Unity Slugs Attack Julie Cavanagh as Candidate After She Misses DA Due to Sick Child

There is no little irony in these Unity Caucus attacks on parents of young children as somehow not being qualified to serve in high union positions.

I have to say I am disgusted by the petty and personal attacks against a young mother on this forum ---There are few as poised and articulate as Julie Cavanagh. It's pretty hard to get pro-teacher pieces published in the Daily News. Julie's done that. It's pretty hard to be brilliant and articulate enough to narrate a film. Julie's done that too. I've met Julie, and I knew right away how smart she was. I'm very sorry some small-minded individuals have decided to target her. --- Arthur Goldstein on ICE blog.


... she's running for the grueling, time consuming position of UFT president. That's pretty much being on call 24-7. Maybe she shouldn't be pursuing this right now. Seriously, I hope everything is ok with her baby, but, how often does that happen? And, would it be a valid excuse to blow off the mayor with?----- Unity Hack comments on ICE blog.

Get rid of it --- Bloomberg to pregnant employees.

Arthur is responding to some of the comments Unity slugs are leaving on the ICE blog so typical of the attacks made on women for eons.

Given such major stories as new Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer with a young child less than 3 months younger than Jack (On the same day "Yahoo!" announced her hiring - Mayer revealed that she was pregnant. Mayer gave birth to a baby boy on September 30, 2012) ----

-----these Unity hacks are beyond boundaries when it comes to defending their perks and positions from the MORE threat. (Note the silence of the New Action lambs -- and one day I'll get into the male dominance thing in New Action.)

Of course the Unity hack then engaged in a personal attack on Arthur:
Arthur, stop being a wordy blowhard.

Arthur responded: Frankly, your inability to engage in civil discussion suggests you are not a teacher remotely like me.

Then a hack asked: Has MORE's candidate, Brian Jones, been attending the DAs?

Brian is not a delegate or chapter leader and is on child care and study leave.

That's 2 Unity attacks on MORE candidates who are parents of young children. By the way, these are the same 2 candidates who narrated the movie that has gone around the world with a defense of teacher unions that Unity has not come close to.

There is no little irony in these Unity Caucus attacks on parents of young children as somehow not being qualified to serve in high union positions. I have a number of reports of teachers returning from child care leave to find a new principal immediately attacking them while the UFT dithers and covers up for the principals --- you know with a young child you can't serve in the brave new world of 24-7 teaching the ed deformers have imposed with the assistance of the UFT. (Yes, ed deform is anti woman and mothers.)

Remember Bloomberg's attacks on women working for him who became pregnant ("get rid of it") and the subsequent law suits? One should be shocked that in today's world we would hear people saying these things, triggered by Julie's not attending the recent Delegate Assembly due to her child running a high fever. (The fever has come down).

Here is Arthur's full statement with a great defense:

I have to say I am disgusted by the petty and personal attacks against a young mother on this forum. It's not all that hard to attend the DA. It's pretty hard to get pro-teacher pieces published in the Daily News. Julie's done that. It's pretty hard to be brilliant and articulate enough to narrate a film. Julie's done that too. I've met Julie, and I knew right away how smart she was. I'm very sorry some small-minded individuals have decided to target her. There are many chapter leaders who can go to the DA and cheer as we partner up with Bill Gates and set up teachers to be vilified in the pages of the NY Post. There are many who can rationalize things like mayoral control or the unconscionable fashion in which we treat ATR teachers. Personally, I'd prefer they stop attending the DA altogether and wake up to precisely what this new junk science evaluation system will mean for working teachers. There are few as poised and articulate as Julie Cavanagh. There are some things that can't be learned, that can't be taught, and innate brilliance is one of them. I'm not seeing much of that here. Shame on all of you anonymous cowards who attack her.  

Shame indeed!

Julie missed her advertized appearance at Karen Lewis' speech at NYCORE last week too and MOREs rose to cover for her and at no point did I hear anyone say, "Maybe we should not have chosen her for our presidential candidate."

But maybe that is one of the many differences between Unity and NYCORE.

Jeff A responded to Unity questions on Julie's qualifications:

1. Will someone make or second a motion to have the Delegate Assembly attendance rate of all chapter leaders and delegates freely available to all the members?

2. Why is it important to register at the Labor Day Parade?

3. Amount of grievances filed is a reflection of what exactly? an inept administration, a lack of cooperation amongst the admin and uft, or genuine problems. Remember, being correct and being what the leadership thinks is winnable are two entirely different things.

4. Trained by the UFT means what exactly? It would be eye-opening to see what members thought of their “representation” at these hearings.

5. What does any of this have to do with being able to run a Union? Is this your litmus test?

If it means that much to you, “anonymous”, could you tell us Randi's record on those issues while she was actually a teacher?

Ah, yes, the same Unity slug supported Randi with her 6 months of teaching and never having been a chapter leader.

Well, there is a lot more to this debate on the ICE blog triggered by a couple of incidents. The challenge to Mulgrew to show the guts even Randi did who debated twice. And the issue of Gloria Brandman's voting against the UFT governance report but it being issued as being unanimous. James published Gloria's request to Carmen Alvarez and Emil Pietromonico to NOT hold the final meeting on elementary Open School Night which the refused to do. But we see attacks on Gloria at the DA and on the blogs and not on the UFT leadership for ignoring the elementary schools. But I'll tackle the UFT support for mayoral control separately (Oh, did New Action which claims to oppose mayoral control get up and say ANYTHING at the DA?)

One of the Unity hacks puts attendance at DAs as somehow indicative of qualifications, which prompted responses from ICE followers:

After going to many nonsensical, windy DAs and witnessing not very much happen, ever, I've taken to reading your sharp reports. It takes much less time than driving to Manhattan, and saves me over 20 bucks on parking each month. I want to thank you, James Eterno, from the bottom of my heart, for attending these things and giving such a clear picture of what happens, so that I don't have to.

And this

Unity Hacks!!!

Why should anyone go to the DA? I read these reports every month and it's basically the same nightmare over and over again:

Mulgrew talks and talks and talks and talks and talks saying how great he and UFT are. He must be in love with the sound of his voice or is repeating his subliminal messages learned during his sleep recorded messages.

After an hour of listening to his nonsense, then we are treated to Leroy Barr announcing the dates for the next time we can hear Mulgrew preach to his faithful how great he is.

After Barr, the Unity Gang all raise their cards so they can tell Mulgrew how great he is prior to asking their embarrassingly ignorant questions. This resembles more of a CULT than a Union Meeting.

Then there is a new motion period. At this time some delegate from some weird left wing organization raises a motion to support Fidel Castro or Raul Castro. Then, the Unity Gang, once again raises their cards to say how our union leadership is not fooled by the radicals within or ranks.

People in the schools would not believe what goes on. After this, the regular motions follow and they are usually things like supporting daylight savings. You have to respect the people who can sit through this farce every month and sustain the ability to not commit suicide.

Going after Julie and anyone else that does not attend the CULT like meetings shows that some of the Unity Flatterers here are in need of skilled professionals that may successfully reverse brain washing. 

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And I'll close with this red-baiting comment from the Unity slug:

Bizarre. Simply bizarre that someone from MORE would compare their own union's delegate assembly to a cult. Then again you have some MORE people running for UFT leadership who proudly proclaim that they're communist. Weird lot of you. With a bizarre take on the world.-- Unity Caucus Slug on ICE blog

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So after the Unity Caucus slugs turned down a resolution at the UFT delegate assembly calling for a debate between the only 2 presidential candidates - yes Virginia, Mulgrew heads both the New Action and Unity slates -- and don't think Unity hasn't been using its people to make sure New Action election materials are showing up in as many schools as possible to sow confusion in the ranks --- the slugs started showing up on the ICE blog attacking Julie, who was home with a sick child, for not attending the DA. And red-baiting McCarthyism too. But we don't expect anything less from them.