Diane Ravitch Praises Randi Weingarten on Her Blog and All Hell Breaks Loose

[HiPointDem]

26. More comments on electoral processes within AFT from that blog post:

Ron Poirier
July 12, 2013 at 9:00 pm

Could anyone tell me a theoretical way in which the incumbent AFT president (and I fear that I use the term loosely here) could lose her office? It seems to me that it would have to involve every delegate uniting behind a common opponent AND at least some of her hand-picked delegates breaking their oaths by voting against her.

norm scott
July 13, 2013 at 9:46 am

Ron. Given the political realities which are too deep to go into here, this is pretty much an impossible task. And it is not the big battle. The battle is in the locals.


Robert Rendo
July 13, 2013 at 10:17 am

From what I understand, there would have to be enough locals from the most dense clusters of delegates (I think THE most dense once comes out of New York City Schools) who would be of a mindset different from Randi’s, and the problem is that her union and other more local unions reward and incentivize these delegates with separate slaries, stipends, and pensions. Those not in the Unity Part or who are opposed to it are given little facilitation in getting elected and are not given cushiony or profiteering union position jobs.

Michael Fiorillo
July 13, 2013 at 11:23 am

Like most one-party states, the UFT/Unity caucus as currently constituted is nearly impermeable to internal reform. It even has a captive fake opposition caucus, New Action, that it uses to divert and divide opposition energies.

It’s very ironic that much of the genealogy of the UFT goes back to struggles and competitions within the union between the Communist Party – represented back in the day by the Teacher’s Union – and more conservative elements represented by the Teacher’s Guild, which was ultimately chosen by the membership as its bargaining representative.

The irony is that the UFT/Unity Caucus, though led for years by true believer Cold Warriors such as Albert Shanker, in fact functions very similarly to the Communist Party of old. Internal discussions are held – although there’s very little policy debate in the UFT, even in the upper echelons – and once a decision is made, members are expected to promote the party line.

This plays out on the school level, where Chapter Leaders are expected to sell the issue of the day – currently, that would mean new evaluation procedures designed to effectively end tenure – to the rank and file, rather than educate and activate them.

The danger with this lack of internal democracy is the same as that faced by the Soviet Union: resistant to change, feedback and democracy, it becomes sclerotic, increasingly irrelevant to its members, and vulnerable to collapse. In this case that would likely mean decertification efforts by Randi’s pal Bill Gates-funded fifth columnist groups like Educators for Excellence.