The Crack Team came across a Politico article from 2019 outlining how DSA wishes to gain control of NYC labor unions. Much more interesting from the article is DSA's manifesto how to go about taking control of NYC labor unions.
DSA has already established a beachhead in having nominal control over the Retired Teacher's chapter of the UFT. The biggest voices and organizers are those from DSA as well as officers.
Basically, the Retired Teachers chapter was low hanging fruit for DSA to influence. In comparison to the rest of the UFT it is a smaller chapter with members who are basically homogenous in that they are, well, retired. Yes, they ousted the Tom Murphy, Mulgrew's sycophant, and put a fear into Unity. We here at SBSB are pleased this has happened. But how many voting retirees knew of the long clutches of DSA into and within their chapter?
Look at what has become of those congressional candidates and cities that have have ties to DSA. Cori Bush was primaried and lost. Man child Jamaal Bowman was primaried and lost. AOC, who I do respect, has grown into her role and was no endorsed by DSA. And this just in today. The DSA experiment failed in Portland OR.
But let's have a look at how DSA plans to control the UFT (Page 3 of the manifesto).
UFT / Teachers abr. Economic Leverage: The NYC DOE is one of the largest employers in the metro area. Education workers’ strikes have enormous ability to shut down regional/statewide economies, with great political impact.
Social/Political Leverage: Schools are community hubs in every neighborhood in the city. Education workers have the potential to build solidarity with students, their families, and broader working class communities.
Of course. Let's indoctrinate 4th graders.
Barriers to Entry: Teaching requires a master’s degree, as well as ongoing continuing education. There may be other financial challenges with alternative certification programs. Other job categories within the DOE have less onerous requirements.
DSA Member Density: There are many DSA teachers, and there is a large support network for new teachers and teacher activists. There are also DSA paraprofessionals, school secretaries, and other DOE job categories.
Working Conditions: Vary widely by school. It takes a long time to build strong relationships with coworkers and students. The work is extremely social and emotionally draining but can be fulfilling and an outlet for creativity. Teachers can get tenure (which offers meaningful job security) after 4 years.
Political Status: UFT is the largest local of one of the largest unions in the country. It has the potential to be extremely influential in electoral politics. It is extremely internally undemocratic (So is MORE...my words), but there is a reform caucus, MORE, which has many active DSA members.
Demographics: UFT membership is disproportionately White (more so than the city’s demographics, and the student population) and skews majority women. This varies by job category, and by type of school.
Disproportionally white? Like MORE?
DSA proposal....
UFT / Teachers Union to Focus On UFT Position (optional): Classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, secretaries, nurses, social workers/counselors, OT/PTs, etc. Which criteria does this proposal meet? Economic Leverage Social / Political Leverage Barriers to Entry DSA Member Density Working Conditions Union's Internal / External Political Status Demographics
Please cite and elaborate upon each criteria you selected for the proposed industry in the area below.
Economic Leverage: The UFT represents 75,000 classroom teachers, 19,000 paraprofessionals, and several thousand other critical categories of school support staff (including nurses, social workers, counselors, psychologists, and others). These numbers make the DOE one of the largest employers in the metro area, touching thousands, possibly millions of residents. Negotiations for citywide municipal contracts (covering all public sector workers) are generally led by the UFT and DC37 together, making our contract negotiations have an even wider reach. Beyond the raw numbers, as we have seen in Chicago, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, and elsewhere, when education workers flex our industrial power the effects are felt way beyond just the education system. School shutdowns have nearly unparalleled potential to impact the entire regional economy, and every workplace where parents rely on the school system to care for their children.
Social/Political Leverage: With public schools located in every borough, neighborhood, and district, education workers’ social and political leverage is also potentially enormous. Teachers and other education workers see everything students and their families go through, and we can highlight issues of homelessness, economic insecurity, racism, and inadequate healthcare and educational resources. Teachers and other education workers have access to communities beyond our worksites that can build solidarity across the working class. Despite years of attacks on public education, the recent wave of education worker strikes have benefited from overwhelming displays of community solidarity. When education workers organize and fight for the common good, the public is generally with us.
Barriers to Entry: There are very real challenges to be considered with regards to the process of becoming a teacher. It is expensive and time consuming to become a teacher. Teachers can be hired with a Bachelor’s Degree, but need to get their Master’s degree within a few years of being hired. There are alternate certification programs like Teaching Fellows, which many DSA members have and are taking advantage of. Graduate programs and certification tests cost money, but Gofundme’s for mentee teachers have been used, and could be something that we fundraise for if a large group wanted to organize around it. Unfortunately, transferring certification from out of state can cost hundreds of dollars, so while the the career can be one that travels with you, it does not do so seamlessly. Getting a Master’s while working is the path that most teachers take, and is an emotional, physical, financial strain for the first several years, since the first years of teaching are also a challenge. Teachers can gain tenure after 4-years working in the DOE. There are many different school experiences, some can be extremely difficult, but we hope that a community of supportive educators within DSA can start to help people get jobs at schools that are tolerable places to work, and help each other take on abusive administrators when we encounter them.
It should also be noted that there other routes to employment in the DOE besides classroom teaching. Paraprofessionals, occupational/physical therapists, school counselors and nurses, and school secretary jobs are other options, with different on-ramps. It is not unusual for people to begin in one of those job categories and eventually shift to classroom teaching.
DSA Member Density - Anecdotally speaking, education seems to be one of the sectors with the largest concentration of NYC DSA active union membership. The teachers’ working group meets regularly and has regular happy hours, and has already had some success encouraging and supporting DSA members in making the career switch into education. Even beyond active labor branch members, it seems possible that there could be over a hundred DSA teachers (numbers that would make our teacher membership larger than the most significant UFT reform caucus). There is a significant support network for new DSA teachers, with a large number of experienced rank and file activists and leaders in the organization.
Working Conditions: Working conditions can vary significantly from school to school, and depend on factors of student and staff composition, strength of the local UFT chapter, and many others. Across the board it takes a long time to become a good teacher and build strong relationships at schoolboth of which are critical to be effective as an organizer. The work is tiring, emotionally draining, but for many, extremely fulfilling. It is not uncommon in your first several years to work for several hours after school with lesson planning or other responsibilities. That said, teaching can offer a great deal of autonomy and creativity in lesson planning, and allows for deep relationship building with people from a wide range of communities in the city. Generally, teaching requires you to be on your feet for several hours at a time, and often moving about constantly to check on students. Some principals can be abusive and controlling supervisors, others are relatively benign. Some buildings have issues with heat, functional facilities, mold, and other issues of disrepair.
Union's Internal / External Political Status: The UFT is the largest local of one of the largest unions in the country, and is also one of the largest locals in NYC. Simply put, it is tremendously influential politically, but fails to exercise the full potential of its power. Its strategy rests on electing fairly centrist/conservative Democrats, and holding them to commitments on maintaining basic standards in treatment of educators. It is very internally undemocratic and top-down. There is a reform caucus, the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) that shows promise and has many DSA members that participate actively. With more DSA teachers, we could bolster and significantly support the internal movement for democracy and militant organizing within the union, but it will likely take years to reform the UFT, for new teachers to gain the experience and credibility that it will take to play a meaningful role in that work, and for the landscape to shift in such a way as to be amenable to the kind of militancy and worker democracy to which we aspire.
DemographicsEducation: is a complicated sector, demographically. The student population in the DOE is majority Black and Latinx. Recent surveys have shown that 1 in 10 students experience some form of homelessness throughout the school year. In terms of the staff, overall the composition is disproportionately women and disproportionately White, out of step with the student body. However this differs in sub-sectors and different job categories. Elementary, Pre-K and Middle School skew more heavily female, High School a little more male. Paraprofessionals and other support staff are more non-White than classroom teachers. Significant systemic issues have presented challenges for the retention of teachers of color, and this will likely be an ongoing focus of some education worker organizing. That said, the leadership of the UFT is more racially diverse than might be expected based on general trends within the membership. DSA members interested in working in education should think hard about how they will relate to and work with student populations that are predominantly non-White, and should also consider how they will work with teachers of color to address the issues facing teacher retention and recruitmentthose are critical areas of solidarity and need for the broader education system. It should be acknowledged that for many New Yorkers of color, schools are the first place where they encounter law enforcement and state violence through disciplinary action. This presents a major opportunity for racial justice solidarity organizing, but also should emphasize the incredible responsibility of being a teacher in a predominantly Black and Brown school district.
I am not editorializing, other than to say it's fantastical. I will let this manifesto speak for itself.
Oh one more thing. DSA must not be allowed to come even close to taking over the UFT.
