Joe Williams' DFER Propaganda Laugh Riot, Lauding E4E, Ignoring MORE Support

...new organizations like Educators for Excellence are increasingly giving voice to teachers who have a totally different framework for social justice...... 18% of active teachers who actually voted, one out of five of those teachers voted for someone other than Mulgrew to be president... Joe Williams, DFER, in DN.

Message to Joe Williams: Those one in five voted for MORE whose members mock and despise E4E as your astro-turf creation. In case you missed it E4E didn't have the chops to put itself out there in the UFT elections even with their millions of dollars to run a campaign. They would have been exposed as the joke they are. In fact they barely have a presence left here in NYC with their events dwindling to nothing. Hey Joe, I have an idea. Why doesn't DFER sponsor a debate between MORE and E4E and watch them run for the hills. Or rather they have already run for the hills -- the Beverly Hills.

Perdido Street School made this cogent point:

Many of us in the UFT rank and file despise the UFT leadership because they cave to much to the DFER/hedge fund/Bloomberg/Gates/Obama agenda, not because they don't cave enough to it.

DFER propaganda-meister Joe Williams mocks UFT President Michael Mulgrew 

Now Williams does have a few interesting things to say.

Once upon a time, city teachers were united in a social justice battle for better pay, benefits and working conditions. They fought hard and they fought together, because the benefits of doing so were obvious.

The internal dynamics of the UFT expose the stark disconnect.
Inside the union, the old guard is still holding on strong – and that has become a nightmare for Mulgrew. The men and women who made the UFT, now retired, still serve as the most active voting bloc within the union. (Retirees are allowed to vote in UFT elections.) The problem is: Most of them left NYC long ago, for warmer environs down south and a lower cost of living.
In union elections this spring, for example, only 18% of the city’s teaching force cared enough about what the UFT was doing that they even bothered to vote. (And of the 18% of active teachers who actually voted, one out of five of those teachers voted for someone other than Mulgrew to be president.)

It has gotten so bad that the UFT is considering launching an internal task force to find out why the overwhelming majority of active classroom teachers are disconnected from the union.

Yes, that internal task force, which MORE is/will be invited to take part in. Which I adamantly oppose -- I am in the minority. Here's what will happen. They will be sworn to secrecy so our own reps can't come back and report to us. The TF will be dominated by Unity -- and New Action -- all caucuses, even phony bogus ones like NA are supposed to be part of this. And I can predict what they will come up with. 

And the lack of a democratic union where nothing much can be at stake given the way the elections are structured will NOT be part of the discussions. They will recommend more outreach/advertizing etc. 

Frankly, if I am still around I will argue for MORE to boycott the election farce next time in 2016 -- campaign yes, but against the way elections are run -- and the resulting campaign will actually have a bigger impact. I will lose that argument inside MORE and if the numbers don't change much - oh, maybe MORE wins the 7 high school exec board seats and MORE will be where New Action was in the 90s. Ho hum.