Two opposition caucuses, MORE and New Action have stopped fighting and decided to "bury the hatchet" and run a joint slate in the 2016 UFT elections. This is welcomed news as the combination of the two caucuses will be a major opponent to the "Unity" caucus. In fact, its entirely possible that the combined MORE/New Action slate will capture the high schools, which historically has been more militant and has occasionally been lost by the "Unity" caucus. In fact if you go back to the previous election the combined slate had 1,890 votes compared to "Unity's" 1.592 votes. If this occurs this time, the MORE/New Action coalition will capture the high school seats.
However, there is a major problem with the above scenario that has the MORE/New Action coalition capturing the high school seats and that is the new UFT caucus, Solidarity. Yes, some people will call Solidarity "a one trick pony" and maybe their right but Donald Trump is "a one trick pony": and is leading in the polls for the Republican nomination. The Solidarity caucus has many of the 1,400 ATRs on their side and this new caucus has as part of its plank, ATR rights. That is ATRs to get back their "due process rights" and be back in the classroom and without these "flyby observations" by field supervisors. Moreover, many disgusted teachers who see little change in their appealing conditions are more likely to give Solidarity their vote as well. To ignore the Solidarity caucus is to ignore the very real possibility of this caucus taking enough votes away from the new coalition and eliminate a real opportunity to win the very important high school seats.
Worse, the "Unity" caucus may hold their collective noses and could offer the same deal to Solidarity as they did to New Action and siphon enough votes from the unified coalition to stop them from gaining the high school seats. I know, the UFT leadership hates the head of Solidarity but politics make for strange bedfellows.
Finally, I strongly suggest that the new MORE/New Action coalition reach out to Solidarity and include them in the unified coalition. Solidarity can be the spoiler and garner enough votes from the opposition to give "Unity" another victory and nobody in the three caucuses wants to see that.
For information purposes: I was a founding member of Solidarity but have since resigned and decided to become unaffiliated with any caucus. I just want the opposition to make real inroads against the "Unity" caucus machine.
9 comments:
I agree with everything you've written. It's the winning strategy and makes sense.
Solidarity will never....NEVER make a deal with unity. The reason the caucuses will not come together is all the drama that MORE has created against Solidarity's presidential candidate. Solidarity will not back down on that one point and apparently like drama in high school MORE who was not even sure if they were running in the first place, will not just be happy getting seats and beating unity, they need everything their way!
Will solidarity make the other two groups support their presidential candidate as a condition of a coalition as they pretty much did with ICE?
I believe that the new MORE/NEW ACTION agreement has the potential to not only win seats for the High Schools, but challenge the UNITY Caucus by gaining an unprecedented number of school delegates. The public display of affection and touting that Mulgrew displays toward Carmen Farina is sickening. Al Shanker never once bowed to any bureaucrat or politician yet the current president continues to spout nonsense about the new attitude by the DOE. His rhetoric does not translate to what is happening in the schools, especially the high schools. Many members of UNITY also have expressed dismay and confusion with Mulgrew's position on Farina. Officials of the UFT express common ground and consultation with the department yet, many district and special representatives shake their heads all UNITY folks. Watch as the renewal schools fail to achieve success and the axe falls on several schools forced into receivership. Big news coming regarding the hierarchy of renewal schools. UNITY will be more vulnerable than ever come the spring.
I'll say that we, UFT Solidarity, support the coalition of these two caucuses, but would like to add that if either of them did things like this, then there would be no need for us to have a different group.
UFT Solidarity Action Week! Mark Your Calendars and Stand In Solidarity with Members
http://www.uftsolidarity.org/actionweek/
They do not and that is were we come in and the members see it and will vote accordingly.
In Solidarity,
Francesco Portelos
the Bronx UFT is pretty illiterate. Don't want to mention names but, cmon.
United We Stand Divided We Fall...get your acts together guys.
Queens UFT is as corrupt as they get.
I heard Bronx and Queens are on top the leaderboard.
You mean the fiefdom of the incredible shrinking Rhona Freiser?Had the misfortune of being repped by her while in a miserable Queens HS.All I can say is "Yuck"!
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