Mulgrew+Weingarten=UNITY UFT SELL-OUTSCut from the same corporate management -collaborationist cloth! Don't be fooled!
The UFT officialdom, in their quest to appear militant, has been adopting GEM's and opposition caucus' language & behavior. RECENTLY there have been some sightings of the UFT :
- displaying GEM's Don't Privatize banner twice in propaganda pieces.
- adopting GEM's colors (black & yellow) in their UFT buttons. What happened to the UFT sky-blue & white colors?
- grandstanding & talking our grassroots' militant rhetoric at the hearings, DA. (But is empty rhetoric without a militant strategy.)
- mobilizing citywide to the Jan. 21 PEP.
But there is no evidence of one single UFT educational and analytical flier at any of the recent local school "closings" protests or hearings!
Today, the UFT are doing last minute advertizing for the PEP Jan. 26 meeting (Congrats, but will the UFT sign up and mobilize every school?) GEM & Coalition groups have been mobilizing since December '09. With all our dues money, shouldn't take this long to follow their GEM members "good foot" steps.
We need to see through the UFT Officialdom's attempts at cooptation and manipulations. GEM is emerging as a leading advocate educational and teacher justice. But lately the some , UFT officers have been also sighted as going out of their way to sabotage our good work and members. In some cases, district reps or UFT-UNITY chapter leaders have harassed and have attempted to scare away teachers, students and parents away from GEM and its good work. Some UFT-UNITY officials have gone around to either harass and even threaten to take away their bribes, perks (e.g. getting paid UFT convention trips, wine & cheese parties or patronage UFT jobs).
NOW, having a big rally (see UFT ad below) doesn't necessarily equal militancy? We've got to analyze the content of their work. What are the militant messages and organizing efforts that are being called for by the UFT? The right wing(e.g. the recent Tea Party rallies) and the Democratic Party liberals mobilize but those actions doesn't necessarily equal an effective strategy. Will the UFT do more organizing to reverse the school closing decisions that the puppet PEP Bloom-Kleiners will make????? If the UFT officialdom (Unity & New Action Caucuses) would embrace and adopt GEM's winning strategy, then the UFT would be really talkin' and walkin' the militant walk.
Put your money where your mouth is, UFT. Imagine what a powerhouse: the UFT Officials united with the militancy of a militant democratic rank & file! GEM promotes a strategy of building the organization of its members with a bottom-up democratic decision making. GEM seeks to mobilize in a broadly and massively its members in unity with parents, student and community in order to reverse the decades of deterioration of education and the conditions of educators.
UFT continues to utilize strategies that historically have failed education and instead have benefitted the corporate powers' neoliberal agendas and the officialdom's pockets. Strategies that have focussed primarily on either:
- legal-judicial wrangling
- endorsing & financing politicians
- legislative reforms
- being at the table or in-bed with management or corporate heads
have brought us to the sorry state we are in. Millions of members dollars wasted to bring us to this sorry state we are in. It took about a decade to get a CFE ruling that produced more dollars for the DOE privatization drive. The recently announced "Small Class Size Lawsuit" will again fail and drag on for years without a member-based strategy.
Our UFT members and our school community constituents can wait. GEM will continue to educate, organize, and mobilize our members. Join us.
Opinion of Angel Gonzalez, GEM
UFT ad for Jan. 21 Protest:
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3 comments:
There will be buses at the Bronx Boro office to take people to the PEP Rally. However, if you're not Unity you may have to hide your signs!
Please, the bronx protest organized by the uft is advertised on the uft website. Please point to one time the GEM signs were singled out for anything but posting in the new york teacher. Opposition is great when you think you are the critique of all matters and have the inability to join any and all protests in the spirit of winning the issue.
Who is the "You" you're talking about when you say we don't join any and all protests?
Ask your Unity colleagues how many GEMers and ICErs they've seen at all the protests. Percentage-wise in our caucuses and groups, probably much higher than yours.
We can be critical because the Unity track record is abysmal on selling us out - notably the RRs, mayoral control, and not backing Thompson.
PS: that notice of the Bronx protest went up in the past 15 hours. It wasn't there yesterday.
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