Bloomberg Declares War on the UFT
By Class Struggle Education Workers/UFT
Having bought a third term as mayor of New York City for a cool $90 million from his personal fortune, and counting on the complacent neutrality of the United Federation of Teachers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg picked the day before Thanksgiving to declare all-out war on our union. He laid out a series of take-back demands in a speech in Washington, D.C. Ominously, Arne Duncan, President Obama’s education secretary, was sitting there giving his implicit approval. And significantly, the speech was delivered not at some conservative Republican venue but at the Center for American Progress, a think tank linked to the Democratic Party.
This underscores a key point that teacher union bureaucrats try to obscure: the assault on teachers unions is not just coming from corporate CEOs and right-wingers, it is now spearheaded by liberal Democrats, with Barack Obama behind them. Teacher unionists overwhelmingly backed Obama against teacher-basher McCain. If some activists thought the Democratic candidate was a “lesser evil,” they were so wrong: from Guantánamo to the war on Afghanistan and Iraq to the war on teachers unions here, Obama is carrying out the same program as his Republican “opponent.”
Except that since it’s the liberal Democrat doing the dirty work, there’s been virtually no protest.
The union contract with the NYC Department of Education expired on Halloween night, and even though formal “negotiations” have been underway for some time, this was Bloomberg’s opening salvo. The mayor is using the Obama-Duncan “Race to the Top” program to take aim at a series of key issues – if he wins, it could rip the guts out of the UFT. If he can’t get what he wants at the bargaining table, he is threatening to get the laws changed in Albany to make an end-run around the union. Bloomberg is calling to:
• Eliminate the cap on charter schools;
• Target “incentive pay” for individual teachers;
• Speed up procedures to fire teachers;
• Boot out teachers who have been “excessed” if they haven’t gotten a principal to take them on after a year;
• Get rid of seniority on layoffs so that school officials could fire whoever they want (“layoffs by merit”);
• Close 10 percent of the city schools.
So what was the response of the United Federation of Teachers? Mike Mulgrew was quoted by the New York Times (26 November) saying he was “‘very, very disappointed’ in the tone of the mayor’s speech.” The arrogant billionaire acting like schoolyard bully kicks you in the teeth, and the response is the UFT is “disappointed” in the mayor’s tone and wishes the mayor would make nice and stop “play[ing] political agenda and propaganda”? Hello? Earth to 52 Broadway, what universe are you living in? The boss declares war, the union has to fight back, or else.
Mulgrew’s formal statement was a bit stronger, saying the UFT “will not work with those who choose to scapegoat the people who have dedicated their lives to children.” He said that the DOE “created many of the personnel issues like the ATR pool and the rubber rooms.” OK. But what the UFT president didn’t say is that the union will fight the mayor and his union- busting agenda. In fact, he said the UFT would “work with anyone who wants to work constructively” on this.
Mulgrew’s message is if Bloomberg would just sit down and “work with” the union he can get a lot of what he wants. This has been the line of the UFT leadership for years, under Randi Weingarten, and before her Sandy Feldman. Al Shanker was so eager to “work with” the reactionary teacher-bashers that he hailed Ronald Reagan’s 1983 anti-union education manifesto A National At Risk as well as supporting “merit pay” and charter schools. For years, the leadership of the UFT and the American Federation of Teachers has worked with the U.S. government to undermine militant unions in other countries. Now it is ready to “work with” education “reformers” seeking to privatize public schools and destroy the unions here.
The UFT leadership isn’t preparing to fight against a mayor and a president who want to take back every vital union gain. Why not? Because it can’t. The union bureaucracy, i.e., Unity Caucus and the New Action Caucus, which was co-opted with a few exec board seats, is beholden to the Democratic Party and to the capitalist system (so they sometimes aid Republicans like Pataki or Republicrats like Bloomberg). Faced with a bipartisan ruling-class attack on public education, they go through the motions to minimize losses, giving up two-thirds of what is demanded for a paltry raise. When the going gets tough, they fold. And various union oppositions around the country joined the bureaucracy in backing Obama either enthusiastically or tacitly.
If we want to fight for the jobs of professional educators placed in the Absent Teacher Reserve through no fault of their own; to defend teachers unjustly thrown into the “rubber rooms” on trumped-up charges; to defend our job security; to defend public education and oppose the profiteers’ charter school invasion; if we want to bring back arts, music and science classes that have been sacrificed on the alter of standardized testing, to provide physical education, to teach youth to think instead of bowing to high-handed administrators under a mayoral dictatorship – then we need a union leadership that’s ready to rumble. This one sure isn’t.
Against the phony education “reformers” who want to use mayoral control to turn public education into a profit center and training system for the manpower needs of capital, Class Struggle Education Workers stands for teacher-student-parent-worker control of the schools. We call for a workers party to fight for a workers government that can carry out a revolution in public education so that it truly serves the interests of working people and the emancipation of mankind.
Mayor Goes After Teachers and Kids With a Vengeance
Beat Back the Attack on Union Gains and Public Education
Mayor Bloomberg has thrown down the gauntlet with a series of demands that would gut any kind of job protection, while continuing to rip up what remains of public education. These issues are critical to the very existence of the UFT, to teachers, all school staff, parents and children in our community. We must draw a line in the sand to preserve hard-fought rights that are key providing quality education for all. In the current contract talks, this is our bottom line:
• Reduce Class Sizes, Now! Despite the court ruling on the Campaign for Fiscal Equality’s suit, class sizes are rising throughout the system. Reducing class size is the single most effective way to improve education, helping teachers teach, and students to receive more individual attention. Set up a union monitoring system to ensure court guidelines and present contractual class sizes are enforced.
• Defend the ATRs – Don’t Touch Teacher Tenure! The mayor wants to fire ATRs if they are not placed after one year. The answer is “no way.” The mayor and chancellor created the ATR mess by constantly closing schools, throwing students into crisis and “excessing” teachers. This can be easily solved (and overcrowded classes reduced) by instructing principles to immediately place all teachers who desire a position. Defend to the hilt the no layoff clause in the contract and the NY state law that tenured teachers cannot be fired except for cause.
• Stop Closing Schools! The mayor says he wants to close down 10 percent of the city’s “lowest performing schools.” If a school’s in trouble, we say fix it, don’t close it! Bloomberg and Klein are playing an ugly game at students’ expense, particularly in poor and minority neighborhoods, in order to get rid of senior teachers and make way for more charter schools. No school closings without the express approval of teachers, students, staff and parents.
• No More Charters – Stop the Educational Apartheid! Separate is never equal: charters are lavishly funded while regular city schools are starved. Charters discriminate against English Language Learners, Special Education students and others they think could lower their dubious test scores. Even by their own phony math, studies show students in charter schools do no better, and often worse than kids in district schools. Stop back-door privatization of public schools.
• Defend Seniority! In the 2005 contract, the UFT agreed to axe seniority transfers, and give principals the sole right to place teachers. This gave rise to the ATR debacle. Now the mayor wants to give administrators the right to arbitrarily fire whoever they want, as recently occurred in Washington, D.C., instead of requiring that any layoffs be by inverse seniority. Anyone who speaks their mind at faculty meetings or stands up for teachers’ contractual rights would be at risk. Restore seniority transfers.
• No “Merit Pay” – No Linking Test Scores to Teacher Evaluations! City, state and federal education officials want to tie teachers’ pay to scores on standardized examinations. These are notorious for racial and ethnic bias, and the state tests are rigged so the mayor can brag about “progress” when federal exams show none. “Pay for performance” schemes allow school officials to reward favorites and penalize others. Tying pay or tenure to test scores will discriminate against students in poor neighborhoods.
• Gear Up to Fight the Taylor Law! City officials think they can intimidate teachers and other public employees because of the “no strike” provisions of New York’s Taylor Law. Together with transit workers and other city and state employees, we have the power to turn this anti-labor law into a dead letter. The UFT and other municipal workers unions must join forces against the union-busting offensive.
We will fight the mayor’s corrupt, elitist and racist scheme. We will not be scapegoated for the problems the DOE created.
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