Band Aid for a Gunshot Wound

What follows is a resolution that came from the UFT Executive Board Meeting.

Resolution on UFT District Representatives



Whereas, the role of District Representative is to implement the union's responsibilities to the members of the schools they serve with particular attention to: providing school chapters with the expertise, support and services necessary to assist in building and maintaining strong, effective chapters which will meet the workplace needs of our members; community outreach, parent involvement, political action and those activities that promote the mission, goals, aims of our union and the members we serve; and

Whereas, it is essential to provide continuity of services to chapter leaders and members in an effective way: and

Whereas, the Board of Education continues to organize and reorganize and has done so each year under the Klein administration and has signified an intention to continue to do so; and

Whereas, mayoral control is due to legislatively sunset in June 2009; and

Whereas, if mayoral control does sunset, there will be yet another reorganization; be it

Resolved, that the President convene a bipartisan committee to provide recommendations to the officers and Executive Board as to the most appropriate District Representative selection procedure that best assists DRs in accomplishing their jobs, including their ability to serve chapter leaders and the members in their respective schools, sites and work places; be it further

Resolved, that the committee considers including the impact of mayoral control continuing or expiring in its recommendations; be it further


Resolved, that until the committee reports and action is taken by the Executive Board on the committee's report the process used for District Representative selection over the past three years will continue.

________________

If you need a translation, it should read:

The role of the DR is to stifle dissent, create fear (strike!), avoid any real conflict with school administrations, pimp a contract that gives you less rights and them less to do, and promote apathy and ignorance in the rank and file. As UFT President, I appoint these positions as Boss Tweed would. However, because I failed to have the blatant power grab known as the "emergency appointment" process continued, we will now spin as such:
a)We will create a committee stacked with Unity appointees and flunkies (with a sprinkling of those pain in the ass ICE/TJC lunatics).
b)Thus we will continue to do whatever the hell we want, with a passing nod at democracy.
c)This will all take quite some time. It's not as simple as let the members decide.

__________________


So:

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT!) and the Unified Teachers Party are co-sponsoring a motion calling for restoring elections of District Representatives, to be presented at the next Delegate Assembly in October. Unable to get the floor during the ten-minute time limit last May, former UTP director and current ACT! editor, Joe Mudgett, and his allies will try again.



Considering the fact that the UFT's executive board failed to reauthorize its emergency appointment policy by last June's deadline, effectively making it null and void, and considering that UFT president, Randi Weingarten, continued to appoint DRs over the summer despite this fact, it is imperative to breathe democracy back into the ranks by passing this motion.



Teachers across the city are urged to take action by urging their chapter leaders and delegates to support the motion for democracy!



ACT! editor, Joe Mudgett

Alliance of Concerned Teachers

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE UNITY
There has been a great deal of what can only be defined as “anti-union” sentiment espoused lately on a variety of sites and blogs. Now, we all know that Unity is the governing caucus of the UFT. We here at the UTP want to suggest that you remain calm and cool in the upcoming months. We are already faced with new contract negotiations, and new elections. Consider your options. Think of the past and the future. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. Have a TV dinner by the pool. Vote early and vote often. And when you do, just keep in mind some of the things that our Unity leadership has brought us. The other guys didn’t bring 'em: Unity did. So remember that when those upstarts like Wainer start saying that they can do a better job than Randi/Unity. Unity has done plenty. Consider the following brief list:

1) Veteran teachers being excessed, only to become subs.
2) The return of professionalism: 6R assignments and the class that it will soon become.
3) Work in August.
4) Longer teaching periods.
5) Letters in file without the right to fight them until they really come after you and your license.
6) A raise that isn’t even cost of living.
7) Voting themselves a raise
8) A spin job that makes it seem as if they did a good job, and did you a favor.
9) A union that is a dictatorship, and guarantees that Randi’s Unity caucus will remain in control.
10) A patronage mill that makes Tammany Hall look like the Burger King drive through.

How do you spell collusion?
R-A-N-D-I