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> I was half-watching Chris Matthews at 5pm interviewing someone by this name > down at Zuccotti Park, who he identified as a "school teacher"--at least > that's the part I caught. The guy, late 40s to early 50s, gave a pretty canny > defense of the occupiers describing them as a social movement rather than a > political movement. By that he meant that they were not interested in > kowtowing to the Democrats nor the Republicans but were trying to transform > the system. The show repeats at 7pm and this time I paid closer attention to > the interview. It turns out that Mulgrew is the president of the UFT local in > NYC, the one that Albert Shanker used to run and that has been in the DP's > back pocket for centuries it seems. > > Something interesting is going on… The UFT has been working without a contract for two years now. Bloomberg unilaterally announced a two-year wage freeze and Mulgrew did nothing. The NYC school budget has been cut 17% over the last four years, resulting in larger class size (already the largest in NYS) and teacher excessing. Mulgrew sucks up to Cuomo and I'm sure the AFT will follow the NEA in endorsing Obama for re-election. At the 2010 AFT convention in Seattle -- which I was a delegate to -- the leadership (which includes Mulgrew, head of the largest local) invited Bill Gates to be their honorary speaker. The AFT Peace and Justice Caucus organized a walkout of about 80 people, pointing out that Gates had taken one anti-teacher stance after another and was no friend of ours. We were roundly booed by the majority of the delegates, because the leadership had told them we needed to be friendly to the billionaire. Since that time, Gates has proposed cutting most teacher salaries, while raising the pay of a few (merit pay). Mulgrew doesn't deserve to be in the same park as the OWS protestors. He's using them and will abandon OWS as soon as its convenient. Glenn P.S.: Mulgrew taught in a school for a year or two, and was handpicked by Randi Weingarten (who taught for less than that) to replace her. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
