Who Should Run UFT?

There's no question.

The last Retired Teacher Chapter (RTC) meeting reinforced several things. One is Unity is desperate. They lost two concurrent elections, and are poised to lose the big one this May. There’s a good reason they’re going hard against ABC on all their anonymous blogs. They’re panicked.

They will say anything, accuse anyone, and lose their shit at the slightest provocation. They are not accustomed to being seriously challenged. That’s remarkable, as most of them are, or were, teachers. For me, as a teacher, being challenged is a way of life. I’m quite accustomed to kids challenging me. If they happen to be right, I’ll acknowledge it.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Let’s face it—Unity’s been in charge too long. For months I’ve been reading that we, ABC, are Unity 2.0. This is because our slate has a number of former Unity members. Sorry folks, but they’ve seen the light, and I’m fine with that. I’m also good with having at least a few people experienced with running our union.

Amy Arundell is all about serving members.

In my 12 years of being chapter leader of the largest school in Queens, the most overcrowded in the city, no one helped or supported our chapter more. If there’s anything Amy Arundell doesn’t know, she knows someone who does. A whole lot of people know who she is and what she can do. This frightens the hell out of our opponents.

Unity has sold us out, repeatedly. Rather than face it, they attack blindly and viciously. They don’t think we’re answerable to them. Look at what happened when we exposed the re-amortization scheme. It’s textbook.

Cowardly Unity trolls, most of whom won’t even put their names to their stuff, are running scared, posting baseless nonsense about Amy. I know how that feels because they’ve done it to me, repeatedly, and continue doing so. The fact they’re making a concerted effort now reflects pure desperation. They are utterly without scruples (and making valid arguments is not their strong suit).

As for other accusations, I grew up the only Jewish kid in the neighborhood, and antisemitism was a literal rite of passage for me. I know it when I see it, and particularly when I experience it. I’m an ESL teacher and an advocate for newcomers. I despise bigotry of all stripes. I’ve known and worked with Amy for over 15 years. Had I seen a trace of bigotry in her, ever, I’d have broken ties immediately. Ethnic origins do not concern her. She works for all of us.

Furthermore, your union politics don’t matter either. Amy helps everyone. She helped me, always, even as I was writing the most awful things about Unity, the caucus with which she was then affiliated. My district rep was okay, but Amy was better. She was more accessible, and always got back to me instantly. I’m very happy to say, as far as Unity goes, that Amy is no longer a cult member.

There is no one more qualified or suitable to run our union than Amy Arundell.

Let’s take a look at the last Retired Teacher Chapter (RTC) meeting. Unity’s monopolization of the meeting was entirely predictable. It wasn’t our first view of Tom Brown. Last time he showed up, he made it a point to recite anecdotes about each and every retiree he could think of. These anecdotes were obviously designed to eat up time. This is Unity Playbook rule number one—preclude member involvement.

There were four (!) Unity speakers at the meeting. Their behavior was entirely predictable, yet Arise/ Retiree Advocate (RA) leadership failed to anticipate it. If the 11 of them are smart enough to make decisions for 300 of us, myself included, why did I know this while they clearly did not? There were very simple ways this behavior could have been precluded.

You could do business first, and schedule speakers later. You could refrain from scheduling Unity speakers. (It’s not like they would ever include our voices.) Were it necessary, you could schedule, for example, one Unity speaker rather than four. You could schedule one of their speakers ahead of business if, and only if, you felt their side needed to be heard before any business took place.

You could also do that caucus thing—ignore all voices other than your own.

There is no better example than that of the eleven unelected members of the Arise/ RA “steering committee” for life. They’d rather pursue petty politics than take vital stands for retirees. And from the 6,000 follower RTC Facebook page, which they gave up without a whimper, to saying nothing when Mulgrew built an actual wall to segregate us, right up to extracting all the teeth from our recent resolution, they’re all about making nice with Unity.

ABC will tear down the wall, literally and figuratively.

RA voted to align with MORE without consulting 288 of us who ran with them. And let’s stop pretending that New Action is a distinct entity. Michael Shulman has run New Action for thirty years, and along with at least two others, is also a member of the RA “steering committee.” It’s two for one, and literally, no voice for 96% of those who ran with RA.

Even as Arise strives to tie ABC to Unity, they act in a way that will result in more AFT delegates for Unity. One of their most vociferous advocates was in my comments praising a UFT presentation that spouted falsehoods about us and attempted to shut down any discussion of the re-amortization plan. That the ostensibly informative presentation was not only misleading, but also nakedly political, during election season, was neither here nor there.

Why aren’t you united with Arise?

For months now, I’ve been hearing that. I’ve read that ABC goes its own way. That’s true, in that our philosophy differs from the caucuses. It’s true in that our platform is member-elicited and created. It’s true in that we survey members before taking positions. That is our policy, and it will continue going forward.

Last year, I promoted Retiree Advocate relentlessly. It’s now dominated by a self-appointed “steering committee” whose approach entails appeasing Unity. Why? You’d have to ask them.

Regardless, this is the worst way to deal with bullies, and make no mistake—should Unity win again they will tread all over the RTC. Chapter Leader Bennett Fischer is a principled person. That said, he’s influenced by people whose vision is clouded with illusory yearnings for a past that never existed. We can indulge these fantasies, or we can move into the future. We choose the latter. I’m not afraid, Amy is not afraid, and ABC is not afraid.

I’ve also read that our friends in Arise were willing to work with us. That’s true also, to a very limited extent. I’ve had a lot of experience with MORE, and personally, I’d rather not work with them. That said, ABC agreed, many months ago, to an equal split with MORE, New Action, and RA. Despite the fact that their members had voted overwhelmingly to align with us, MORE declined, demanding a higher percentage. At the time, ABC, New Action, and RA rejected this demand.

ABC reps then met with people from RA and New Action. They were instructed there would be a six-person steering committee making all decisions. Our reps thought that was a low number. They asked for 12. They further said that they wanted to create smaller representative committees from which they could elicit the wants and needs of various UFT constituencies. That’s how we work.

ABC concerns were rejected outright. There would be no compromises whatsoever.

All final decisions had to be made by the steering committee, which was totally inflexible, and in which we’d be permanently outnumbered. Anyone working with the campaign had to be vetted by the steering committee. These folks said they had experience campaigning and we did not. They, therefore, needed to make the decisions. (Never mind they lost the overwhelming majority of said campaigns.)

Our reps detected no spirit of give and take at that meeting. If you go to a meeting and are told that you have no decision-making power whatsoever, it’s discouraging (to say the least). I’ve been to almost 40 years of faculty meetings, and I’ve had my share of that.

This is the only way to teach. I know we said the same last year, and the year before that, but this year we really mean it!

Amy Arundell was one of our two reps at this steering meeting, and having just spent 20 years in a cult, she’d had her share of top down, undemocratic, utterly inflexible and unreasonable directives. If Amy’s learned one thing, it’s this—That policy didn’t do a single thing to make any member’s life better. Why prolong it with an autocratic steering committee?

Amy has a different vision for our union.

I share it. We see membership informing Executive Board, and Executive Board informing AdCom (the top UFT officers, president, VPs, treasurers and secretaries). This is the opposite of what we have now. Right now, Executive Board is a rubber stamp for Adcom. And despite the presence of hundreds of retiree delegates, who Unity openly ridicules, the Delegate Assembly is still run top down by Unity.

Leadership’s job should be to reflect membership. Unlike our friends in Arise, we are not worried about the “storied history” of our group, or any caucus. No one knows everything (not even a steering committee).

Now it’s true Arise approached us again. Every time they did, they offered us between zero and eight members total, as shown below:

We are there, labeled as “unallocated.” Now we could have accepted, and hoped for the best—8 out of 102. Note that we would have to count on the good graces of the caucuses to have any more than zero of our candidates participate. Given the bad faith shown in the “steering committee” meeting, we’d have been foolish to do that. And why do we need more top-down leadership? Haven’t we already experienced it since well before most members were even born?

This notwithstanding, we’re faced with the choice. There’s Unity. There’s Arise, with their steering committee. I’m back to Retiree Advocate’s unelected 11-member steering committee making a unilateral decision to align with MORE, without bothering to grant a vote to 288 of us who ran with them.

How Is that different from Unity?

Then there’s Amy Arundell. It’s not hard for me to decide. I’ve been part of Amy’s team for months. I trust this team absolutely. I’ve never felt that in a union group before (and I’ve been in many).

I understand the temptation to leave all decision making to a small group. It makes things simpler. Democracy is so messy. You need to hear all sorts of arguments. You need to listen, and come to a consensus. I also understand, though, that the NAC/ RA steering committee did none of the above. Furthermore, they sorely underestimated us. That was exceedingly poor judgment, not something I seek in leadership.

Our group was built from the ground up. We had no caucus infrastructure to rely on, so we had to go out and recruit people. This is a good first step toward awakening the 75% of our union that can’t even be bothered to vote. A good second step is to let them know their voices will be heard.

We don’t believe in “steering committees.” We believe union members should be steering. Their voices need to rise up. Instead of issuing top down directives, we envision our representatives at each level communicating above. This is the precise opposite of caucus behavior, and it’s long overdue.

That’s why I an running with and supporting Amy Arundell and ABC this year. Join us!