Maybe if we stay nice, the Mayor will be good to us. If not, maybe the next Mayor will be good to us. If not then maybe the one after...Good God, what kind of "Barney and Friends"-type union leadership is this?
The UFT did not want to look at the primary results that ousted many council members and gave Quinn a run for her money too. They were tied to Bloomberg is ways we can not imagine. Then there was the lying media, many who endorsed Bloomie, telling people Thompson didn't have a chance in hell. I am sure that made voters stay home too. Had the polls been correct, Thompson might be mayor now.
Would be have been nice to the union, I don't know. But I doubt he would let stand the policies and spending practices that do not benefit the classroom left by Klein.
I wonder what happened with the polls. Turnout was low (the total votes between Bloomie and Thompson was just over a million), but aren't these polls supposed to be of likely voters? Lying among those polled cannot possibly account for the discrepancy.
Thompson seemed to be a big cheerleader for the UFT, going out and supporting union issues in words that clearly mirrored union positions. The rejection of the prospective UFT deal was clearly a reaction to having been thrown under the bus.
In my memory, there's never been a sympathetic mayor. We got a one-year contract from Dinkins that was not too bad, but he turned away from us after he was criticized for having been too generous. He should've stood up and said he supported education and educators. That might've spared us Giuliani and Bloomberg.
Well, I still think Thompson would have made positive changes to the curriculum and put someone in charge that understood that education gains do not come from test prep. But Obama is also becoming a supporter of tests over content.
I am just as upset with that other ego maniac Corzine for not stepping down and letting Codey run for election.
This isn't rocket science. EVERY poll had Bloomberg with leads in the significant double digits even the day before the election. So what happened? It's absurdly obvious. Thompson wasn't a great candidate. He had inadequate resources and inadequate support from his party and usual supporters. But he represented something very concrete. He was the anti-emperor for life Bloomberg candidate. And we all know that a lot of NYers were angry with Bloomberg for buying his way into overturning term limits and about his general demeanor of my way or the highway. Those were hard supporters. They were going to have their say. They were going to come out rain or shine. They had a point to prove.
Bloomberg's support was blah. 8 years was enough. He was competent but uninspiring at this point. Vague complaints like only the rich benefited or only Manhattanites but not the kind of positioning that inspires loyalty from the masses.
So what happened? Bloomberg's soft support say a big lead and no letup in advertising, and no real chance Thompson could win or they kept their ball and stayed home in sufficient numbers to turn a blowout into a more typical victory in the mid-single digits.
Money in the bank that if the final polls had showed Thompson with a fighting chance, the turnout would be up 50% and the lead would have been closer to the double digits EVERY poll showed.
The question is, what does the Emperor think of this? And more importantly, what do the Emperor's enemies think of this? If they now smell blood in the water Bloomberg will spend the next 4 years at odds with the City Council and all parts of the State government and he won't be able to effect much change, and eventually learn to compromise, accomplishing little or nothing. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
We saw some indications of this from John Liu who blew off Bloomberg's request for a quick meeting while DiBlasio did some initial sucking up. Clearly both are now the initial frontrunners for a challenge when the Emperor decides to continue his reign. DeBlasio thinks we're coming to an era of compromise and wants to be part of that. Liu thinks the blood in truly in the water and wants to inherit the anyone but Bloomberg vote from Thompson.
No last minute support from the UFT was going to change that. All the teacher union support in the world amounted to squat in NJ against Christie. But look for the UFT to explore its long term agenda when the next mayoral election comes up which promises to be much more interesting: two popular winners with UFT support and Thompson coming off a decent performance and god knows who else.
Well, I have to like your optimism about a crippled lame duck emperor. And I have to like John Liu for finally standing up to Mayor-for-life Bloomberg. I liked him before, and I like him more now.
But I'm not optimistic about the UFT pursuing a long-term agenda in some vague future. I like the idea of a long-term agenda. 2005, among other things, suggested strongly to me that no such agenda even existed.
If you believe there is such an agenda, what do you think it entails?
Paul,
I think Codey would have stood better against Christie. He is very popular with the people of New Jersey.
As for Thompson, why didn't he run ads showing Bloomie giving to finger to Astoria residents during the blackout and backing Con Ed instead. Even Rudy didn't do that.
And what about calling New Yorkers "lazy" when he forced them to shovel out cars after a blizzard???
So many missed opportunities in that campaign.
I didn't say Thompson ran a good campaign. Far from it. I think any innocuous candidate would have garnered at least 40% of the vote against Bloomberg because that's probably the percentage of voters disgusted by his power grab.
Both sides need to be clear about what happened. Bloomberg's support is very soft and he might not survive an election to win a 4th term if the opposition puts their mind to it but Thompson wasn't really the guy. But once it became about Bloomberg vs. Thompson, the UFT was smart to stay out of it. There's a very high probability that had the UFT come out strong for Thompson, the polls would have closed 2-3 points true, but then Bloomberg's soft supporters would have bothered coming out negating the effort.
I'm not feeling good that the UFT will pursue the right long term agenda, just that they will likely be looking for one whereas in recent months, it seems more about defense, and poorly done at that.
The bottom line is we're in a very awkward position with the state looking at a $5B gap and the city looking at the same, and the projected deficits looking even larger and unemployment topping 10% nationally. What I'm not interested in is worrying about the pensions or medical benefits of future NYC teachers vs. those already in the system. If they make the job less desirable than it already is, the market will correct itself over time when the economy turns around and people flock back into private industry. It is not the union's job to make the job more desirable for those entering. It's their job to make the job more desirable for the majority of those in it now. We pay the dues, not those yet to come. It's the city's job to make the job more attractive to new employees. We all seem to be forgetting that.
Isn't it funny that the day after the election, Bloomberg let it be known that the city is in better shape financially??
btw, I was one of those effected by today's $189 million snafu. But my funds were returned by 3:30 pm. Many of my friends have to wait until Monday. I hope the UFT keeps to their promise to find out what caused this and how it can be prevented.
The notion that the UFT, at this point, is looking for a long-term agenda, is very unsettling. There really should be one at all times, and it should shape and guide all negotiations.
If there is no such agenda, it's a pivotal error. If the agenda is routinely disregarded at contract time, it's yet another one.
Regarding making the job attractive to new employees, it may be a moot point until they start making the job available to new employees. But the UFT has sent mixed signals on that point as well.
They made a great show in 05 of saying they would not do the "eat our young" thing. Then they agreed to make new teachers not only wait two more years than the rest of us to reach retirement, but also surrender 3% of their salaries back to the city for 27 years, 17 more than the rest of us.
I hadn't read of Bloomberg announcing the city is in better financial shape, but that's reminiscent of Bush with the color coded terror warnings that stopped immediately the day after election day.
I don't want to hear about eating our young. My entire career was spent with raises to the top when I was young, raises on both ends when I was older, raises to the bottom now that I'm "old". The young will fend for themselves when they have the power but the truly young, the fetuses and such, have no business mixed in with the demands of those already in the system and paying dues.
I will be the first to vote yes on any contract that features some meaningful raises and a no-layoff pledge and of course no other shennanigans in exchange for changes to the pensions and medical benefits of those not yet in the profession. Selfish perhaps, but as I see it, the union owes me for nearly 30 years of being selfish to me.
I agree with Paul Rubin about the "eating the young". If we followed the police instead of accepting the terrible 2005 contract we would be in much better shape today.
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