! Attack! Attack! Leaflet parents, etc if necessary. What more can they do to you?
The other teachers is a first year CL who replaced a Unity person who made deals with the principal. She said she got more in 1 hour of discussion with some of us a few weeks ago than she got from the union since last year. She is also fighting a horrendous principal who has put awful letters in the files of every new teacher full of lies and distortions. They didn't want to sign them. We told her to make sure to write a response, attach it and even go further, make copies and put them in everyone's mailbox and give them out to parents. Now this takes lots of nerve, but if they are coming for you anyway, go kicking and screaming.
Don't attach the response, write it directly on the letter so it doesn't get, uhum, "misplaced".
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