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Layoffs? Fight back!

Published May 7, 2011 New York CIty Department of Education , UFT Closed
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by Jonathan Halabi

Mayor Bloomberg has announced his preliminary budget, with a reduction from 75,000 to 69,000 teachers, with over 4000 of that reduction to come from layoffs.

Some things we can do:

  • Demonstrate Thursday May 12. There will be actions downtown. Ask your Chapter Leader, who should be in regular contact with the District Rep, or check daily for updates on http://uft.org for details.
  • Mobile phone bank. Ask your Chapter Leader about which day the staff in your school can do lunch time mobile phone banks to your council person (even those who are on our side need reminders to stay there).
  • Ask your Chapter Leader to arrange a date to picket in front of your school. Doing something together, all of you, builds solidarity. It feels nice. And gets us ready for what comes next. If there is a common date in the district, all the better.
  • Ask your Chapter Leader if there is going to be a Council District meeting with the council person (when the meeting happens, you’ll want to make sure your school participates – even better if you are there Day 1 and can work on getting the site to be close by)
  • Watch out for fax campaigns!  Once they are announced it is easy to send the faxes. Leave the right page open on the computer, and everyone can send one – takes just a minute. And the politicians see them.
  • Pass good information. When you learn something important, share the information and where you learned it. Conversely, don’t pass rumors. People are nervous (with reason) and rumors are our enemy.
  • Finally, stay ready. This fight will not end June 1 or Brooklyn-Queens Day or the beginning of Regents. We are in for a battle, and Bloomberg is too. We don’t relax until we’ve spared the classrooms and saved our colleagues’ jobs.

UFT, Chapter Leaders, under attack. Time for New Action!

Published April 21, 2011 Abusive Administrators , UFT 2 Comments
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UFT Under Attack
Chapter Leaders Bear the Brunt of Abusive Administrators
It’s time for New Action!

For years the Bloomberg administration has been waging war to destroy the UFT and its members:

  • breaking up large high schools (once our most militant division) and creating a whole new set of “campus” problems
  • refusing to help struggling schools and then closing over a hundred of them
  • starting charters and co-locating them in existing schools causing inequities that adversely affect the public school
  • breaking one agreement after another
  • establishing the Principal’s “Leadership Academy” which espoused a corporate philosophy and condescending attitude toward educators and the UFT
  • violating our contract (even after a UFT grievance victory) and refusing to negotiate a new one unless it contains one concession after another
  • singling out veteran teachers as scapegoats for every problem of the system
  • pitting newer colleagues against veteran teachers
  • establishing bogus education reform groups
  • using the media to vilify, demean and disrespect educators
  • blaming educators for all the failures of the NYC school system

And now Bloomberg has launched an insidious campaign against seniority and tenure in Governor Walker (Wisconsin)-like fashion. He really wants to destroy our ability to bargain collectively.

In order to accomplish this he has gone after the first line of defense—UFT chapter leaders! The examples are numerous. Many have been reported on in our union paper. But the numbers reported are only the tip of the iceberg.  Some cases:

Chapter leaders:

  • who are singled out for program abuse
  • who are forced to transfer
  • who are harassed with multiple unsatisfactory observations
  • in every borough who are singled out for unsubstantiated U-ratings

And what is the fall-out of this policy? In many cases the school staff is too terrified to back up the chapter leader. After all, if they can abuse a union representative, what chance does the individual member have? Of course, there are notable exceptions where the staff has come together and stood up and changed the policy or the administrator!

At the same time, Bloomberg has done absolutely nothing about abusive administrators like Principals Blige and Bost, to name a few. In fact after abundant evidence they have received only a slap on the wrist or reinstated to their previous positions in the same school.

What Can You Do?

New Action stands ready to help! We can help with advice. We can help develop a wide-range of proven tactics for implementation at your school.  If you can get your chapter and your District Representative to get on board it will improve your chances against an abusive administrator.

Call us at 718 238-8030 or write or e-mail. If you do nothing, nothing can change. Try New Action.

April 2011

New Action/UFT…a caucus of the United Federation of Teachers
PO Box 180574   North Richmond Hill, NY 11418
newaction.wordpress.com / new.action.uft@gmail.com

WISCONSIN / NEW YORK CITY – SAME STRUGGLE / SAME FIGHT

Published March 8, 2011 NYC , solidarity , UFT , United Federation of Teachers Closed
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Wisconsin proves that today we must have a strong union movement. Public employees, especially educators, are under attack all across our country. Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Florida are also suffering attacks on pensions, health care plans, seniority, and our long and hard fought right to collective bargaining. Mayor Bloomberg WANTS TO END SENIORITY RIGHTS! In reality, he would also like to destroy collective bargaining.

Fortunately, public employees across this country are fighting back.

New Action is proud that we introduced the UFT resolution on Wisconsin and other battleground states. The membership must be involved. We urge the following actions:

  • set a specified Day of Solidarity and ask every UFT member to wear red
  • set a date with our labor allies for a demonstration of support for workers in Wisconsin, Ohio, etc. and against the policies of Mayor Bloomberg
  • raise support among our members by requesting a voluntary donation for a solidarity fund
  • gather names of members who are willing to fill buses and travel to battleground states

We hope these actions will stimulate discussions at the school level and other UFT venues.

March 2011

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