Tag: Eterno

James Eterno on the Meet the Candidates Forum

Last night in Melville there was a “Meet the Candidates” forum featuring the individuals running for the NYSUT officer positions in April’s election.  There was a strong turnout of teachers and union leaders from around Long Island and some from New York City as well.  The candidates each gave opening and closing statements.  In between they took turns answering questions submitted by the audience.

James Eterno had a really great write up of the evening.  Via the ICEUFT blog…

IANNUZZI’S STRONGR TOGETHER & ARTHUR GOLDSTEIN ARE CROWD FAVORITES AT CANDIDATE FORUM

New York State United Teachers is all of the local non supervisory educator related unions (and some non educator unions) in New York State combined into one statewide union. On April 5, NYSUT will have its first contested election in its history. The election will take place at the NYSUT Representative Assembly.  Only Delegates can vote; the rank and file will be shut out.

To help Delegates make their decision, The Long Island President’s Council hosted a forum last night for candidates for the five NYSUT officer positions. If last night’s crowd reaction was a poll, President Richard Iannuzzi and his Stronger Together slate should breeze to reelection. Andrew Pallotta, who split from Iannuzzi recently to help form Revive NYSUT, was put on his heels most of the night trying to deflect very tough questions and some attacks on his legislative record.  His colleagues, including presidential candidate Karen Magee, looked tentative at times.

Conversely, the four candidates from Stronger Together, led by Iannuzzi, came armed with facts and figures to confidently defend their records and provide a vision for the next three years.

Iannuzzi and the other three officeholders were joined by none other than Arthur Goldstein, Chapter Leader from Francis Lewis High School, aka NYC Educator.  Arthur had a very impressive debate debut as he put his opponent Pallotta, the incumbent officer who defected from Iannuzzi, on the defensive most of the evening by merely emphasizing the awful laws that have been passed in New York the last few years under his watch.  The Executive Vice President is in charge of NYSUT’s political operation and has a big say over which candidates get voluntary COPE money from us.

Arthur and Karen Magee were the only two candidates who played much offense.  Arthur went after Pallotta’s failure as the Executive Vice President.  Pallotta was compelled to answer for the inferior new pension Tier VI, the 2% property tax cap and the horrible Annual Personnel Performance Review (APPR) system.  Pallotta was also questioned about Revive’s possible support for Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The highlight of the evening was when a question was asked about whether or not we should endorse Cuomo’s reelection.  Arthur answered with a definitive no and launched into an attack on the governor’s anti-union, anti-public education, pro-charter school record.

Pallotta, on the other hand, responded to the question by saying that it is not up to him to endorse candidates.  He explained that the Union has a process involving many people and he would let the process play out.  This response did not please the crowd who loudly accused Pallotta of trying to duck the question.  This prompted Pallotta to respond by noting he would not personally be endorsing Cuomo.

Iannuzzi and Magee sparred over the 2% tax cap.  It takes a 60% vote to raise property taxes over 2% and the issue is hurting many NYSUT locals.  Iannuzzi noted this and said he is very proud his team is using the courts to fight the cap.  Magee had criticized the President for waiting two years to file a lawsuit over the cap.  The President responded by pointing out how filing a lawsuit the day after the cap was passed would have been a great public relations move, but it would have ultimately failed as there was no evidence yet to have standing to win in court.  He added by saying our patience gives us a much stronger chance of victory because now we have ample evidence to support a legal claim on how the cap is harmful to education.

The two presidential candidates also disagreed on charter schools with Magee drawing a distinction between private charter schools and public charter schools and basically only criticizing private charter schools while Iannuzzi emphasized how we have to organize charter schools.

On the Stronger Together side, the three other incumbent candidates were Maria Neira, Kathleen Donahue and Lee Cutler.

Neira confidently defended her record of meeting with the State Education Commissioner to make the best of the hand we have been dealt.  The basic theme of Stronger Together was that the legislative part of the NYSUT operation led by Pallotta had failed by allowing terrible laws to pass in the Legislature and then Neira, Iannuzzi and others have sprung into action to negotiate to clean up the mess they have been handed with new laws. (A little revisionist history but it does make the case well for who is more to blame for the shape we are in.)

Secretary Treasurer incumbent Lee Cutler was attacked for a NYSUT deficit but he boldly defended his record by stating how he turned a multi million dollar NYSUT deficit into a projected surplus.  He continually said how he had built up the Union’s non-dues revenue in the last few years. Kathleen Donahue also confidently backed up her own record of achievement with many of the non teachers who are NYSUT members, including Jones Beach Lifeguards.

Revive candidates emphasized how elections are a positive good for a democratic union. Paul Pecorale talked about his Long Island experience while Catalina Fortino pointed out the strength in diversity, talking about her English Language Learner background.  Martin Messner spoke out on how he would involve the locals more in making decisions. Messner also made vague pledges to be transparent.

Messner for some inexplicable reason felt it necessary to mention how he is not a tool of the UFT leadership.  Earlier, Goldstein had talked about how the UFT is run by a closed, invitation only group (NYC Unity Caucus) which forces its members to sign a paper saying they will support the positions of the UFT leadership in public or union forums (the so called Unity loyalty oath).  Arthur added that NYC Unity shuts out people who disagree with policies the UFT supports such as mayoral dictatorship over NYC schools.

Overall, Revive did not look ready for prime time.  If this is the best they can do, then we may be in even more peril than now if they take over NYSUT in April.  The four incumbents in Stronger Together and Arthur Goldstein looked very comfortable up on the stage while Pallotta and his Revived challengers appeared to be overmatched at times.  Pallotta even said running for office in a competitive election gave him a newfound respect for politicians and he no longer likes Twitter.

Since the 800 UFT Delegates to NYSUT all come from NYC Unity and President Michael Mulgrew supports Revive, Revive starts out with a huge advantage as this is around1/3 of the potential electorate.  Judging by last night’s performance, however, Revive looks like they may be taking victory for granted.  They better start campaigning for real or they very well could end up losing. Stronger Together won the evening for sure.

Full Disclosure: I am running in the NYSUT election for an at large Board of Director position.  I am not part of a slate presently.

UFT Guest Post #1: James Eterno

Earlier we told you about our upcoming series on the leadership of the UFT.  Our first post is from James Eterno of the UFT’s MORE Caucus.  We have admirably mentioned MORE on this blog for quite a while now.  This post has also been published at Mr. Eterno’s blog, ICEUFT.

 

MAKING SOME SENSE OF THE NYSUT LEADER SPLIT

Many New York City teachers view New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) as the group that offers UFT members discount insurance. It is so much more important than that.  NYSUT is all of the local unions in New York State combined into a state-wide union.  NYSUT matters as a great deal of educational policy is made at the state level.

These days there is an internal rift among the leadership at NYSUT.  How this feud plays will have a large impact on UFT members and just about every education stakeholder in New York State.

It is strange how the press has only paid scant attention to this NYSUT leadership dispute. Full coverage has been provided by Education Notes, the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association website and Perdido Street School.  Outside of these online union sources, onlyNew York State of Politics  has touched on the story.

Here are some of the basics:

There are five officers in NYSUT. One of them has split from the other four.  Who is the rebel?  He is Vice President Andy Pallotta, a former UFT District Representative from the Bronx. Pallotta’s job in NYSUT in large part deals with which politicians get our voluntary COPE money.  Apparently, Andy encouraged a lot of COPE money to go to Andrew Cuomo recently.

Dick Iannuzzi is NYSUT’s President.  He is from Long Island but in the past he was supported by the New York City UFT.  Lately as the internal rift has exploded, he has taken aggressive positions in opposition to state education policy driven by Governor Andrew Cuomo, the State Legislature and State Education Commissioner John King.

Do you think the UFT by itself would call for a no confidence vote on State Education Commissioner John King as NYSUT did yesterday?  Just last year UFT President Michael Mulgrew was asking the State Legislature and Governor to allow King to arbitrate our dispute with former Mayor Bloomberg over the NYC teacher evaluation system.

Who is really behind the row in NYSUT?  You probably guessed right if you said it is our own UFT leaders.  Mulgrew is supporting the so called insurgent slate called Revive NYSUT. This is ironic as he won’t give dissidents in his own union the time of day.  I think he has responded to one email I have sent him over the past five years.

As for the NYSUT election, it is basically as rigged as UFT elections. The election for NYSUT President and many other positions is in April in NYC.  Most NYSUT members won’t be permitted to vote, however, as only NYSUT Representative Assembly Delegates are given the franchise to elect the five NYSUT statewide officers and the 82-member Board of Directors. To be a NYSUT Representative Assembly Delegate from New York City, by far the largest union in the state, one has to win the position in the general UFT election that takes place every three years.

In the most recent UFT election in 2013, less than 20% of active teachers voted. Members received a booklet in the mail with over a thousand names on it.  Most people who did vote chose a slate, which means they voted for all of the candidates from one caucus (political party) with one mark.

The party that has controlled UFT politics for around half a century is the Unity Caucus, the Michael Mulgrew-Randi Weingarten faction of the UFT. Their huge base of support is among retirees, who now make up a majority of the UFT voters.

There is no way for dissidents (the Movement of Rank and File Educators in the last election) to reach those retirees who live all over the place, other than one ad in the New York Teacher newspaper every three years.  Union officers, on the other hand, have complete access to the retirees.

A major union leader told me that when they visit schools during campaign season, they don’t campaign officially but everyone knows that they are there to run for office. How is it that UFT officials manage to visit Florida retirees during the election season? Challengers, who have to teach here in New York City, do not have any access to the masses of voters.

The opposition MORE slate and quasi opposition New Action slate combined won a majority of high school votes in the last UFT election.  That netted the two groups zero representation in NYSUT’s RA.

Membership to the Unity Caucus in New York City is by invitation only.  To be accepted into the caucus, one must sign a statement pledging to support the decisions of the caucus in union and public forums (the so called Unity loyalty oath).  There is no public dissent allowed.  In exchange for absolute loyalty, Unity members get all expense paid trips to the AFT Convention and the NYSUT Representative Assemblies where they vote as an enormous bloc. I very much doubt that the smaller locals in New York State have the funds to pay for their Delegates to travel to the RA and stay at the Hilton.

The party discipline Unity has would make Mao envious. I can just about guarantee that those 800 NYC Unity representatives at NYSUT (around 40% of the total) will be supporting Andy Pallotta and the Revive NYSUT “insurgent” slate. They would vote for a bologna sandwich if Mulgrew told them to.

My read is that current President Dick Iannuzzi, whose vastly improved policies have ironically been strengthened by the internal row, has as much chance of winning as real insurgents do in UFT elections.  For Iannuzzi to prevail, the upstate and suburban locals would have to rebel en masse against Mulgrew’s endorsed team. (Wouldn’t that be cool!)

The UFT has always been the tail wagging the NYSUT dog. This insurrection at the top just confirms that status.  We can only hope that Iannuzzi and company have something up their sleeves that we don’t know about to make this a truly competitive election.

Iannuzzi’s slate might not be perfect but I would place a wager that if we brought the President of NYSUT the resolution that we introduced earlier this month at the UFT Delegate Assembly not to support Andrew Cuomo’s reelection, we might get a sympathetic ear.  Mulgrew’s Unity voted to turn our resolution down and leave open the possibility of a UFT Cuomo endorsement.