Thursday, December 13, 2012

Delegate Assembly Denies Teachers A Say In Our Own Futures

It was just a short while ago that many of us believed that the new evaluation system would necessarily be part of a new contract agreement on which members would have the final say.

Fat chance.

Not only has Unity decided that they can make a side agreement with the DOE to push evaluations through, but last night at the delegate assembly they shot down a resolution by MORE that asked that members be allowed to vote on any plan absent a contract agreement.

Basically, Unity argued that the delegates know what the members want better than the members themselves. In the end, they prevailed because they own the DA. You can read the ugly details over at the MORE blog. There's also an excellent account over at the DOENuts blog, and a fine analysis of the carnage by Reality Based Educator.

RBE is right on when he says that Unity is afraid to let the members vote for fear that whatever deal they cut with the city will be voted down.

Ask your chapter leader and delegate how they voted. If they voted down MORE's resolution, demand to know why. A new evaluation system is a fundamental change to our rights and dramatically alters our contract. It should be subject to a vote.

This union should be a democratic body. If they won't let you vote on evaluations, then exercise the one vote they can't take away from you, and vote them the hell out of office in the upcoming elections.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is 100% insane. We are not getting sold out by Mulgrew, we are getting sold out by the DA! These people are regular teachers in the classroom if I am not mistaken. What the Hell is going on?

I noticed that... said...

I voted in favor of MORE. In fact, I saw New Action members vote in favor of MORE, too!