I Gave $350K to the Mayor and All I Got Was This Substandard Contract

Oh, the tangled web our union leadership leads. They insisted on endorsing Bill Thompson four years too late, after Michael Bloomberg reversed the twice-voiced will of the voters to buy himself a third term (and won by such a small margin our opposition might have made a difference).

To thank us for stabbing him in the back he'd carried our water for so long, Thompson told the Daily News the city couldn't afford to give teachers the raise NYPD, FDNY and most other unions got. But that was water under the bridge, and UFT went ahead and made yet another spectacular losing endorsement.

They pulled out all the stops for Bill Thompson, aggressively recruiting people for the call centers. They had some sort of process to determine the nomination, and they claimed it was democratic. It was very reminiscent of the AFT process that ended up nominating Hillary. But there's always something going on with UFT leadership.

Almost concurrently with our contract negotiations, AFT, at the behest of UFT President Michael Mulgrew, donated 350K to Mayor de Blasio's nonprofit, Campaign for One New York. The nonprofit then spent 350K on commercials that praised the mayor's having achieved his promise to bring pre-K to NYC kids. This, of course, happened without the tax on the wealthy the mayor had previously demanded to achieve it. It's a well-established scientific fact that wealthy people are more delicate than those of us who actually pay the taxes. For example, had they been required to pay to support children of the bootless and unhorsed, they'd have been at great risk of becoming brittle, falling down, and perhaps breaking their hair, or even other less visible parts of their anatomy.

Now the thing about this story that got the attention of the reporter was that Mulgrew negotiated a contract only two months after this large donation. There is the hanging implication that somehow MIchael Mulgrew bought off the mayor. After all, there are a lot of teachers and the contract cost a lot of money. We waited years for that contract, even after 150 other unions got theirs, as Mulgrew repeatedly reminded us in the appeal to fear he used to sell the contract. If we didn't take it, we'd have to get in line behind 150 other unions! And retro pay was not a God-given right! De Blasio didn't need to hire people to scare UFT members accepting two-tier due process, or a ten-year delay in payment. He had the President of the UFT doing it for him.

So let me be the first to defend our President. There was most certainly no quid pro quo. Otherwise, why would this contract be such a piece of crap? Why would I, a lowly teacher, be lending the city 50 thousand bucks interest free? I mean, what working person can afford to do such things? Well, thanks to Michael Mulgrew's ingenuity, tens of thousands of UFT members found a way.

And who cares if ATR teachers can be fired for, as Mulgrew suggested, shouting in the halls on two occasions? Who cares if arbitrators can fire ATR teachers for pretty much whatever after a one-day 3020a process? Who cares if they can be fired for missing two job interviews they may or may not even know about? Most teachers aren't ATRs anyway. And who cares about the unresolved payments into health care to be judged by an arbitrator if Mulgrew's financial projections prove inadequate? What's the big deal if we lose the paltry increases we gained (or more)? Nothing's written in stone, and we haven't even bothered to write up an actual contract yet.

Personally, I do not believe Michael Mulgrew had any quid pro quo. If he had, our contract would have been more like the 4 plus 4 no giveback contract other unions got. If he had, we would not have foisted a 10% over 7 years pattern, the worst in my living memory, on our brother and sister unionists.

I wasn't born yesterday. I know there are quid pro quo deals in politics. But any implication that our union leadership indulges in such things is patently false. Unlike LGBT and immigrant groups, we didn't bother to extract any concessions from Barack Obama before we endorsed him in 2012. And indeed, if you don't believe that, just look at the shoddy and disrespectful treatment we've received from corporate stooge Arne Duncan for his entire tenure. I've seen no evidence we extracted any concessions from corporation-rich Hillary Clinton for our early endorsement either.

I absolutely believe we received nothing for our infusion of cash into Bill de Blasio's nonprofit. I absolutely believe we received nothing for our support of Barack Obama, and I'm further confident we will once again receive nothing for our support of Hillary Clinton.

That's one of the biggest reasons we need new union leadership.

It's Time to Unite

That's the song I'm hearing now from Unity members. We are, in fact, facing a dire threat. The Friedrichs suit can result in the decimation, if not the destruction, of public sector unions nationwide. I strenuously oppose this, as do most people of my acquaintance. If possible, I will certainly work with union leadership to prevent this.

But with the premature Hillary nomination, a lot of us have a lot to say about the less-than-democratic nature of union elections. Bernie Sanders speaks to us. He stands up for working people, and does not take money from corporations who suppress and silence us. He hits almost every bell, for me at least. I've donated to his campaign, and will do what I can for him. And I will not be silent on AFT, an organization to which I pay dues but have no vote.

The line I'm getting, as usual, is sit down and shut up. And that, frankly, is par for the course. You're opposing us, and the real enemy is Giuliani. You're opposing us, and the real enemy is Bloomberg. You're opposing us, and the real enemy is Cuomo. You're opposing us, and the real enemy is the Supreme Court.

There is, evidently, never a good time to oppose leadership. And there are mechanisms in place to ensure very few voices creep into heavily rigged processes and elections. On the ground, of course, there are hundreds of chapter leaders, most of whom have signed loyalty oaths to UFT Unity. Though their jobs ostensibly entail representing membership, they vote as they are told by leadership. For this, they are given duespayer-funded trips to NYSUT and AFT conventions. This ensures that 100% of UFT votes in NYSUT and AFT are controlled by leadership.

If you don't support Common Core, for example, not only do you get no representation in NYSUT or AFT, but also the UFT President wants to punch your face and push it in the dirt.

This is insidious. It goes further, as officer positions are at large, so that not only elementary school teachers, but also retirees help high school teachers select a VP. And like the Hillary nomination in which we had no choice and no voice, this is reflective of an absolute disregard for democracy. It's a fundamental problem, and it's no coincidence that over 80% of working teachers fail to find voting in union elections worth their time.

In fact, it is time to unite. It is time to unite against the Supreme Court decimating public sector union. I will help. I always support leadership when they're right. I oppose them when they fail to oppose Cuomo, say, at election time. It's disingenuous for them to say otherwise, and waiting until he was actually attacking us to speak up was a miscalculation by any standard. One of many, actually.

Who remembers the parade of candidates UFT endorsed, leading up to Bloomberg's first term in office? Who remembers their failure to oppose him, particularly when Thompson came within five points of preventing his third term, the one voters had twice affirmed no one should have? Who remembers their endorsement of Thompson four years too late, and after he told the Daily News editorial board NYC couldn't afford to give teachers the raise most other city unions got?

I am persona non grata in UFT, but that didn't stop them from calling me at least three times to make calls for Thompson. Given his history, and given de Blasio was surging at the time, it was pretty easy to refuse repeatedly.

Leadership is absolutely correct to fight for union, and I certainly hope they come up with a plan better than, say, a Twitter campaign in which they do not participate. 

But it's preposterous for them to tell us to shut up and sit down, that this is not the time to express ourselves. Randi Weingarten is not the union. Michael Mulgrew is not the union. We are the union, and if we don't like it when they shut us out, we need to let them know loudly, insistently, now and forever.

If you don't believe me, just look around at where all this sitting down and shutting up has gotten us.

Give Up the Ghost, UFT

The UFT, despite what people may say or think, played a pivotal role in the recent primary. While Thompson didn't win, he pulled a strong second. Had the UFT not placed its full support and relentless phone banks behind him, it's unlikely that would've been the case. Perhaps more importantly, UFT pushed the execrable Christine Quinn, she who enabled Emperor Bloomberg's seemingly endless third term, out of the running altogether.

The question now is where we go from here. With de Blasio hovering around the magical 40% mark, should we support Thompson in a runoff? Should we even support a recount if Thompson requests one?

I don't suppose anyone will be much surprised when I say the answer is absolutely not. It was probably a mistake to endorse so early in this process, and that's underlined by the primary results. While I too thought Thompson was a good idea when endorsed, my buddy Reality-Based Educator was predicting the other shoe was going to drop on Carlos Danger. If he knew that, why didn't UFT leadership?

 Does the UFT want to stick to its guns and risk the embarrassing spectacle of having to then endorse a candidate we've twice opposed? Does UFT want to risk alienating yet another mayoral candidate, as it did four years ago when our good pal Thompson announced to the Daily News that raises for teachers were too costly to be a priority in our fair city?

Clearly it's time to give up the ghost, as several other unions have done. Now I don't expect UFT leadership to fret much over my opinion. After all, I'm not in Unity Caucus, so I don't know the secret handshake or possess the coveted decoder ring. And if I did, of course, there would be no blog anyway. It would be my duty, as per the loyalty oath, to shut the hell up and do as I am told.

Later today I will go to the Brooklyn Marriott and join a small army of chapter leaders who've solemnly pledged to shut the hell up and do as they're told. I'm hoping Mulgrew will announce we've come to our senses and decided to endorse de Blasio. If that's the case, I'll join the union phone banks, hand out pamphlets, recruit others, and do whatever I can to enable a victory for a mayor who doesn't appear to be insane, a mayor endorsed by Diane Ravitch and Leonie Haimson, among others.

If not, well, it looks like there will be just a little more "me-time" for your humble correspondent.

Telling Tall Tales of Thompson

Though I support COPE and actually pay for this stuff, though I get out and work for UFT-endorsed candidates in whom I believe, I'm more than a little disappointed when I read things like this. A UFT mailer suggests that Bill Thompson supports retro pay for teachers, who haven't had a raise in five years. However, the Thompson campaign denies it. It's hard for me to forget that Thompson told the Daily News editorial board he opposed it.

So what are we to believe? Has Thompson made a backroom deal with Mike Mulgrew? And if he has, has he made contradictory backroom deals with his anti-teacher pals Meryl Tisch and Al D'Amato?

I'm a little torn. A UFT rep came to our school and told us that UFT leadership was very smart, and that the new evaluation system could not happen without the raise for which we'd waited years. Yet months later, we had the junk science ratings, no raise, and Bloomberg was boasting he'd achieved the most anti-teacher rating system in the state, and that he'd given up absolutely nothing to achieve it. In fact, he was correct.

I'm not really happy to write about these things. But it's pretty clear our leadership is getting desperate. In fact, they're praying for Thompson to win, and urging chapter leaders to survey members one on one during school hours. UFT leadership took a big gamble on credibility by getting out front and endorsing Thompson early. For a while, I thought they'd made a good judgment. But circumstance and polling have proven both UFT leadership and me wrong.

There is no defense for outright lying to us. If I'm mistaken in any way, if anyone from UFT leadership would like to set me straight on this, I'm all ears.

In Which I Am Courted by the UFT

For the past few days I've been getting phone calls and emails from union reps. Apparently it is essential that I get my butt over to UFT HQ and make phone calls for Bill Thompson. They'll give me Chinese food and a Bill Thompson t-shirt.

This is probably because when Tony Avella and Grace Meng ran, I not only showed up, but also dragged a bunch of people with me. I was very excited about supporting both of them, and I was happy when both of them won. With Thompson, it was a matter of looking at all the possibilities and deeming him the only one who was remotely viable, particularly with Wiener looming, and his victory likely to enable yet another Republican mayor.

But now, with Carlos Danger hanging in Wiener's shadows (and no, that was not a pun), Bill de Blasio is resurgent. I'd always preferred de Blasio to Thompson, particularly since he didn't tell the Daily News he opposed teachers getting the pattern raise virtually all other city employees got in the last round of bargaining. Thompson did say that, unfortunately.

To further muddy the waters, this week de Blasio, having been abandoned by the UFT, his erstwhile supporter, is making noises about how he, not having our endorsement, can better negotiate with us. You might say he is a fair-weather friend, as was Thompson. Or you might say the UFT was premature in offering its endorsement. But Thompson has also flip-flopped on stop and frisk, so you might see a lot of support he'd otherwise have received going to de Blasio.

I declined to work for Thompson. The UFT rep told me if I didn't show, I'd have no right to complain about the consequences. Apparently, he felt that statement would persuade me whatever happened in the next mayoral election would be entirely in my hands. It did not. He then started to tell me how intelligent I am, and how I therefore must understand this.

He continued to tell me that this selection was the most democratic process ever. It's true Thompson was popular in every borough but Queens, which had the good sense to support John Liu, my first choice. But it's also true UFT leadership, in the form of the Executive Board, made a recommendation to the DA. It's further true that virtually everyone in the DA signed a loyalty oath to agree with whatever they're told to agree with.

If that's democracy, then most teachers support mayoral control, value-added methods, being itinerant ATRs, school closures, and getting fired based on test scores likely to be as flawed as previous test scores.

He asked me if I thought the UFT would endorse a candidate who opposed getting teachers the raise all other city employees got. Given the UFT's previous positions, I was at a loss to answer. This is the same guy who got in front of my staff and promised that the union was very smart, and that the evaluation system would come with the contract and raise for which they'd been waiting years.


In a real democracy, people say whatever they like, and vote freely without facing the (gasp!) possibility of being shut out from future AFT and NYSUT conventions at fancy hotels. It may be good if Thompson is elected, depending on which Thompson takes the oath. I would probably go and make calls for him if de Blasio were not resurgent. But right now I'm not all that enthused. And if the UFT wants reasons, they need only look at the 82% of teachers who don't bother to vote in union elections.

I vote every chance I get. But I do understand cynicism, and I don't like veiled threats, shallow flattery, empty promises, or being bullied or browbeaten to do things for which I have limited enthusiasm. This is particularly true about people who've sorely disappointed me in the past.

Thompson for Mayor

Though I particularly like John Liu, and to a lesser extent Bill deBlasio, I'm now persuaded that neither will win the nomination come September. And while I'm upset that Thompson stood up in front of God and everybody and said teachers should not get the 8% raise that virtually all city employees got in the last round of pattern bargaining, I kind of understand why he did that.

After all, he'd been in virtual lockstep with UFT for some time when we saw fit to stab him in the back. I'd heard him say things that may as well have come from the mouth of Randi Weingarten. So it's understandable that the man may have been pissed off. Of course, it speaks to a lack of commitment on his part, and that's not something I particularly admire.

Another negative note with Bill Thompson is his close ties to Meryl Tisch, who, while not as insane as Michael Bloomberg, appears to be firmly rooted in baseless reform. Ms. Tisch is notably behind the current movement in NY that does not allow teachers to grade state papers written by their own students. The thought process behind this, as far as I can determine, is that we are all criminals who will cheat given any opportunity.

However, if we discount Liu and deBlasio, Thompson becomes the only reasonable choice, and certainly the only route with which the UFT can establish itself as a force to be reckoned with. In fact, UFT phone banks can be enormously powerful, and politicians will think twice about screwing with UFT if it's perceived as a kingmaker. I've seen UFT Queens accomplish enormous tasks out of sheer determination, most notably placing Tony Avella in a seat the GOP had held for decades.

If UFT gets this one right, it will be a good thing. One strong sign of how good it will be is Howard Wolfson's inane 3-page screed against Thompson in the virulently anti-teacher Daily News. Bloomberg is completely wrong calling the UFT endorsement the kiss of death, and it's time to prove that.

Christine Quinn, despite her massive ego, is on a losing trajectory, and no one deserves to lose more than Ms. Quinn. Wiener is a preposterous figure propelled by name recognition for all the wrong reasons, and is our best bet to get us yet another GOP mayor in deep-blue New York City.

Mr. Thompson is not the best candidate. But he is more acceptable than the other candidates, his poll numbers are likely higher than they appear, and we need to stop fooling around and win one.

Bill Thompson represents our very best chance to do that. Will he fail to give us the pattern raise? If he does, he'd better think back to David Dinkins, who lost a second term when he failed to get the UFT endorsement again. If we win, a lot of politicians will be thinking that way, and the "powerful UFT" will become something more than an epithet for hateful tabloids.

Wolfson's Miraculous Feat

It's kind of hard to believe the level of nonsense that passes as information these days. Despite Mike Bloomberg's education programs having improved, conservatively, nothing, his paid propagandist Howard Wolfson has a piece in the Daily News insisting that Thompson can't be mayor, as he'd be a tool of the union. That's even more absurd than the union endorsement of Thompson.

For one thing, Thompson supports Mayor Bloomberg's unilateral decision to give virtually all city employees but teachers a raise. That alone gives me pause. You'd think that a Bloomberg employee would give the guy a little credit for trying to screw teachers, one of Mayor Mike's key priorities this endless decade. But no.

Now it's certainly noteworthy, as Wolfson points out, that more kids graduate nowadays. After all, when you close schools that don't post high graduation rates, you tend to motivate principals to post them by any means necessary. You can pressure teachers to pass kids who don't merit it, or even promote ridiculous credit recovery schemes. Of course, when college readiness rates linger around 25%, you have to wonder precisely how effective Mayor Bloomberg's magic has been. He did, of course, amazingly raise the city test scores, before we found out that the tests had actually been dumbed-down. Wolfson surely must have forgotten how much loyalty Bloomberg money had mustered, or how New Yorkers felt about that third term he bought.

I love that Wolfson brings up his mom, working somewhere in the South Bronx, then pushes charters. One wonders whether his mom would've managed a career in a charter. Teacher turnover tends to be pretty high, even higher than that of public schools. I suppose it's fine to subject kids to underqualified teachers who are just passing through. But that kind of negates the story about his hard-working mom. Would Wolfson want his mom to work with no job protection, to be subject to arbitrary and capricious dismissal, and to go five years without a raise? It would seem so.

Of course Wolfson mentions the raise in salaries, conveniently omitting the compromises and givebacks that entailed, and the fact that virtually all other city employees got an 8% bump between 2008-2010. He probably also forgot that no city employee is working under a current contract. I guess the notion of leaving things better for those who follow you is not important enough for Mayor Mike to worry about. 

Another great point he brings up is that of mayoral control. Wolfson loves the fact that the mayor has 8 of 13 votes in our fake school board, the PEP, and can fire whomever he wishes, whenever he likes, for any or no reason. After all, democracy is a messy thing, and giving a billionaire unlimited power to do whatever the hell he feels like to public schoolchildren certainly simplifies things.  And it's certainly indisputable that no one ever ran the Regents exams quite like Mike Bloomberg.

I suppose if you get paid to write propaganda, you can really only give one side, no matter how far you must stretch to do it. But why is Wolfson trashing Thompson, Meryl Tisch's BFF, simply because the UFT endorses him? After all, the UFT also endorsed mayoral control, twice, and the King Reformy John's junk science evaluation system, the Emperor's pride and joy?

Reality-based educator has an interesting theory, right here. Could he be tearing down Thompson so as to make it appear he isn't just another Bloomberg-endorsed hack? It makes as much sense as anything else I've heard.

Thompson Says No Raises for Teachers, to Near-Universal Acclaim of UFT Delegate Assembly

What happens when you publicly announce teachers don't deserve the raise all other city employees got between 2008-2010? Well, you get the UFT endorsement, of course. Now it's a little more complicated than that, of course. During the last mayoral run, it appeared that Thompson and the UFT were BFFs. In fact, sometimes I heard Thompson say things that could just as well have come out of the mouth of any UFT official.

But then, of course, came the moment the UFT declined to endorse him. This upset me, and I remember telling a UFT rep about it at my first chapter leader training. The rep confided to me that this was a practical decision, and that the UFT could only sway the public by 5%. All the polls said Thompson was way behind, so that did make some degree of sense.

At a later CL training, after Thompson had lost by precisely 5%, a more senior UFT official announced that we could only move the election by 3%, and that had Hitler been running we may have taken a principled stand. I was kind of surprised we would need Hitler before we asserted principle, but I'm just a lowly teacher, so what the hell do I know?

In between these trainings, Thompson, having been more or less stabbed in the back by UFT, said we couldn't afford to give teachers the raises everyone else had merited. This suggested to me a lack of conviction and character. When we like you, you love us. When circumstances change, you tell us to go screw ourselves. This is not precisely the sort of friend I want to have. While I disagree with my friends, we work things out and move ahead.

I've enthusiastically helped UFT when they supported straightforward pro-teacher candidates like Tony Avella and Grace Meng, and I'll continue to do so. But I question any candidate who thinks we don't need to make a living, and I also question any candidates who's BFFs with reformy Meryl Tisch.

UFT made a big show of releasing photos of discarded signs naming other candidates. But it's fairly obvious that when UFT leadership gets up and says we endorse candidate A, every Unity chapter leader who wants that free trip to genuflect to Bill Gates is going to vote for whomever. Perhaps we are to think it a coincidence that Thompson just happened to be in the building at that moment, or we're supposed to believe that all the other candidates were waiting there too.

Perhaps we're even supposed to believe there was substantive debate at the DA last night. But there was not. I don't know whether John Liu could win the nomination, but I know he's our friend, and I expect he'll remain our friend even after this decision. I'd be proud to devote my time toward helping him. Bill Thompson, not so much.

But who asked me? And who asked you? And who genuinely surveyed the vast majority of members, those who had not signed a loyalty oath compelling them to do whatever the hell UFT leadership saw fit?

Bill Thompson Is Unacceptable for Working Teachers

It's more than a little depressing to read that AFT President Randi Weingarten has seen fit to endorse Bill Thompson for NYC Mayor. First of all, she's got enormous sway over the UFT. It's possible that UFT could go its own way, but I wouldn't bank on it. More to the point, we've got history with Thompson, and it's not good at all.

It's certainly true that UFT worked closely with Thompson before billionaire Bloomberg decided to buy that third term. In fact, I recall his saying things that could just as easily have come out of Weingarten's mouth. But Thompson must surely have been disappointed when, after all that happy camping, the UFT declined to endorse a candidate against Emperor Mike.

I recall being at a chapter leader training where I complained about that. A UFT rep told me that we could only sway the electorate about five points, and that Bloomberg was so far ahead this would have been futile. At another training session, after Bloomberg won by five points, a more senior UFT rep announced to a room full of chapter leaders that we could only have swayed the electorate about three points, and that this would have been futile. He added, however, that had Hitler been running, the UFT would have taken a principled stand against him.

This was a little bit shocking to me. I did not feel any compunction to wait for Hitler to run before taking a principled stand. It was obvious to me then, and even more obvious now, that Reformy Mike's cherished goal is to break our union and privatize education. In fact, my principled stand has an even lower standard. Mayoral control is, as Mulgrew says, mayoral dictatorship. That in itself merits our principled opposition. Teachers being judged on junk science VAM merits principled opposition. It's supremely disappointing that UFT has supported both.

My buddy Reality-based Educator has mentioned that, with Common Core and junk science issuing us an untested and unscientific double whammy, the system may collapse under the weight of its own disorganization and chaos. While I hope he's right, I'm not persuaded. Bill Gates hasn't spent all those millions just to be proven a failure yet again, and the tabloid editorials will love this stuff no matter how badly it turns out.

Back to principled opposition, once the UFT left Thompson standing in the rain all by himself, he proved himself a fair-weather friend indeed. I don't speak for Weingarten, but I haven't forgotten that Thompson publicly supported Bloomberg's decision to unilaterally deny teachers the 8% raise virtually all other city employees got between 2008-2010.

Like all of my UFT colleagues, I haven't had a raise in almost five years. That's just fine with Bill Thompson. While he may be paying lip service to us now that he needs our help, he's shown us precisely how shallow his convictions are. That's unacceptable.

Since I started teaching in 1984, we've been waiting out the mayor. This strategy has proven a huge loser. It's time we back someone who will really support us, and stop wasting our time with empty suits who sway with the wind. Remember, even if Bloomberg doesn't buy a fourth term, his money will be pushing that wind, and we certainly don't need a candidate as flexible and uncommitted as Bill Thompson.

Quest for a Union-Friendly Mayor

It's good to see UFT President Michael Mulgrew talking of mayoral dictatorship. Clearly, with 8 of 13 votes on the PEP, our fake school board, what Bloomberg wants, Bloomberg gets. Of course, this was apparent when mayoral control was established in 2002. At that time, the UFT supported it, perhaps even enabling it. As if that weren't enough, we supported it again in 2009.

Now we're contemplating throwing our support to a Democratic mayoral hopeful. That, in itself, is probably a good idea, but there are serious considerations. Number one, as UFT members showed, there is a lot of distrust for Christine Quinn, the apparent frontrunner. It's tough to forget she not only supported and enabled Mayor4Life's third term, but also grabbed one for herself. How yet another self-serving brazen opportunist mayor will benefit working people in NYC is a huge mystery to me.

Then there is Bill Thompson, who seems to have gained some traction with teachers. He worked closely with the UFT before the last mayoral election. However, after the UFT failed to endorse him against Mayor4Life, he supported Bloomberg's position that all city workers except educators should get raises in the 2008-2010 round of pattern bargaining. This suggests to me that his convictions do not run deep, and that he is easily swayed by circumstance. While I'd prefer him to Quinn, I don't think he merits our support.

That leaves us with John Liu and Bill DeBlasio. I'd love to see Liu get our support. However, the pragmatic nature of UFT leadership, as exemplified by our failure to endorse against Bloombucks in 09, suggests to me that won't happen. Liu is surrounded by scandal, and the Bloomberg-loving tabloids seem to delight in smearing him, though he's yet to be personally implicated in anything whatsoever. DeBlasio has been friendly with the union, and critical of slime like Eva Moskowitz, so he may be a good bet for us.

The UFT is right that this election is important. I also hope to see a time when we aren't waiting out the mayor, as we seem to have been doing for three decades. I only wonder why it's taken us so long to recognize mayoral dictatorship. Though I'm glad Mulgrew's jumped on the bandwagon, many of us recognized this years ago.

The Vision Thing

Another mayoral election has come and gone, and Mayor-for-life Bloomberg has once again prevailed, buying the election fair and square. Mayor Mike pulled a hundred million bucks out of his sizable pockets, blanketed the metropolitan area with vomit-inducing commercials and persuaded 5% more voters than Thompson did. To accomplish that, he spent 14 times as much as Thompson.

In my discussions with UFT reps, they explained it was prudent to withhold an endorsement. Why? First of all, a Thompson endorsement would mean an immediate halt to contract negotiations. The incredible corruption evident in that assertion, in my view, ought to have been enough to pull out all the stops against this character. More importantly, depending on whom you asked, the UFT endorsement would only be able to turn 3 to 5% of the voters. Well, if you buy that, we'd have won.

Now if you're one of the folks who'd made the awful decision to sit this one out, and you're reading this, you might say, "But NYC Educator, didn't Thompson say publicly we couldn't afford to give UFT members the 4 and 4 in the pattern?" Now I admit that's a good point. Why would anyone vote for a mayor who'd deny us a relatively decent pattern, after so many mayors held us to crap ones?

I'd have to respond, "True, but he only said that after the UFT publicly declined to endorse him. He'd never have made that statement if we'd done the right thing."

For a beleaguered union, timidity is not an option. We just learned that the hard way.

Yet another time.

Between a Bloomberg and a Thompson

Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson just publicly announced that teachers shouldn't get the pattern raise other unions got. Why the hell shouldn't he say that? After all, the UFT, in its convoluted dance with Bloomberg, has declined to endorse our buddy Bill. Thompson had been supportive of UFT goals, and UFT's leadership left him swinging in the wind.

DC37 endorsed Thompson, and Mayor-for-life Bloomberg retaliated by firing 500 DC37 members. The UFT says if it were to endorse Thompson, contract talks would cease.

It's remarkable that our union leaders can speak openly of such blatant corruption and not call it for what it is. Who is this man, who will not even negotiate with teachers if they dare to support his opponent? Who is this man, who rattles on about jobs and endeavors to leave 500 low-paid working people jobless in the worst economic downturn in my living memory?

The UFT took zeroes during the dot-com boom, based on a fraudulent election that sent DC37's leaders to the hoosegow. Personally, I don't care who's mayor come contract time. For 25 years, I've watched the city impose the pattern on us, and in 2005, it got away with murder, extracting a mountain of givebacks for a compensation increase that didn't even meet cost of living.

The city can't find the money?

Let them sell Manhattan Island.

News Flash--Bill Thompson Wakes Up

After months of campaigning, NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson has woken up and realized that in order to run against an incumbent billionaire "education" mayor, it's prudent to disagree with that mayor's educational positions. As comptroller, Mr. Thompson has discovered that the DoE manipulates test scores.

Naturally, I'm shocked and stunned. Not that the DoE manipulates test scores--but that Mr. Thompson has finally said so in public. There seems to be a tradition of prominent public figures ignoring the antics of this administration. That's why folks like Mr. Thompson, Shelly Silver, and part-time UFT President Randi Weingarten have so prominently supported the mayoral control that enabled such nonsense in the first place.

Mr. Thompson has also concluded that Chancellor Joel Klein has gotta go. This determination, apparently, eluded him over the last eight years. Now don't get me wrong--I'm glad Mr. Thompson has come to his senses. I wonder, though, why he's been so ginger about these things for so long.

It could certainly have much to do with the fact that he's been the darling of Ms. Weingarten's UFT over the last year. Of course, Ms. Weingarten had been laboring under the misconception that this was Mayor Bloomberg's final term. One of the assumptions the UFT has been making since I started 25 years ago is that the next mayor would be friendly to teachers--but it's always proven absolutely wrong. Ms. Weingarten and the UFT aristocracy doggedly refuse to acknowledge this or learn from decades of history.

I can't say how closely Bill Thompson has studied the history of this union, but I've been watching them very closely for the last few years. I'll make a prediction. Ms. Weingarten and her merry band, despite Thompson's willingness to go out of his way to speak up for them, will abandon him utterly come November. This is likely part of the contract Ms. Weingarten has already negotiated, in exchange for her support of the disaster that is mayoral control. I hope he knows that.

If he can't figure that out, he doesn't stand a chance.