catalyst-chicago.org

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

I was very disappointed to learn on the CTU website that Marilyn was pulling out of the debate. There are two reasons why an incumbent refuses to debate--either because they think they've already won and don't want to risk saying something that could hurt them or because they have a horrible record and they know they can't really defend it.

Whether Marilyn believes she is already assured victory or not, this is a real disservice to the members of the union who deserve every chance they can to listen to the candidates. Karen is a great speaker and she's worth coming out to PUSH to hear speak on her own, but surely Marilyn should have a chance to defend her record. Most UPC surrogates on the message boards and first class seem to be running on the platform of "Don't vote for CORE, they're democratic so Mayor Daley could join their caucus" and "Don't vote for CORE. They have some non-member retired teachers in their ranks." I really think the members of the CTU deserve better.

If Marilyn is simply afraid of her own limitations as a public speaker, we've been making allowances for them for a long time and we will continue to do so. If she speaks from the heart, that's all we can really ask.

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

President Stewart's rejection of this debate is wholly representative of the real and important differences between UPC leadership and CORE:

The UPC shields Union members from information, participation, and discussion while CORE embraces and encourages transparency, activism, and debate.

To me this is the single most important distinction between the two groups and is why I, and darn near my entire school, will be voting for CORE.

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

Maybe Marilyn is taking a page from Daley. Why debate the challenger when you already have the job? Daley never debates, even with candidates he knows doesn't have a chance. Maybe that's Marilyn's thinking. Maybe she thinks someway, she pull this off and nothing was lost by NOT debating Karen. Besides debates never really have any major impact on how people will vote. Ask John Kerry. He obviously did better at the debates, but Bush was voted in, again. The only ones who would have a great interest in seeing the debate would have been CORE and UPC people and maybe a hand full of others. What matters the most is making sure people vote, and to vote wisely!.

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

Re: What matters the most is making sure people vote, and to vote wisely!

I think this is exactly why the debate was so important. It would have been the *only* debate open to the membership and viewable on television and the internet. I understand the political nature of declining to engage in a debate but how else will people learn about the candidates? Through pithy fliers filled with platitudes and campaign slogans? I would like to see the CTU By-Laws amended to *require* at least one public debate, and then another in the event of a run-off. While President Stewart may be served best by denying her members the opportunity to directly compare the two candidates head to head, the members themselves are not served by that decision whatsoever.

And, actually, I think debates are important. At the House of Delegates debate Karen Lewis of CORE earned tremendous support from independent delegates (most delegates are not affiliated with a caucus) based on her performance. Other candidates clearly lost votes based on their performance.

All of the candidates should strive to inform the membership as fully as possible. Unfortunately, the current leadership does not believe in it.

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

again? where is the public sympathy for these 700 people?? If Ford, or Wrigley, or the Board of Trade shut down a plant or office and displaced 700 employees it would be ALL over the news...and what will happen when 2500 more teachers get laid off...which is the threat?
Will anybody care? Again we are teachers, not perfect, but getting laid off is tough for anyone.

where is our Obama that the union voted endorsed? Where are the "union" democrats the union endorsed???

I just dont get it??

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

30,000 membership must move forward and onward. Leave the UPC shenanigans behind.

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

Stewart's pull-out from OpPush debate seems to be setting up a final week surprise, possibly announcing some "breakthrough" from her Board "negotiations" which she said she would not do with an intact contract.
Anyone have any educated guesses about what that announcement might be if it occurs?

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

700 teachers laid off at schools because of Renaissance 2010 privatization of public education. That's 400 more teachers than CPS publicized this past winter when the Board approved the closings, turnarounds, and phase-outs. And neither CPs nor the Union knew, or would admit, that more than twice as many as predicted would be fired. Is it just wishful thinking to expect CPS to be at least remotely accurate when it comes to firing teachers en masse? Is it just pie-in-the-sky dreaming to think the CTU should actually check these things out rather than take the Board's word for it?

It's amazing that CPS Human Resources also sent out pink slips to teachers that should not have received them. Their school, Marconi Elementary, was removed from the hit list months ago. Doesn't CPS update their records? Doesn't anyone at HR check this stuff before it gets sent out? Doesn't the Union keep track of it since the Board can't seem to get anything right (including more payroll problems)? This is yet another classic example of the embarrasing ineptitude of downtown administration and staff, both at CPS and at the CTU.

Remember, these layoffs are coming before some 4,000 workers are released at the end of the school year. If these CPS budgetary layoff predictions are as wildly inaccurate as the Ren2010 firings then we can expect to see upwards of 8,000 in-school teachers and staff fired in a few weeks. (And CPS is replacing many of these workers with teachers who are brand new to the profession rather than with experienced veterans they are already required to pay for next year.)

Try as I might I just can't bring myself to have any faith whatsoever in the Chicago Public Schools. My students? Sure. Parents? Sure. Colleagues? Sure. I have a fighting chance in whatever battles arise in my classroom and in my school and its community, but when it comes to the Board of Education there is simply no hope. Their incompetence knows no bounds.

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

All anyone has to do to understand why thousands of teachers and support staff have lost and will lose their jobs in Chicago is look at the video from August 31, 2007 union meeting where stewart declared the current contract passing in the house of delegates despite not taking a no vote. Remember stewart declared this the best contract ever.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/18/867497/-How-Not-to-Run-a-Union-M...

Then why are thousands of our brothers and sisters losing their jobs. There was no financial crises back in 2007 so her lies about a contract in bad times is just that a lie. What the contract did is set the stage for mass privatization and layoffs that we are now suffering.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/2355358,chicago-public-schools-hu...

Yes its was a good contract for daley as this video proves that stewart sold us out. She admits giving daley what he wanted and now we are paying the highest price for her sellout with our jobs.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/5/19/867755/-Union-Leader-Sells-o...

while thousands of teachers lose their jobs stewart reaps the rewards or her treachery.
Stewart getting $90,000 + for part-time IFT job
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=95&section=Article

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

What experience are you talking about?

- Pam M. gone(negotiated last contract) after stewart throws out all officers even poltrock

- Collen D. retiring(grievance coordinator)

- Three officers gone (dallas and porter off ticket, mcguire retiring)

- Two new officer candidates have no experience as elected officials. VanderMeulen nor Orr are elected delegates

- Who on the incumbent officer ticket has ever filed grievance as a school delegate? None. Stewart never filed a grievance as delegate

- AFT controls now controls CTU finances

- IFT now runs the lobbying for CTU

- CTU Leadership could not stop charter legislation

- CTU Leadership could not stop pension theft

- CTU Leadership sits on board to fire tenured teachers (Fresh Start)(w/out HoD vote or membership vote)

- CTU Leadership implements merit pay (TAP)(w/out HoD or membership vote)

- CTU officials turned in their own members to board for disciplinary actions

- No action has been taken to stop the illegal hiring of new teachers while laid off teachers are denied positions

- stewart hires strike breaker as lobbyist

- 700 layoffs June 4, 2010, more to come unless there is a "surprise" announcement

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

There is a letter being circulated as a last hour attempt to frighten the membership into voting for Marilyn. It's signed by
Katherine Donovan
District Supervisor
Area One
UPC Candidate for Elementary School Functional Vice President
The letter is too lengthy to post here.

If you get this letter just remember the following;

It's so sad that Marilyn cannot defend her record as a CTU President that's why she refused to attend the debate at PUSH.The only thing she can do is to try to smear her opponent circulating lies and half truths to scare people into voting for her.

Isn't it sad when you have done nothing to take care of the 30,000 members that entrusted their careers and lives to you? If you read the letter there is absolutely no concern about the welfare of the members. Goodbye Marilyn, face it, it's time to go home and enjoy your huge retirement check while your members loose everything. You fooled us once, you fooled us twice. The third time you're OUT!

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

Things are rough now, but we lost 6,000 union jobs Before the recession. What exactly did she do for the rights of reassigned teachers and what was done by reassigned teachers themselves against the wishes of UPC who later took credit for it? Feel free to consult the article inCatalyst's archives.

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

Is she kidding????? 8 Schools??? What about the 70 closed on her watch for the last 6 years? So she single-handedly saved 8??? What a crock. She never even went to a Board meeting until the CORE people started going. I like Marilyn - she has absolutely no shame! I think she really believes she did save those schools. But the other 70 - that was CORE's fault. Why didn't they save them???? That's right - she was busy tearing up the union. Ted Dallas? Remember him? You're still paying his salary as Vice-President.

Yeah any vote for Marilyn is just wasted. We don't need 3 more years of incompetence. How did that first election go for you? Boxes not picked up, whole schools votes uncounted. What's next???

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

MARILYN STEWART'S UPC LIES CONTINUE: UPC adds a dose of addled McCarthyism as it continues its Race To The Bottom in campaign slanders, lies, and fabrications

With only five days to go before the most important union election in recent Chicago memory, Marilyn Stewart's United Progressive Caucus (UPC) added another piece of nonsense to its Hall of Shame by trying to jump start a bit of McCarthyist hysteria against CORE and Stewart's opponent, King High School Chemistry teacher Karen Lewis. The latest broadside was a bit of McCarthyist rhetoric issued by Kathy Donovan, a UPC stalwart (and UPC candidate for elementary functional vice president) who was once featured in Substance defending special education programs (at a time when Marilyn Stewart wasn't) and know better.

Rather than rehash the UPC drivel, which will be circulated widely we're sure, the editors and staff of Substance consulted and decided that the UPC campaign constitutes what teachers know as a "learning moment" for Chicago teachers, students, and citizens. After all, once U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy was censured by the U.S. Senate and marginalized after his fulminations in the early 1950s, his name became synonymous with perverted slanders substituting for political discourse. It was only by the late 1990s and early 21st Century that the same kinds of stuff was tried again, only this time by Republicans under the name of "Swift Boating," usually orchestrated by Karl Rove and bankrolled by the unlimited number of dollars Republicans have had at their disposal.

Full disclosure: Having been blacklisted from teaching for eleven years now, I take McCarthyist stuff personally, as well as politically. So when the UPC took another turn down its low road in the current campaign, elevating blacklisting and BS to the level of standard pre-election fare, it was more than just political.

But without further ado, here are some of the narratives about the historical McCarthyism. This time, I think we'll call the 2010 versions in the Chicago Teachers Union not "Donovanism" but "Stewartism" — since all of the UPC's nonsense is authorized and approved by CTU President Marilyn Stewart.

"While the House Un-American Activities Committee had been formed in 1938 as an anti-Communist organ, McCarthy’s accusations heightened the political tensions of the times. Known as McCarthyism, the paranoid hunt for infiltrators was notoriously difficult on writers and entertainers, many of whom were labeled communist sympathizers and were unable to continue working. Some had their passports taken away, while others were jailed for refusing to give the names of other communists. The trials, which were well publicized, could often destroy a career with a single unsubstantiated accusation. Among those well-known artists accused of communist sympathies or called before the committee were Dashiell Hammett, Waldo Salt, Lillian Hellman, Lena Horne, Paul Robeson, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Chaplin and Group Theatre members Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan, and Stella Adler. In all, three hundred and twenty artists were blacklisted, and for many of them this meant the end of exceptional and promising careers.

During this time there were few in the press willing to stand up against McCarthy and the anti-Communist machine. Among those few were comedian Mort Sahl, and journalist Edward R. Murrow, whose strong criticisms of McCarthy are often cited as playing an important role in his eventual removal from power. By 1954, the fervor had died down and many actors and writers were able to return to work. Though relatively short, these proceedings remain one of the most shameful moments in modern U.S. history. (Arthur Miller, "McCarthyism", PBS, 2006).

In the News: Debate invite declined; pay cuts and layoffs

stewart was on personal business saturday nowhere near the union or cps, is that correct upc hacks you want me to say where she was at