Is the MORE Caucus About to Defraud Members of the UFT?

Imagine if you will that the MORE Caucus (Movement of Rank and File Educators) has a baseball team. The team is down by a run, bottom of the ninth, no out, and a runner on third. The opposing team is so inept they are not even playing the infield in. A fly ball, a safety squeeze, a ground ball to the right side of the infield, almost anything will get that run home to tie the game. Heck, a dinger will win it. What would the MORE Caucus do?

In all probability refuse to send the next batter, or any batters up. This will necessitate a forfeit and the MORE Caucus will lose the game. Clutching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Crack Team was sent what appears to be the MORE's 2019 UFT election strategy. Not only does it follow the above scenario but worse. It is perpetrating a serious fraud among the rank and file. Read (click on image to enlarge)...

Some highlights of the fraud...

We did not want to exhaust ourselves in an election campaign to eke out as many votes as possible for the dubious goal of winning some seats on the UFT Executive Board. Instead, we want to organize, reach out and expand the caucus.

Why run then? Why give people false hope that the MORE Caucus finally gives a damn about the rank and file when all the MORE Caucus wishes to do is toe expand the brand? This can be done without giving the rank and file false hope. Want to expand the brand. Sit the election out and in the meantime expand the brand. Again, this is nothing other than the MORE Caucus putting themselves over others. 

If we agree at our next meeting that trying to capture the high school seats on the Executive Board should not be our priority, that frees us to run in a variety of different ways and to better use of the campaign to further the kinds of organizing we all want to do. First, it could make petitioning easier. 

So if it is not a priority to win HS exec seats why run? Why waste time of so many. Why waste the time and energy of those who sign the petitions? Why waste the money of those who give? Wait a minute. Will the MORE Caucus share with those that give money their real intentions? If not, is that not fraud? 

In 2016 we ran a joint slate with 300 candidates, including candidates for all 100 seats on the Executive Board. That meant we had to get petitions filled out for 300 people, many of whom were unwilling to help with petitioning themselves. 

Yeah, you know who put in the grunt work? Thanks to the trade unionists those petitions were filled out. Guess those who were unwilling for to busy supporting something tpotally irrelevant to the rank and file of the DOE or shopping for artisanal mayo in Brooklyn.

However, if we are not targeting particular seats, we could choose to run a much smaller slate (maybe 45-50) candidates for the officer and “at-large” seats on the executive board. Any UFT member can sign those petitions or run for those spots so it is much easier to get that petitioning done.

There you go. Yeah, go for the at large seats in which there is ZERO CHANCE of winning. God forbid if one has to take time from an ISO activity to do something for teachers. 

Second, once the petitioning is over, if our goal isn’t to win particular seats, we can campaign however we want.

Face palm. Why does this remind me of tee ball when my son was 4 1/2 and everyone got a trophy or the Wall of Gaylord? 

What we won’t have to do is figure out how to blanket every high school in the city with leaflets. That is the part that is exhausting and spreads us very thin.

Or find someone (a trade unionist) to stay in the South Bronx late and blanket practically every school in District 7.

Yes, there will be menial labor involved. Petitioning involves some tedious record-keeping and planning. 

Menial? Hard work? Isn't that the opposite of what we try to teach our offspring? That no work is menial. That we grow from tedium. 

Ya know, it is about sales. Selling yourself and selling what you believe in. Look like the MORE Caucus can't do neither. 

But frankly, I think we’ll be better off for the future if a few members from the younger generation get trained in how to do it. And somebody will have to represent us on the UFT election committee. But, usually, that isn’t much work.

Seriously, I can go down to the chimp house at the Bronx Zoo and train the chimps in about 5 minutes. The work is not hard, it is the dedication. And yes, it is difficult to be dedicated to something when you have lived a life of white privilege, gone to the best private high schools, gone to top notch universities and mummsy and dada, as well as Jeeves are shelling out for your apartment in Brooklyn. 


How can anyone trust the MORE Caucus now? How can anyone see any leadership qualities? The MORE Caucus is about to pull off the biggest con on the members of the UFT ever.