ABC Is Different

We're world wide.

When I was chapter leader of Francis Lewis High School, I represented a politically diverse group. I wrote an email newsletter every week, and I mean I wrote it. I didn’t copy and paste what UFT sent me. I love quotations, and featured one every week. I follow educational news, and shared it, good, bad, or otherwise, with my colleagues.

I represented around 350 members. There are union presidents in NY State who represent fewer people. Now don’t get me wrong, tough though it was, I loved being chapter leader. There are few things more gratifying than really helping people.

There were two people in the building with whom I really did not get along. I had to approach both of them and say, look, I know we’ve had our issues. Still, if you have trouble with administration, I’ll represent you to the best of my ability, regardless of our past. (For the record, I repped both of them, and quite frequently.)

There were also people with whom I disagreed politically. We had a lounge where we’d sometimes argue. I pulled way back on that when I became chapter leader. We still disagreed politically. But in school, that didn’t matter. I fought to protect our rights under the contract and other city agreements. While many colleagues would not have supported me if I ran for US Senate, we were in sync as far as our chapter went.

I’m now aligned with ABC. ABC aims to approach union leadership as I approached chapter leadership. We’re educators, and we all have our political views. However, we don’t intend to force them on you. Our politics are bread and butter issues. We believe in retaining our health care. We believe compensation increases need to meet or beat cost of living. We believe in empowering and protecting educators from insane administrators, all too pervasive here in Fun City.

I have my personal politics, of course. I’m generally a Democrat. But I don’t believe in giving Democrats a blank check, and I don’t believe in supporting them when they fail to support us. I’m sorry to say they’ve failed to do so many, many times. A whole lot of them occurred while I was chapter leader.

There’s an apocryphal Chinese curse—”May you live in interesting times.” As chapter leader, I felt like I’d hit the jackpot.

We were under assault from Bloomberg on up, and facing challenges on all levels. Bloomberg ran as a Republican, as a Democrat, or whatever worked best at any given moment. Politically, I’d classify him as an opportunist. I’d classify Eric Adams like that as well. He may run as a Republican next time. I have little love for either of those guys. Bloomberg seems to hate public school teachers. Adams, along with the Municipal Labor Committee (including the Unity Caucus) is currently trying to strip me of the real Medicare coverage I worked almost 40 years to earn.

At the state level, we worked under Andrew Cuomo. He’s an ostensible Democrat, but ran in 2010 promising to go after unions. Who needs Democrats for that? I never voted for Andrew Cuomo. I found him repulsive well before he was taken down by scandal. Cuomo pushed the evaluation system that’s been torturing city teachers for years now, the one bosses like Michael Mulgrew have never experienced firsthand.

Cuomo also lobbied for charter schools. He spoke at their rally. He supported a regulation that required New York City to pay rent for charter schools. UFT Unity expressed no opposition to that, and a highly placed NYSUT source told me they supported it. Cuomo also managed to pass Tier 6, while UFT Unity sat on their hands and did absolutely nothing. Now, of course, they speak of fixing it. But there was nothing broken about Tier 4 back then, and we should have fought to preserve it.

Then there was our national leader, Barack Obama. I voted for him the first time he ran. He promised to pass card check, which would’ve helped unions, but ultimately didn’t deliver. He promised to find a pair of comfortable shoes and walk with beleaguered unions. However, when Scott Walker crushed public unions in Wisconsin, Obama never located those shoes.

Obama’s educational positions were abysmal. Race to the Top was their way of blackmailing cash-starved states to support both charter schools and teacher evaluations. Education Secretary Arne Duncan got up on his hind legs and declared that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing to happen to education in New Orleans.

All of New Orleans became charter schools. Teacher unions pretty much disappeared. And yet, despite all that privatization, despite Duncan’s offensive and idiotic comment, New Orleans schools have not improved. And jeez, don’t get me started on Common Core. Sure, Mulgrew adored it, and will punch you in the face if you try and take it from him. But the English Regents exam is still Common Corey, and still total crapola.

More recently, UFT Unity endorsed Micah Lasher for State Assembly. Lasher was a big supporter of fun things like Tier 6, lifting the charter cap, and mayoral control. He ran the execrable Students First NY, which supported merit pay and opposed tenure. For me, folks like Lasher are beyond the pale.

I’m a big fan of Marianne Pizzitola and NYC Retirees. Because of their efforts, I’ve been using real Medicare for over a year now. I love it. Sure, the Mulgrew tax is going to irritate me, but I know my medical care will be in my hands along with those of my doctors. I don’t need Aetna to tell me this procedure is unnecessary. My priority is my health, not Aetna’s bottom line.

NYC Retirees have provided us with a much-needed model of successful union organizing. They’re neither partisan nor ideologically driven. This approach has been tremendously successful. Replicating this success is what our union needs, perhaps for our very survival, for this election cycle and beyond.

I’ve read that we in ABC oppose caucuses. That’s not true. We do, however, oppose the Unity Caucus. That’s because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. No group should have absolute power over our union, and 60 years of it have left Unity more full of hubris than unionism.

Unity’s made awful decisions over the last few decades, and they need to go. That said, under the less than benevolent dictatorship of Michael Mulgrew, even some Unity members have had it.

I know some great people in Unity. I’m hopeful they’ll come to their senses and join us. I know some great people in other caucuses as well, and I hope they do the same. Ultimately, everyone has to make their own decisions. We respect their decisions, whatever they may be.

I’ve made mine. We’re facing enormous challenges. We need to move forward. ABC is here to stay, my friends. Join us tonight at 7 PM if you’re a retiree. If you’re in-service, come to our general meeting on health care January 14th.

Thanks to Daniel A.