Archives For contract

MORE’s 3rd Annual Summer Series: Discuss, Debate, Educate!

Join the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE) for discussions exploring the past, present and future of teacher unionism.  All are welcome!

Wednesdays 4:00pm-7:00pm

The Dark Horse
17 Murray St. NYC
Near City Hall, Chambers St, WTC

$5 Drafts & Well Drinks

July 16th

Who Runs the UFT?  Why Are There Alternatives? A Historical Perspective 1960-2014

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The UFT formed in 1960 as a merger of several organizations. By 1964 the Unity caucus emerged as the ruling party of the UFT, which they remain to this day. Throughout the union’s history various dissident groups and caucuses have contested this dominance.  At different times these groups merged, ran joint slates, or disbanded. We will discuss why these groups formed and their differing visions and strategies. How is MORE related to this history? What can we learn from it?

July 30th

Life Under the New Contract
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This fall we will be returning to a radically changed work environment, which educators are approaching with a mix of hope and anxiety.  How can school workers use the new contract to advocate for themselves and their students?  How can we activate new people, strengthen our union chapters, and empower ourselves at work?  Which members are more vulnerable under the new contract, and how can we support them?  MORE wants to campaign this year around tenure, paperwork reduction, ATR rights and chapter leader elections, and we need your ideas and energy!

 

August 13th

Lessons from the Chicago Teachers’ Union Featuring Guest Speakers from Chicago

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In 2010, activists in the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) took over their union – successful displacing a conservative leadership with a team of organizers headed by dynamo Karen Lewis. This group would lead the CTU on its strike against Rahm Emmanuel that mobilized teachers and school communities. The strike electrified the labor movement, however Chicago is very different than New York City.  What lessons can we learn from Chicago?  Can we adapt the model of CORE to the conditions of New York City?

 

August 20th
UFT 101: Why Does Our Teachers’ Union Matter?

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Are you entering the teaching profession or new to NYC schools?  Are you wondering what the teacher union is all about and what it means to you and your students? Is it something you should be active in?  Do educators, parents and students share common interests? Can unions be vehicles for social justice?  Meet with new and veteran teachers to discuss these questions and more in this introduction to teacher unionism

Here is the flyer for distribution MORE summer 14 Announce-1

 

Vote No

By Kevin Prosen

Chapter Leader I.S.30

This letter first appeared here in Jacobin

A Letter to New York City’s School Teachers

Continue Reading…

"solidarity mean: uniting chapters, not setting them up to compete for merit pay by another name from management"

We do not consent to divide and conquer

"MISSING from the UFT contract- have you seen a class size reduction? Last seen in MORE's Contract NYC Educators Deserve"

UFT President Michael Mulgrew likes to tell union delegates that it’s either money or class size, not both… But neither?

by Peter Lamphere, member of the UFT Negotiating Committee
Vote No[Click here for a one-page PDF version of this article to distribute to your coworkers]
One of the key questions facing rank and file UFT members at this moment is what happens if we decide to reject the contract proposal from Mayor de Blasio and our leadership.  Few educators are jumping up and down happy about the contract, and many are downright upset, but everyone wants to know – What happens if we vote this down? Is it possible to get something better? What about the leadership’s argument that we would have to “go to the back of the line” and wait for all 150 other city unions to settle?

 

First off, the money is clearly there for something better. Continue Reading…

"solidarity means not making 151 other municipal unions negotiate with the insulting pattern we'd set vote NO on the UFT contract"

"solidarity means not making 151 other municipal unions negotiate with the insulting pattern we'd set vote NO on the UFT contract"

Dan Lupkin
Special Education Teacher/UFT Delegate
PS 58, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn


Lest we forget, the UFT leadership works for the membership- NOT the other way around.

Our dues pay for their salaries, their perks, and the UFT skyscraper at 52 Broadway. Our COPE money buys the “seat at the table” with the politicians, billionaires, and power brokers they say will save our profession. They push a TINA (There Is No Alternative) mentality on the membership, and when it comes to the 2014 contract, operatives (belonging to the UNITY caucus that has monopolized power within the UFT since its founding in 1960) have been sent out among the membership. Their message is that this proposal is the best we can do, so even if you have lots of problems with it, it’s better than no contract at all, so you might as well vote “yes”.

Most working teachers in NYC have been kept in the dark about how their union works, and how that relates to this contract, so perhaps it’s helpful to reframe the question in terms of dining in a restaurant:

Let’s say you sat down at a table, ordered, and were served a dish that looked, smelled, and tasted awful. Would you choke it down because that’s what you had been brought? Since you are paying the restaurant for the sole purpose of preparing you a tasty meal, most people would send it back and expect the restaurant to replace it with something better.

What if everyone’s meal was unacceptable, and the manager sent around the maitre d’ to explain to each table that the restaurant’s suppliers sold substandard meat and produce, so there was no way they could produce a tastier meal, but that surely, eating what they had brought you was better than no meal at all?
Continue Reading…

We are ALL ATRs

May 13, 2014 — 1 Comment

"we are ALL ATRs Don't let UNITY throw our brothers and sisters under the bus. vote NO on the UFT contract"

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Saturday, May 10
12:00 – 3:00pm
Ya-Ya Network
224 W. 29th St., 14th Fl.

Come to a meeting with UFT Chapter Leaders and Contract Committee members to hear a breakdown of the proposal, ask questions, and organize against the proposed contract in our schools. Join us in fighting for The Contract NYC Educators Deserve!

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Please print and distribute this flyer advertising this meeting and explaining our reasons for opposing the new contract.

"Does anyone else sense a ghost in the room 2014 UFT contract vote no on the contract for education"
"Does anyone else sense a ghost in the room 2014 UFT contract vote no on the contract for education"