UFT retirees at the twilight of Shankerism
Hakan Yilmaz explains the significance of the recent defeat of the United Federation of Teachers’ Unity Caucus in the wake of its decades-long hegemony. by Hakan Yilmaz/Tempest/July 1, 2024 Anew turning point is emerging in U.S. labor politics as the Unity Caucus, which governed the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) since its first election in 1962, has experienced its first major defeat. The union’s retiree chapter, made up of around 70,000 members, elected Unity’s opponent, Retiree Advocate <https://www.retireeadvocate.org/> , as its chapter leaders. Unlike other teacher unions, retirees play an exceptional role inside the UFT. Even as schools have deteriorated under neoliberal education reforms supported by Unity leaders, the caucus’s dominance in the retiree chapter sustained its long lasting hegemony. In the union’s 2022 <https://jd2718.org/2022/05/14/analyzing-uft-election-results-my-data/> leadership elections, Unity won 71 percent of the retiree vote. In contrast, in this year’s retiree chapter elections Retiree Advocate won 63 percent against Unity’s 37. This drastic shift was driven by UFT president Michael Mulgrew’s attempts to cut healthcare for retirees by shifting to a Medicare Advantage privatization scheme. The retirees’ abandonment of Unity took place alongside a growing movement of paraprofessionals <https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2024/06/massive-fix-para-slate-victory-is-unity.html> fighting for a living wage. The Fix Para Pay <https://www.fixparapay.org/> slate won their election with an even bigger margin than the retirees. These developments indicate a potential for ending Unity’s reign in next year’s union officer elections. A change of leadership inside the UFT could lead to major shifts in its affiliates as the UFT remains the largest local inside the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Unity’s legacy The UFT’s impregnable system of caucus-based domination was built by Albert Shanker after he took over the union in 1964. Through Unity, Shanker shaped the UFT in his own image and moved on to remake the AFT through a series of <http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED419805.pdf> bureaucratic moves, <https://jacobin.com/2018/09/ocean-hill-brownsville-strike-united-federation-teachers-new-york-community-control> militant business unionism, and allying with neoconservatives <https://newpol.org/review/albert-shanker-ruthless-neo-con/> . The caucus and the national network that emerged from it remained the core element of Shanker’s dominance within the AFT. While Shanker died in 1997, his legacy survived through the policies of his handpicked successors, Sandra Feldman and Randi Weingarten, both of whom continued to enable neoliberal school reforms that hurt public schools and teachers. Full at: UFT retirees at the twilight of Shankerism - Tempest (tempestmag.org) <https://tempestmag.org/2024/07/uft-retirees-at-the-twilight-of-shankerism/> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#31002): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/31002 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/107042607/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
