Opposition Stronghold
UFT Election: High School War Looms

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Three slates of candidates will compete this month for 89 spots on the United Federation of Teachers' executive board, but the closest contest will involve the six high school positions.

RANDI WEINGARTEN: Justifies strategy.

New Action, the opposition caucus, has endorsed incumbent Randi Weingarten for president and is running joint candidates with Ms. Weingarten's caucus for the high school slots. By combining efforts, they hope to unseat the candidates of another opposition group that currently occupies the high school seats.

Old Contract At Issue

"The biggest issue now is the 2005 contract," said Jeff Kaufman, who currently holds one of the high school seats and is running as part of the Independent Community of Educators/Teachers for a Just Contract (ICE-TJC) slate. "We believe it gave away a tremendous amount of rights in the classrooms and in the schools." The UFT last fall negotiated a giveback-free successor contract nearly a year before the 2005 deal's expiration date.

Ballots for the election will be mailed out March 9 and counted on March 29. During the 2004 election, New Action decided not to oppose Ms. Weingarten for president. In return, her Unity caucus did not run candidates for the high school seats. Since most Unity supporters vote by slate, this meant that New Action, which was traditionally strongest in the high schools and held those seats for most of the previous two decades, was running directly against candidates from ICE-TJC.

MICHAEL SHULMAN: Aligned with Unity again.

Many activists believed ICE-TJC, which fielded separate slates in 2004 but endorsed one another's high school candidates, would not win since the slate was running in a union election for the first time.

New Action's strategy failed, leading the opposition to wrest away all six high school board seats. This year, New Action has teamed up with Unity to co-endorse three members of each caucus for the six seats. Unity is also endorsing five New Action candidates for at-large positions on the executive board.

'Randi's Not the Problem'

"We are separate caucuses," said Mike Shulman, co-chair of New Action since its inception in 1983 and a candidate for one of the at-large seats, "but we think Mayor Bloomberg and [Schools Chancellor Joel] Klein are the main enemies of public education, and our opponents in ICE-TJC think that Randi is the main obstacle."

KIT WAINER: Union should mobilize.

Mr. Shulman said that New Action is distributing 80,000 pieces of literature, half of which are being placed in high schools.

"One reason we are cross-endorsing," he said, "is precisely because the opposition slate has not really produced anything for the high schools, or any resolutions or motions to address the issues in the high schools."

High school executive board member James Eterno, who is running for re-election on the ICE-TJC slate and left New Action after it decided not to oppose Ms. Weingarten for president in the last election, said his team had a long record of advocating for high school Teachers.

"I would respectfully disagree," he said. "We introduced all kinds of motions, including stopping the closing of large high schools, which is now union policy, and getting people removed more quickly from temporary re-assignment centers."

Bad Outweighed Good?

Both ICE-TJC and New Action opposed the 2005 contract, believing that the raises did not compensate for the longer school day, extended school year and the added administrative duties.

Ms. Weingarten defended the deal.

"Part of my strategy was to lock up the economic pieces," she said, "and get people to see teaching as an important profession, and Teachers feeling like they had a wage that they could live on." (As a result of the subsequent wage deal, maximum salary for Teachers will exceed $100,000 next year.)

She said the fights for other issues could follow. "Once we lock up a contract," Ms. Weingarten said, "then you can really fight on the issues that are the pit-in-the-stomach issues, like class size, school safety and really thinking through how we rein in excessive testing."

But ICE-TJC says that working conditions have eroded over the past two years, in part because of what was lost in the 2005 contract. They point to the loss of the right to respond to disciplinary letters put in Teachers' files and the regained responsibility of cafeteria duty or hall monitoring that was eliminated under the 1995 contract.

'Afraid of the Taylor Law'

"The union leadership's refusal to mobilize the membership for the fight needed to win a good contract," said Kit Wainer, who is ICE-TJC's presidential candidate, "is basically because our union leaders are in a very comfortable place and they don't want to do anything to risk Taylor Law fines that would upset their ability to run a patronage machine."

Both New Action and Unity say ICE-TJC's approach to strikes is irresponsible. "Public-sector unions have to be willing to consider strikes as a last resort," said Ms. Weingarten, "but they know as well as I do that this was the best that we could do under the circumstances. Our members in 2005 did not want to engage in a long strike."

But Mr. Wainer stresses that he is not in favor of calling the membership out on strike, without preparation. "With the Taylor Law, it's not enough to just say if you strike, then you win," he said, "You need to prepare in advance, through months of mobilizations and education, and members need to be in control of when they go back." The transit workers' strike in December 2005 was not the model he would use for a walkout, he added.

See Co-Opting

ICE-TJC asserts that New Action is no longer a real opposition group, since it is endorsing Ms. Weingarten for president. It contends that some members of the caucus have gotten tired of fighting and have been bought off by getting jobs working for the union.

"How could you oppose the union leadership on a contract and say you've gotten tired of fighting?" retorted Mr. Shulman, referring to the 2005 contract. "We have several members on the organizing committee, but they are not desk jobs and we would earn much more substituting for a day."

He said the only jobs held by New Action members are about a dozen positions on the 30-person organizing committee, requiring them to work an average of about two days a week in new schools to help Teachers strengthen the union. Mr. Shulman, who co-chairs the committee, added that all those caucus members are retired and make under $30 an hour.

Some labor insiders have speculated that Ms. Weingarten will, like her predecessors, run for president of the UFT's parent union, the American Federation of Teachers, when the current president's term is up in 2008.

'Not Crossing That Bridge'

"I have a big agenda here," she said. "I'm not crossing any other bridges at this time.

Ed [McElroy] is the president and he's doing a great job. I hope that he serves a long time and I look forward to working with him for years to come."

ICE-TJC's candidates for the 11 top officer positions are: President, Mr. Wainer; High School Vice President, Arthur Colen; Middle School Vice President, Josh Kahn; Special Education Vice President, Joseph Wisniewski; Elementary Vice President, Lisa North; Vocational High School Vice President, Gerard Frohnhoefer; Secretary, Camille Johnson; Assistant Secretary, Ellen Schweitzer; Assistant Treasurer, Yelena Siwinski; Treasurer, Marilyn Beckford; Vice President At-Large, Ellen Fox.

Candidates for high school executive board seats are: James Eterno, Jeff Kaufman, Sam Lazarus, Peter Lamphere, Marian Swerdlow, and Nick Licari.

Other Candidates

New Action's candidates for the 11 top officer positions are: President, Ms. Weingarten; High School Vice President, John McCabe; Middle School Vice President, Dale Herman; Special Education Vice President, Judith Rosenstein; Elementary Vice President, Peggy McQuade-Kaplan; Vocational High School Vice President, no candidate; Secretary, Paul Millstein; Assistant Secretary, Jonathan Halabi; Treasurer, William Spieth; Assistant Treasurer, Anna Maria Thomas.

Unity's candidates for the 11 top officer positions are: President, Ms. Weingarten; High School Vice President, Frank Volpicella; Middle School Vice President, Richard Farkas; Special Education Vice President, Carmen Alvarez; Elementary Vice President, Michelle Bodden; Vocational High School Vice President, Michael Mulgrew; At-Large Vice President, Aminda Gentile; Secretary, Michael Mendel; Assistant Secretary, Robert Astrowsky; Treasurer, Melvyn Aaronson; Assistant Treasurer, Mona Romain.

New Action and Unity candidates for high school executive board seats are: David Gurowsky, Douglas Haynes, Mark Karwowski, Greg Lundahl, Lynne Winderbaum, and James Vasquez.