Thanks Big Labor!

Now New York administrators are trying to deep-six a program created a few years ago in the collective bargaining agreement with the United Federation of Teachers: the Absent Teacher Reserve.

What’s this?  A creation of bureaucrats, politicians and labor bosses, the ATR is comprised of teachers who literally have no classroom for one reason or another. Due to a labor contract stipulation, they can’t be fired or laid off, and continue to draw the same salaries as full-time teachers. They’re put into the ATR pool, where they may be assigned to work as substitutes, clerks, or perhaps to do nothing at all.

They’re clearly not needed, and collectively they make a great deal of money. How’s that for management of taxpayer dollars?

Joel Klein, the former chancellor of New York City schools, estimated the elimination of this program would save the city an incredible $100 million a year.

According to DNAinfo.com:

“Until recently, the city allowed ATR teachers to remain at a posting for a full school term, during which the school principal could decide whether to hire them. That changed with the weekly reassignments, which went into effect in October as part of a deal with the United Federation of Teachers to avert layoffs.

“The department says this is a fairer and more efficient way for the castoffs to find new jobs. The regular reshuffling gives them more opportunities to impress more potential bosses, officials say.”

This – once again – raises the all-important question: are schools designed to meet the developmental needs of children or the employment needs of adults?  These folks did not make the cut the first time around, for one reason or another. Yet the union insists on wasting precious resources on them, and shuffling them out for repeated auditions for jobs they are probably not qualified for.  Shouldn’t we be putting the best and brightest in front of our students?  Oh, silly me.  This is the public sector.

Is there any business in the private sector that operates like this?  The car companies used to have the Job Bank – a similar program for “displaced” workers – but that was done away with because it cost millions and was highly ineffective.

The ATR is no different.  We can’t expect school tax dollars to be put to the best possible use when politicians lack the intestinal fortitude to do away with ridiculous, ineffective programs like this.

LaborNotes reports:

“Unions and other sympathetic groups called out their members to defend the [Wall Street] occupation—rallying to a phenomenon that’s put wage cuts, layoffs, and foreclosures squarely in the national debate. …

“Red-shirted Communications Workers—many of them recently on strike against Verizon—graduate student members of the United Auto Workers, building services workers in their SEIU Local 32BJ purple T-shirts, and Transport Workers Local 100 members were among the unionists visible in the crowd.

“The victory came ‘because of our unity and strength,’ said James Taylor of 32BJ. He also thought [New York City Mayor] Bloomberg had made a political calculation: ‘Especially with the unions out here, they can’t claim it’s just a bunch of college kids.’”

Unions of every stripe have embraced the #Occupy movement with full-throated chants and jeers.  According to LaborNotes, unions deserve the credit.

“Kevin Doyle, vice-president of 32BJ, said 500 members of his union rallied at Wall Street and then marched to the occupation on Wednesday. The union represents 120,000 workers in eight states, and is facing tough contract fights—2,600 Philadelphia property service workers may strike as soon as Saturday night.

“’The occupy demonstrations have struck a nerve around the country,’ Doyle said. ‘We’re participating because there’s the same kind of issues, the concentration of wealth, the need to re-democratize society.’”

I’m not so sure average Americans would be happy with SEIU’s version of “democracy.”  By standing with Marxists, Communists and Anarchists, SEIU, the teachers unions and others are signalizing their version of “democracy” is more like totalitarianism.  That’s a very dangerous flirtation we’re allowing to happen in America.

Astro-turfing campaigns can generate big money, and ACORN’s lucrative protest-for-profit program is nothing new. As I note in my book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers, ACORN has acquired great expertise in manufacturing so-called grassroots protests.

Left-wing billionaires Herb and Marion Sandler, the founders of World Savings Bank, gave ACORN affiliates close to $11 million to manufacture mobs to protest their competition in subprime mortgage lending. The United Federation of Teachers paid ACORN $500,000 to create a spontaneous uprising against charter schools in Manhattan.

The SEIU-funded Working Families Party, a front group for ACORN, placed a want ad on Craigslist dated Sept. 26. The ad indicates that WFP was recruiting activists to carry out “direct action,” leftist argot for a variety of activities aimed at forcing sociopolitical change.

The line between direct action and violent terrorism can become blurry. Extreme forms of direct action can lead to bodily injury and sometimes death. The labor movement is no stranger to assault and killings. Left-wing activists David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin participated in an attack on an armored car that left two police officers and a security guard dead. Two anarchists tried to disrupt the 2008 GOP convention with Molotov cocktails. The eco-terrorist Sea Shepherd Conservation Society admits both to attacking whaling ships with acid and sinking them.

WFP’s ad is titled, “FIGHT TO HOLD WALLSTREET [sic] ACCOUNTABLE NOW! MAKE A DIFFERNENCE [sic] GET PAID!” It states:

The WFP is seeking immediate hires.

You must be an energetic communicator, with a passion for social and economic justice.

Only outgoing, articulate dedicated, determined candidates will be considered for the positions.

For those candidates that qualify WFP offers substantial paid-training provided by senior leadership, on varied issues such as: advocacy, public speaking, mobilizing, fundraising, networking and organizing. We invest in passionate people with excellent communication skills and a full benefits package is offered to those candidates that qualify. In addition, there is opportunity for advancement and travel to our satellite chapters and out of state affiliates.

This is not a policy job! Through direct action you will be shaping NY state politics for the next 20 years.” [emphasis added]

As previously reported, WFP has been involved in organizing the Occupy Wall Street protests since the beginning.

As radical journalist Laura Flanders reported, WFP organizer Nelini Stamp has “been here since day one and she is part of the organizing team and the outreach team that has managed to bridge the distance between that first day and this day and between the grassroots folks here and the labor movement.” Stamp said the protests are aimed at “trying to change the capitalist system” and bringing “revolutionary changes to the states.”

WFP organizer Matthew Cain also acknowledged the party’s involvement on Oct. 5th and helpfully provided a photograph of party staffers bearing a blue and white WFP banner during a march in lower Manhattan. Across from Foley Square,

several WFP field staff were standing on the steps. For some of the staffers, it was their first time at the square, but for many others they had already spent nights sleeping in the park. Even those who have been there for two weeks or more have not seen their spirits diminished – they’re every bit as committed as they were when they first showed up.

Of course WFP executive director Dan Cantor, a longtime ACORN operative, is pleased with Occupy Wall Street so far. Cantor told supporters in an email that “the spirit of Wisconsin and Tahrir Square is alive and well in New York City.”

Nowadays WFP goes to great lengths to try to convince onlookers that it is separate from ACORN, the disgraced Saul Alinsky-inspired activist group. The shell corporation that ran the 370-plus affiliate strong ACORN network filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last November, but its state chapters changed their names and continue to operate. The vote-manufacturing nonprofit Project Vote, which used to employ Barack Obama as an organizer, is still in business. So is ACORN Housing, which changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers for America.

But the Working Families Party is ACORN. The minor political party shares an office address with ACORN a mile away from the Brooklyn Bridge. Among the party’s co-founders are ACORN’s former national chief organizer, Bertha Lewis. Her former right-hand man, Democratic National Committee executive director Patrick Gaspard, formerly an SEIU 1199 official and Obama White House political director, also goes way back with the party.

WFP’s confusing, ACORN-like organizational structure has been known to frustrate even the most dedicated investigators, allowing the party to keep some distance from ACORN.

Through the party’s multiple arms, WFP enjoys the “benefits of a political party (legitimacy in voters’ minds, ballot line), a non-profit (tax-exemptions, uncapped donation limits and tax deductions) and a for-profit (no disclosure requirements, ability to collect fees backed by taxpayer-supported matching funds from candidates),” notes Edward-Isaac Dovere of New York’s City Hall News.

The party has sister WFP-branded parties in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Oregon, South Carolina, and Vermont. Like ACORN, WFP advocates more government spending, higher taxes, universal government-run healthcare, campaign finance restrictions, free universal higher education, rent control, same-sex marriage, an immigration amnesty for illegal aliens, and “greening” the economy by creating heavily subsidized union jobs in the energy sector.

Meanwhile, new front groups created by ACORN are also deeply involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement. They include New York Communities for Change, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Action United (Pennsylvania), Organize Now (Florida), and New England United for Justice (Massachusetts).

The protests, which have spread to several large U.S. cities, are part of what ACORN’s neo-communist founder Wade Rathke calls an “anti-banking jihad.” ACORN allies are also involved in the protests, which aim to destabilize the nation’s financial system. SEIU board member Stephen Lerner said he wants to “bring down the stock market” through a campaign of disruption. He said last week that SEIU plans to terrorize bank executives at their homes.

With paid professional assistance from ACORN, Lerner’s work has become that much easier.

(This article was originally published by Front Page Magazine.)

* * * * *

Americans need to know that ACORN is restructuring in time to help re-elect President Obama in 2012. Obama used to work for ACORN and represented the group in court as its lawyer. These radical leftists who use the brutal, in-your-face, pressure tactics of Saul Alinsky want to destroy America as we know it and will use any means to do it.

Buy my book Subversion Inc. at Amazon and in Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million bookstores. Visit the Subversion Inc. Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter.

In talking to several on the first day of their protest, their inspiration seemed to be a Marxist blend of  Communism and Anarchism, sprinkled with a tinge of comic-book (or Hollywood) flare from the character ‘V’ from ‘V for Vendetta.’ By Day Three, however, they made their demands more clear, calling for the seizure of workplaces and schools, as well as the ‘de-privatization of everything.’

Over the last two weeks, their numbers have dwindled to just a few hundred and there have been well over a hundred arrests. The protesters have been ordered to remove their Guy Fawkes masks and, for the most part, have set up a campground in downtown Manhattan, with take out food called in for them from around the nation.

While they’ve had visits from such Left-wing luminaries as Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Roseanne Barr, and Dr. Cornell West, they have not had as much coverage from the mainstream media nor have they had the support of the real jackboots in the fight for a Marxist revolution—today’s union bosses.

That is, they haven’t had union support until now.

On Thursday morning, via  GatewayPundit, the New York-based Transit Workers of America Local 100 reportedly voted to support the Wall St. protesters. Local 100 is the same union that represents many of New York’s train and bus lines and the union that disrupted New Yorkers’ holiday shopping season in 2005 by going out on strike for three days in late December.

According to the Village Voice:

We spoke to TWU Local 100’s spokesman Jim Gannon, who told us that the executive board voted unanimously last night at their regular monthly business meeting to support Occupy Wall Street. TWU Local 100 has 38,000 members, the vast majority of whom work in New York City transit. (TWU has 200,000 members in 22 states.) Gannon said, “A motion was brought up to endorse the protests’ goals; I don’t know why it took us so long to do it. Right now we’re going to be involved in a march and rally on the 5th of October. We’ll gather at City Hall at 4:30 and march to Zuccotti Park.”

In addition, a blog called Teamster Nation has been covering and supporting the Wall Street protesters since early on. [It is not believed, however, that Teamster Nation is the official blog for the Teamsters.]

By late Thursday afternoon, New York magazine was reporting that several unions, as well as the more professional of the Left-wing extremist groups have joined in #Solidarity with the protesters:

Next week, the site will welcome members of New York’s organized labor coalitions including the United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United, and Transport Workers Union Local 100, which voted unanimously last night to support the occupation. Other groups standing in solidarity include the Working Families party, the Coalition for the Homeless, and MoveOn.org.

While it’s not known whether the unions will be sending over protesters to actually occupy Wall Street or, rather, just to march with the protesters and sing L’internationale for a few hours.

• Note: Hopefully, if the unions do march with protesters, the unions can finally teach the protesters the proper ending to “The workers, united, will never be…” [hint: It is not 'defeated' and it rhymes with 'united.']

Regardless of the ultimate turn out, it does appear that the Masked Movement of Marxists is gathering some steam. Whether or not it becomes a Tahrir moment, as Al Gore would like to see, is debatable. However, as protesters are clearly upping the ante by enlisting the help of union bosses, it bears watching closely.

_______________

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

Cross-posted.

The ruling gives hope to many New York City families eager to see their children receive a quality education. The NAACP and the teacher unions so despise non-unionized charter schools that the groups were willing to see students remain trapped in ineffective schools for selfish political and financial reasons.

Thursday’s ruling corrects that injustice.

Education Action Group believes that all parents should have the right to choose where their children attend school. Each child deserves access to an effective educational experience that will prepare them for life.

The state Supreme Court has previously ruled that the New York Constitution requires that students receive a “sound, basic education.”  There is nothing that says that education must occur in a traditional government-run school.

That principle was indirectly affirmed again last night by the Manhattan Supreme Court judge’s ruling.

Since charter schools typically are not weighed down by burdensome union rules and regulations, they have much more autonomy and are free to be innovative. This allows an increased focus on student achievement and more opportunities for students.

Yesterday’s ruling gives New York City families good reason to view the upcoming school year with a renewed sense of hope.

Minority parents in New York have a message for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT): you are hurting our children.

In New York Monday, charter school parents staged another of several rallies to voice opposition to a lawsuit brought by the UFT and NAACP against the New York City Department of Education. If the organizations are successful with their suit, it would prevent enrollment or re-enrollment in 17 charter schools and stop the closure of 22 public schools.

The UFT and NAACP’s decision to sue has roiled inner city parents who depend on charter schools to ensure their children get a good education.

On Monday a slew of parents appeared before UFT headquarters to protest. Nearly a month earlier the NAACP felt their wrath when another estimated 3,000 people showed up at State Administrative Building in Harlem, carrying signs reading “NAACP don’t divide unite,” to protest the NAACP’s involvement.

“I am the product of the public school system that allows 70 percent or more of its black men to not graduate from high school,” said Candido Brown, a charter school teacher at May’s rally. “I could barely believe my ears when I found out that the NAACP was trying to shut down some of the most successful schools serving black and brown children in our city. NAACP, do not take away this awesome education from our children.”

Civil rights leaders understand that education is the key to escaping the cycle of poverty that’s prevalent in many inner-city neighborhoods. Kids trapped in poorly run, dangerous schools often don’t receive the instruction required to move on to  college or a decent job.

Those children need quality options like charter schools, or government vouchers to pay tuition at private schools, if they are going to have a chance to succeed. Most civil rights leaders understand that concept and want to help children seek quality education beyond their geographic school district boundaries.

So why isn’t the NAACP on board?

That organization has joined New York City’s United Federation of Teachers in filing a lawsuit that would prevent the closure of approximately two dozen failing schools, prevent several dozen charter schools from sharing space in public school buildings, and prevent the opening of at least two new charter schools.

In other words, the NAACP is suing to keep a lot of black kids trapped in really bad schools, with no options for escape.

It isn’t just white guys like me who are shocked by the group’s indifference to the plight of its New York City constituency.  The New York Daily News published a scathing op-ed co-written by the president of the United Negro College Fund.  Michael Lomax wrote in part:

“…But now, a lawsuit filed by the teachers union and the NAACP is threatening to stop progress in its tracks.

“Those organizations – especially the NAACP – ought to be ashamed for fighting to deprive kids and families of better educational options.

“Where education reform has worked, as it has in New York City as demonstrated by student achievement gains, it is because schools have been held accountable for educating children and families have been given choices.

“The lawsuit filed by the United Federation of Teachers and the NAACP would take troubling steps in the exact opposite direction. The suit seeks to block the city from shutting down about two dozen traditional schools whose students are not learning what they need to know to succeed at the next level – and prevent 19 public charter schools from sharing facilities with existing traditional schools. Were the plaintiffs to succeed, these schools would either be unable to enroll new children or could face closure.”

Many citizens have also taken exception with the NAACP’s position. An estimated 2,500 kids and parents recently protested outside the organization’s New York office.

We have to believe that the NAACP is buckling to traditional political alliances and financial considerations.

The organization and the nation’s teachers unions have worked closely for years within the Democratic Party.  And the unions have a financial stake in preserving failing schools and the jobs they provide to union teachers. Charter and private schools generally have non-union staffs, so they are a threat to the financial well-being of the education labor movement.

Perhaps NAACP officials feel a need to help their old friends in the teachers unions defend their traditional turf, even if that means blocking opportunities for disadvantaged children. Or perhaps the NAACP doesn’t want to risk losing the financial contributions it receives from the unions.

Teachers’ unions have given over $50,000 to the NAACP and its New York branch over the last year, according to financial reports filed by the unions, which can be found here, here and here.

Friday morning, the NAACP struck back by protesting outside the office of the Success Charter Network and its founder, former city councilwoman Eva Moskowitz.  She has engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the union and its apologists, trying to bring more charter schools to New York City neighborhoods with the worst schools.

The NAACP’s true colors are showing.  Instead of “advancing” people, as the group’s name suggests, it’s supporting an education system that is failing students and turning them to lives of crime, dependence and poverty.  The NAACP is doing its constituency a disservice by carrying the water for the United Federation of Teachers.