WIN BACK WHAT WE GAVE BACK: CONTRACT ‘09: NEW TJC LEAFLET

We need and deserve a just contract, regardless of the economic crisis. What are realistic demands, that could be achieved with a strategy of militant grass roots involvement? Read tje text of TJC's latest leaflet below. To get a PDF, to download and reproduce for your chapter, reply to this email. If you need a hard copy to reproduce, or if you need us to send you multiple copies, reply specifying the number of copies, and the address to send them.

TJC demands: A Just Contract for Hard Times.

Our contract expires on October 31. At the April Delegate Assembly, the UFT leadership signaled it is preparing for negotiations by allowing some limited discussion of what our goals should be. It also announced there will be a membership survey soon.

Our past two contracts have been real setbacks for UFT members. (For more information, go to our website and click on "Recent Contracts: The Disaster of 2005 and the Shame of 2006") Unless we, the rank and file, speak out forcefully and independently, 2009 could further undermine our rights, working conditions and standard of living.

TJC believes these are some of the demands we need to reverse our union's tailspin:

No Givebacks, period.
We are working longer, harder, and with fewer rights and less support. Any giveback is unacceptable.

Win Back What We Gave Back!
Restore the two vacation days before Labor Day. Restore the right to grieve unfair and inaccurate material in our files.

Protect Our Schools! Protect Our Jobs!
To protect experienced teachers, restore centralized funding for teacher salaries. Unconditional no layoff clause. Due process rights for probationary members. Moratorium on costly school closings. No new hiring until all ATRs seeking positions have secured them.

No Merit Pay, Individual OR "School Based!"
No fair method for determining "merit" exists. The underlying assumption, that teachers hold back without a money incentive, is demeaning. Our union should be challenging these ideas, not accommodating to them.

Stop "Data Driven" Education!
Data should not be used to evaluate teachers, nor as the basis for any disparate treatment: programming, special observations, etc. Our students are individuals, not mass produced standardized commodities.

Protect Our Rights!
Justice delayed is justice denied: if a grievance is not heard and decided within the time limits, the grievant should win. In disciplinary cases, accused members should have the right to know the charges against them, or discipline should be dropped. Their representatives should have rights to investigate equal to the DoE's powers.

Cost of Living Adjustment
Annual across-the-board wage increases to cover any rise in the cost of living, to safeguard our standard of living against inflation which might be triggered by expansion of deficit spending.


If we want our union to adopt these demands, we must pressure our leadership to mount a fight. Teachers for a Just Contract has always said that we won't win a just contract with the UFT leadership's strategy of lobbying, supporting "friendly" politicians, givebacks, or rallies that express more symbolism than power. The union's twenty year downward spiral proves this.

Instead, we need grassroots activism, rank and file democracy, and militant shows of strength.

If this makes sense to you, please contact us.

TJC WILL MEET IN MANHATTAN, FRIDAY MAY 15
You are invited to the next TJC meeting, on Friday, April 24, at 4 PM, at at Stuyvesant High School, room 303 or 305. We will be discussing budget cuts, and spring chapter elections. If you are interested in attending, please reply to this email, so you can receive a copy of the agenda and any materials to be discussed.

TJC RECOMMENDS:
Protest March Against NYC School Closings
Thursday, May 14 3 - 7 PM
Gather at Battery Park, walk to Depart. of Education Offices at Chamber Street and Broadway
For more information, call 718 601 4901 or email gemnyc @ gmail.com

MARCH DELEGATE ASSEMBLY NOTES NOW AVAILABLE
Contract expiration is right around the corner. The April Delegate Assembly will be dedicated to "our aspirations for bargaining," with an open mike as soon as Weingarten finishes her report, i.e., five minutes before the automatic time to adjourn. With that in mind, the meeting will go an extra hour until seven. Also, Weingarten discusses Obama on merit pay, her reconciliation with Mayor Mike, and how well things went in Albany. However, a member asks a question about healthcare costs, and she goes right back into "it's the 1970s again and it's givebacks or layoffs" mode. For a copy, reply to this email and ask for the March D.A. notes.

TJC on Randi and Bloomie Term Limits

Click to enlarge

NEW TJC LEAFLET - HOW TO DEFEND THE RIGHTS WE STILL RETAIN!

We have a new leaflet for you to distribute to UFT members in your school. (The Baizerman decision gives you the right to do this) The text is below. Reply to this email to get a pdf attachment of this leaflet, or a hard copy, to reproduce yourself. Or tell us how many copies you want, and the street address to send them to.

The Unity UFT leadership has surrendered so many of our rights. Now we must take action to (larger type:) ENFORCE THE RIGHTS WE STILL HAVE!

Bullet: A principal in a Bronx High School informs a teacher that he is investigating a student allegation against her, and advises her to transfer out of the school. The Unity chapter leader tells her he knows, but will not tell her, what the allegation is, and also advises her to transfer. The teacher stands her ground and she is soon told nothing has come of the allegation.
Bullet: An untenured teacher is U-rated by a principal in a Brooklyn high school, who replaces her with a friend of his wife. Because she is untenured, she loses her license and must look for other work to make a living. Three years after her U-rating, and a year after her hearing, she still has not gotten the hearing officer's decision.
Bullet: A small Manhattan high school principal violates the rules about professional assignments. The overwhelmed new chapter leader asks a union committee member to help her out by calling the District Rep for her with questions. The District Rep yells at the union committee member.

These are examples of the kind of cases people have reported to us. Specific, nonessential, details have been changed for their protection.

Our most recent leaflet "End the UFT's Free Fall" (available on our website, www. Teachers for a Just Contract. org) showed the many ways the UFT's Unity leaders have given up our interests and rights since they were reelected last April. An equally outrageous problem is how they have failed to protect even those rights they haven't yet given back.
Chapter Leaders who are prominent members of Weingarten's Unity Caucus are notorious for making "deals" with principals to the detriment of the members whose interests they are supposed to protect. District Reps, who are no longer elected but are now appointed by Randi Weingarten, often don't return phone calls, or are even abusive to members. The D.o.E. hearing officers and arbitrators take years to issue decisions on grievances, special complaints, appeals of U-ratings, and tenure revocation hearings. These delays keep lengthening, and the UFT leadership does nothing to buck the trend.

There are literally hundreds of schools where there is absolutely no union structure whatsoever, the contract is unknown, and the principal runs the school as a despot, benevolent or otherwise.
Our union must be strengthened, or it will become a useless shell that only takes our dues. The union leadership should be calling upon all active and concerned UFT rank and file to participate in a discussion about how to do this. TJC contributes these ideas:

Bullet: Revitalize union democracy by restoring the election of District Representatives. Appointed District Reps have no incentive to respond to the needs of the members and Chapter Leaders they represent, only to the orders of Randi Weingarten, who appoints them.
Bullet: Devote a portion of each monthly District-wide chapter leaders' meeting to discussion of problems in the chapters. At the Delegate Assembly, reports about victories in specific chapters need to go beyond celebration to in-depth presentations about the nuts and bolts of how the victory was achieved.
Bullet: Mobilize members of other chapters to demonstrate and support members in other schools whose rights are under attack. For example, where a principal is abusive, UFT members from the entire district could picket before work. This will put pressure on the administration, strengthen union solidarity, and build members' confidence in their own power.
Bullet: Revitalize union democracy on the chapter level by mandating that chapter consultation committees be elected by the members, rather than serving at the Chapter Leader's pleasure. Make chapter leaders more accountable to their members by restoring the two year term of office for them.
Bullet: The UFT staff members assigned to boost weak chapters must go beyond just recruiting individuals to be chapter leaders or committee members. They should be educating all chapter members about their rights and how to work together to defend them.

Although our jobs cannot be outsourced, UFT members are experiencing a loss of rights, power and security. This is because the Unity leadership of the UFT is more invested in its own interests as union bureaucrats than in safeguarding those of the members who work in the schools and sites. TJC is building a rank and file alternative, to the destructive policies of Weingarten and her Unity Caucus. We urge you to join us.

Visit our website. Www. Teachers for a Just Contract. Org, email us at
justcontract@ nyc.rr. com

WANT TO WORRY WEINGARTEN?
One thing that worries Weingarten is a strong, active opposition. Even better than worrying Weingarten, it helps preserve what is left of our members' power and voice. It even keeps alive the hope that we may stop our union's free fall and reverse its decline. You can strengthen the opposition in many ways: attend TJC meetings or the meetings of other dissident UFT groups, give out our leaflets. Or, if you cannot do these things, a donation of money is always needed and welcome. Right now, TJC is flat broke: we spent every nickel we had in an all-out election campaign last spring. We would really appreciate your help rebuilding our finances so we can continue our work. If each of you who receives this email would give just five dollars, we'd be well on our way to being able to resume full-fledged operations all over the city. Can you spare five bucks for TJC? You can use your credit card to donate on our website: www. TeachersforaJustContract. org. Go to the right side of the homepage. Or you can send a check or even cash to TJC, P.O.B. 1346, Bronx, N.Y. 10471. Please make checks out to Teachers for a Just Contract

NYC TEACHERS WILL BE MEASURED BY STUDENT PROGRESS ON TESTS!
UFT LEADERSHIP HAS KNOWN FOR MONTHS AND SAID NOTHING.
NEW HORROR! WHERE WILL THE UFT'S FREE FALL STOP?
On Monday, January 21, a front page article in the New York Times announced that 2,500 New York City teachers are being measured on how much their students improve on annual standardized tests! Many are not even aware they are being scrutinized in this fashion. The story reports that city officials "say it is too early to determine how they will use the data . . They say could eventually be used to help make decisions on teacher tenure . . . And they hold out the possibility that the ratings for individual teachers could be made public."
Where is our union leadership that this is going on? Where is our union leadership that we learn these awful facts from the newspapers? The answer, according to the Times, is that the UFT leadership "has known about the experiment for months." But nothing has been said to the rank and file union membership, at Delegate Assemblies, in the NY Teacher newspaper, or in any other way. Weingarten was quoted merely as saying she has "grave reservations about the project," and that she and the city "disagree" about the possible uses of the data. "If one permitted this, it would be one of the worst decisions of my professional life." The trouble is, there are already so many bad decisions, this statement is pathetic. Instead of organizing us to fight against this new threat to our professionalism and our jobs, she kept silent. Even now, the most we can expect from her is a lawsuit that drags on for years as hundreds of teachers are subject to outrageous and unjust scrutiny and worse repercussions. (For the full text of the Times article, go to the NY Times website.)

Albert Shanker, Image and Reality

I came across this by TJC's Swerdlow and Wainer written shortly after Shanker died.

"The Shanker-Feldman vision has so weakened teacher unionism that government officials can now openly consider the privatization of public education. Therefore, the future of [public] education may depend on the ability of rank-and-file members to challenge the Unity/Progressive Caucus and replace the union's rhetoric of professionalism with a strategic vision of militance, solidarity and democracy."

Ten years later, we can see the results as the very future of public education and the power of teacher unionism at the school level is threatened like no time before. The combination of iron tight Unity Caucus control of the UFT and by proxy, the AFT, combined with Weingarten's strategy of coopting the main opposition - New Action - leaving ICE and TJC to attempt to resurrect some semblance of opposition to Unity from scratch.

And I'm sure some people may have some critiques of their critique, so fire away.

Published on Solidarity (http://www.solidarity-us.org)

Created 06/30/1997 - 8:00pm

by Marian Swerdlow and Kit Adam Wainer

THE DEATH OF Albert Shanker on February 22, 1997 provoked a flurry of eulogistic praise both inside and outside the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Presidents, think tank experts and AFL-CIO leaders held in high regard the man who had presided over the national teachers' union for twenty-three years.

Although the AFT is less than half the size of its rival, the National Education Association, Shanker had become the most widely known figure in teacher unionism.

Shanker, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, was born in 1928 and raised in New York City. He was reared in the immigrant radicalism of the 1930s and often remarked that in his home "unions were just below God."

Shanker participated in civil rights activities while a student at the University of Illinois at Champagn-Urbana in the late 1940s. There he developed an interest in socialism and organized a socialist study club. More of a "state department socialist" than a revolutionary, Shanker combined pro-unionist sentiment with strong support for the Cold War foreign policies of the United States government.

Shanker began his union activities back home in the 1950s. He started teaching elementary and junior high school mathematics in 1952 and left to become a full-time organizer for the Teachers Guild in 1959.

The 2,400-member Guild was New York City's AFT affiliate but was only one of several small unions competing for membership among New York City teachers. In 1960 the Guild merged with a splinter group from the more militant High School Teachers Association to form the United Federation of Teachers.

After leading a series of strikes and winning a contract, the UFT won a certification election and became the New York City teachers' collective bargaining agent in 1961.
Riding the Liberal Backlash

Al Shanker was elected UFT President in 1964. His control at the time was hardly unchallenged: his opponent, Ben Mazen, received thirty-six percent of the vote in that year's local elections.

Shanker's rise coincided with a shift in the civil rights movement from demands for political rights and formal equality, centered in the South and depending on a strategy of massive civil disobedience and alliance with white liberals, to more radical demands for economic equality.

The Black liberation movement also began to utilize more direct forms of power and experimented, mostly in theory, with armed struggle. This was a threat to the movement's former liberal allies, which included many New York City teachers. Their attitude, that Blacks had proven ungrateful, was patronizing and racist.

In New York City, as elsewhere, politicians and policymakers were straining to keep a handle on Black activism and sentiment. They introduced a policy of decentralization of schools below the high school level, granting "community control" over them.

Although the only thing this gave the communities control over was inadequate resources, parents felt it could fulfill their desire to see their kids achieve more and lead better lives within the existing system. For this reason, they supported it.

A handful of experimental decentralized districts was set up in July, 1967. One of these was in Brooklyn, in an area formed by two Black communities, Ocean Hill and Brownsville. It was given modest funding by the Ford Foundation.

In the spring of 1968, thirteen teachers in the Ocean Hill- Brownsville District were informed they no longer had jobs in the district. Although both sides-the union and the district-referred to this as a firing, all these teachers were still employed by the Board of Education. Furthermore, it is very likely that if the district had followed procedures, it could have gotten these teachers transferred into other districts.
A Strike Against the Black Community

In this volatile situation, Shanker made a choice to exploit the conflict. He chose to call the situation a "firing" and to support a teacher strike in the district for the remainder of the school year. This in turn encouraged Black parents to see white teachers as sabotaging their children's schools. At the same time, it promoted racist attitudes among teachers.

This was not an inevitable result. Shanker could have tried to make an alliance with Black leaders to fight for greater funding and more resources for the public schools. He could have put a priority on educating the UFT membership on the need to accept Blacks as decision-makers and educational leaders.

This would have put the UFT in a strong position to gain full negotiating rights for teachers under even complete community control. Shanker, however, chose a different path.

He exploited the idea held by many of his members that Blacks were hostile, especially to Jews, and that their gain in decision-making power was a danger to white teachers. He played on white teachers' racist dislike of being supervised by people of color.

In September 1968 the UFT opened the school year with a series of three strikes whose goal was to end, or at least cripple, community control of local school districts. Most leftists in the union crossed the picket line, viewing the strike as an action against the community.

This was an accurate analysis. The strike did not aim to increase teachers' job rights or job security in general, but only to break the power of the decentralized community boards. It was, in this view, a strike of one part of the working class, the teachers, against another, the community and parents. Furthermore, this other section of the working class suffered from a special racist oppression.

When the strikes were finally settled in November, the union had won all of its demands. The local boards were disbanded. A New York State bill decentralizing City schools was defeated. A watered-down version of decentralization was subsequently implemented instead. Shanker also increased his grip on the union by stigmatizing the leftists in the union who had opposed the strike as scabs.

A Weaker Union in the Crisis

The effects of this strike have been both destructive and long-lasting. Among New York City people of color, it has left an image of the teachers and their union as enemies whose goal is to destroy Black and Latino children. Lack of public support is a handicap to any union, but it is especially bad for a public sector union.

Within the union, the strike discredited potential oppositionists, which gave Shanker a far freer hand in his subsequent policies that limited union democracy and militancy. These changes in turn contributed to the impotence of the rank and file during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s.

Albert Shanker was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers in 1974. He would remain president of both the AFT and UFT for twelve years. Only one year after his promotion to national prominence, Shanker faced an extraordinary ordeal: a strike that union leaders did not want.

In 1975 New York City sank into a historic fiscal crisis. That summer Mayor Abe Beame, working with a team of bankers, constructed a plan to dramatically downsize city government. In the name of fiscal responsibility 15,000 teachers and paraprofessionals were laid off as the school year opened.

The cuts triggered a rampage of involuntary teacher transfers as more senior teachers, now deprived of work in their own schools, bumped less senior teachers in other schools. Furthermore, class sizes skyrocketed since a smaller number of teachers was available to teach a student body that had not shrunk.

Shanker initially counseled restraint, rejecting calls from his members for a strike. However, when the local's delegate assembly, responding to rank-and-file pressure, demanded a strike, Shanker acquiesced. Shanker took control of the 1975 strike and led it to rapid defeat.

Within a week the UFT leadership accepted a new concessionary contract that did not address the layoffs. He then quickly called an emergency meeting at Madison Square Garden to ratify the deal before members had a chance to discuss it.

The failure of the 1975 strike was a devastating blow to Shanker's opponents within the UFT. Having lost control of a strike it had insisted upon, the opposition began to splinter and shrink. Moreover, many rank and filers drew the demoralizing lesson that militant actions were unproductive and even costly.

This was exacerbated by New York's repressive Taylor law, which penalizes state employees two days pay for each day they strike. Memories of 1975 still haunt some members today and make them unwilling to even consider a strike.

Shanker and his heirs have relied upon rank-and-file fears ever since. After 1975 Shanker consistently favored conciliation over confrontation. In later years he outlined his reasons for eschewing the strike as a valid weapon. "Since a strike represents a possibility of life and death for a union," he argued, "you do not call a strike unless not calling it is also life and death."

Thus Shanker crystallized in a single sentence the philosophy of so many labor officials. The UFT, having organized the largest local of any union in the country (its membership today is nearly 100,000), was reluctant to risk the massive dues income and the sizeable bureaucracy it supports by engaging in a strike.

In fact the 1975 strike was the last one in the local's history; the union has not even called a job action in the twenty-two years since.

In the spring of 1996, when angry members of the UFT delegate assembly demanded that the union pursue militant measures to win a just contract, Shanker's successor, Sandra Feldman, reiterated her predecessor's stance and insisted that she would not "spill the economic blood" of her members.

The UFT membership has paid a terrible price for this conciliatory approach to unionism, and it has paid it several times. Over the past ten years UFT members have lived through forty-two months of wage freezes, stagnant or declining purchasing power, deterioration of sabbatical rights, an increased work day for paraprofessionals, and an increased work load for high school and junior high school teachers.
Bureaucratic Patronage

Since the 1975 strike, however, Shanker and his top supporters have fared much better than the rank and file. Within the union, Shanker helped build an impressive political machine that supported a small group of leaders atop a vast network of patronage.

Organized as the Unity Caucus within the UFT (and other AFT locals within New York state) and as the Progressive Caucus within the AFT, Shanker's supporters have built a political party with a degree of internal discipline once associated with Stalinist organizations.

The Unity Caucus has dominated the UFT since the early 1960s. The most enduring legacy Shanker has left behind, the caucus rules the local as though it were a one-party regime. Membership in Unity is an unofficial prerequisite for any full- or part-time staff position within the union. And loyalty to the top officers is a requirement for membership in the caucus.

Before attending conventions of the AFT or New York State United Teachers, or even important meetings of the UFT's delegate assembly, Unity members are reminded that caucus rules require that they vote the line of the leadership.

This tight caucus discipline enables the leadership to control voting even at meetings of the delegate assembly, ostensibly a democratic, representative body. There, public disagreement with the leadership can mean expulsion from the caucus and, therefore, the end of any career possibilities within the union.

Most delegates allowed the floor during delegate assembly meetings are from Unity. They support the leadership by asking questions in a fawning and obsequious way. They laud the leadership and thank them for various deeds, and they attack any motions or amendments from independents or dissidents that oppose Unity's line. They often ridicule the individuals who introduce them, as well.

Also part of Shanker's legacy is a delicate balance between tight caucus discipline and a relaxed approach to dealing with dissidents outside the caucus. While oppositionists are never rewarded with staff positions, or even part-time jobs, Unity leaders will offer them administrative support for their union activities.

Dissident chapter leaders (the equivalent of a school shop steward) can expect their higher officers to handle their grievances with the same degree of professionalism they afford to Unity loyalists. Thus non-Unity chapter leaders are under no immediate compulsion to organize against the leadership in order to carry out their day-to-day union work.

Shanker's opposition to militance has remained central to Unity's political identity. Unity, however, has perfected a model of top-down service unionism. UFT leaders have constructed an elaborate political machine which effectively resolves members' salary, pension and health benefit problems.

More efficient than the Board of Education, the UFT bureaucracy is often able to uncover and correct errors in Board records, thus saving members a great deal of grief and often winning their support for the leaders and their staff.

Unity leaders go to great lengths to train chapter leaders in service unionism, reminding them repeatedly that they "are the union." Chapter leaders undergo intensive training seminars in which they study contractual language and arbitration precedents. They are taught to become experts in and to rely upon the grievance procedure to resolve all labor-management disputes.

Nowhere in the volumes of training manuals, however, will one find references to membership mobilization, job actions or strike preparations.
Pro-Imperialist Ideologue

Shanker left the UFT in 1986 to devote all of his efforts to the national union. As AFT president Shanker became best known for his controversial stances on political and social issues. An ardent cold-warrior, Shanker was a member of Social Democrats U.S.A. (His long-time political advisor was Yetta Shachtman, one of the cadres of left-socialists who had become pro-imperialist hawks since the early 1960s.)

He was deeply involved in the AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development, which cooperated with the U.S. State Department, to undermine independent unions throughout the world. Shanker consistently supported U.S. foreign policy objectives, endorsing the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s and the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s.

Shanker was a strong ally of former AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland and unsuccessfully campaigned for Tom Donahue, who opposed John Sweeney in his bid for leadership of the federation in 1995.

Inside the AFT Shanker is now heralded for his once unpopular stands on education. Throughout the 1980s he spoke out for educational "excellence" and "reform." In 1983 he shocked many union leaders when he endorsed the Reagan administration's National Commission on Excellence in Education's report on public schools. Entitled "A Nation at Risk," the document called for tougher graduation standards, longer school days and merit pay for teachers.

Shanker insisted that the AFT needed to be in the forefront of a crusade for standards and professionalism. Thus he supported experiments such as those of the Toledo Federation of Teachers in 1982 to weaken tenure rights and involve union members in firing other teachers.

In Shanker's vision the AFT needed to become less of a trade union and more of a professional association, like the American Medical Association. Such an organization would have more control over its profession and would have to regulate standards and practices for its members.

Shanker's vision offers little to AFT members, however. They face problems such as budget cuts, school downsizing and legislative attacks on tenure designed not to raise standards but to enhance administrative prerogatives.

Nonetheless, his perspectives continue to reign among top AFT leaders. UFT president Sandra Feldman, who will finish Shanker's term as national president, endorses his emphasis on standards and his reluctance to mobilize union members.

In the end Shanker's vision has been little more than a cover for inactivity in the face of nation-wide assaults on public education. Just as the AMA's professionalism has not protected doctors from the increasing power of HMOs and large hospitals over their occupation, AFT strategies have failed to stop school districts and state legislatures from demanding greater productivity from school employees.

The Shanker-Feldman vision has so weakened teacher unionism that government officials can now openly consider the privatization of public education. Therefore, the future of education may depend on the ability of rank-and-file members to challenge the Unity/Progressive Caucus and replace the union's rhetoric of professionalism with a strategic vision of militance, solidarity and democracy.

Marian Swerdlow and Kit Adam Wainer are members of SOLIDARITY and teacher union activists in New York City.

Source URL:
http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/819

New York teachers’ union concedes on merit pay

By Peter Lamphere and Megan Behrent, United Federation of Teachers | October 26, 2007 | Page 14

NEW YORK--The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) have agreed to a form of merit pay that will greatly undermine union principles and weaken the teachers’ unions fight against similar proposals in legislation currently before Congress.

Under the new agreement for schoolwide “bonus” plans, teachers at the lowest performing schools in New York City would be offered merit pay in exchange for improved test scores and reaching other achievement benchmarks set by the Department of Education.

At a UFT delegates’ assembly October 17, UFT President Randi Weingarten argued that these bonuses will shut the door to more insidious plans for individual merit pay, and would promote collaboration among teachers.

In fact, the plan will foster divisions within schools and weaken the union. As the New York Post says, “clearly, the camel’s nose is under the tent” for the type of merit pay proposed in the renewal of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, now being debated in Congress.

The UFT’s parent union, the American Federation of Teachers, along with the National Education Association, have resisted merit pay schemes. But now, the UFT has accepted merit pay by another name, and placed an incredibly divisive tool in the hands of New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and the principals.

Here is how it will work:

-- Some 200 high-needs schools (about 15 percent of those in the system) will be invited to participate. The number will double next year if it passes an independent review.

-- A 55 percent majority of UFT members in those schools must vote to accept the plan. However, participation in the plan will be a mitigating factor against closing a school, thus holding the threat of closure over the heads of our members if they vote “no.”

-- Once a school accepts the plan, it will be allocated an amount equal to $3,000 per UFT member if it meets the city’s benchmarks for testing.

-- This money will be distributed by a “compensation committee,” made up of a principal, his or her designee, and two UFT members elected by the staff. If the committee does not reach consensus on how to distribute the money, or the staff votes down its decision, then the bonuses are forfeit. This means that a principal can insist on a particular method of distribution (by test scores, etc.), and the staff must agree, or lose the money.

At the delegates’ meeting Kit Wainer, a Brooklyn UFT chapter leader who ran against Weingarten on an opposition slate last year, pointed out how the merit pay agreement would divide teachers and lead to finger-pointing about who wasn’t carrying their weight within a school.

There were a few speakers in favor of the proposal, mostly on the basis that it helped the union reach an agreement with the city to jointly lobby the New York state legislature to allow teachers to retire at age 55 with 25 years of service, rather than the current 30 years.

One delegate moved to table the issue so delegates would have an opportunity to discuss it with the rank and file, but this was ruled out of order. In a confusing rush, the delegates then voted for the plan by a large majority. A proposal for a national teachers’ demonstration against individual merit pay was voted down by delegates, although Weingarten promised to contact the AFT about the possibility.

However, thanks to Weingarten’s “bonus” plan, merit pay is now a reality in the New York Public Schools. The delegates’ assembly meeting was a historic turning point in the history of our union--for the worse.

Ed Note: The above article was posted on ICE mail but I do not haev the exact soruce. Peter and Megan are members of Teachers for a Just Contract, an alternative caucus in the UFT.

UFT Deal with Green Dot: New Low for UFT Leadership?

From TJC: JustContractUFT@aol.com

In April and May 2007, the UFT leadership was preparing to wage a fight to "put the public back in public education!"

Only a few short weeks later, the UFT leadership announced it was going to link arms with a charter school company, Green Dot, and help it enter the New York City charter school arena. So much for championing public education! Charter schools are completely private entities except for one feature: they get their money from the public coffers. So the public foots the bill, but all the decisions are outside of public accountability.

The UFT leadership reached this decision in a totally undemocratic manner. It was never even brought before the Unity-monopolized UFT Executive Board, let alone the Delegate Assembly where there would at least be possibility for independent voices to speak, although the outcome of any vote would be whatever Unity wanted.

On June 28, the UFT announced this decision in an email to chapter leaders and delegates. . Instead of calling it a charter school company, Weingarten's email calls Green Dot a "non-district public school operator." The Green Dot Company calls itself "Green Dot Public Schools," an utterly Orwellian title. Sort of like Coca Cola Soda renaming itself "Coca Cola Health Beverage" without changing its ingredients

This union-written screed was chock full of coded language with union busting significance. It calls Green Dot's working conditions "progressive," including "a full and fair disciplinary process based on an independently mediated 'just cause' standard." In other words, all that is necessary to fire a Green Dot employee is that Green Dot has "just cause" to fire him or her. As inadequate as our UFT protections are, this is far less protection. To call this "full and fair" reminds me of when I was recently shopping for underwear and I had to look out for pieces described as "cottony" that were 100% synthetic.

The next "progressive condition" in the UFT email is even better: a "professional work day rather than defined minutes." Get it? Instead of having a limited work day- like 6 hrs 50 minutes - , at Green Dot you work as long as the boss tells you to! And getting screwed like this is called a "professional work day." Last I looked, a real professional hits the golf course the moment he or she decides to call it a day! Wanna bet whether Green Dot teachers are going to be doing that?

Another "progressive condition" is "flexibility to adjust the contract in critical areas over time." The "flexible" contract generally means employee working conditions are subject to change, and changes are always to the advantage of the boss. The changes may in fact seriously hurt all employees or, more often, certain groups of employees.

By collaborating with Green Dot, the UFT leadership is promoting these inferior working conditions in other New York City schools that compete with other UFT members' schools for funds and for students. By abetting Green Dot's entry into New York, the UFT leadership is undermining all of our working conditions. But it looks like as long as the Green Dot teachers' dues go into the UFT coffers, the leadership isn't bothered by what happens to our working conditions.

The email quotes Green Dot CEO Steve Barr, "Green Dot has had great success in working with the unionized teaching force in Los Angeles." What Weingarten's email doesn't say, and what the article in the July 24 New York Times ("Union-Friendly Maverick Leads New Charge for Charter Schools" p. A1) reveals, is that what Barr actually did was to break the LA teacher's union (United Teachers Los Angeles) in the schools it took over, and set up what is apparently a company union. The way the NY Times article describes it, Barr has "driven a wedge through the city's teacher's union" and has been "welcoming organized labor - in contrast to other charter school operators - and signing a contract with an upstart union." Later in the article, Barr is described as "splitting the larger teachers union." Sounds like union busting to me. The Times also says that Weingarten's decision to work with Green Dot's Barr has "embarrassed United Teachers Los Angeles" and notes that some UTLA officials "have been fighting him tooth and nail." So rather than stand in solidarity with the UTLA, Weingarten is supporting the CEO who is busting their union.

In L.A., the Green Dot teachers have a 33-page contract "that offers competitive salaries but no tenure, and it allows class schedule and other instructional flexibility outlawed by the 330-page contract governing most LA schools." The lack of tenure speaks for itself. Here again "flexibility" is an anti-union code word. Examples of flexibility might include no guaranteed lunch period, teaching four or five classes in a row, no daily preparation period, mandatory conferences at the boss's discretion and working evenings, holidays, summers and weekends. Needless to add, these teachers have no defined benefit pensions and it is a matter of conjecture what their medical benefits are.

The UFT leadership's support for this union-busting outfit shows how completely and utterly our union leadership has given up any pretense of identifying with, let alone fighting for, our interests as working teachers. They have been emboldened by their escape from paying any political price whatsoever for the awful 2005 contract, and by their overwhelming victories in both the 2006 contract and the 2007 citywide elections. They now feel they can do whatever furthers their quest for influence and prestige as leaders of a wealthy, famous organization. The fact that this organization began as a labor union is receding in the historical distance.