Sunday, September 19, 2010

Assembly Notes 9/15/10

Attendance: 55 - 65

This was the first Assembly of the school year. It took a while for people to show up but eventually the Assembly had an ok turnout. In general, I recognized most people there but there were a handful of new faces. Not a horrible first start, but also not an auspicious opening since the first meeting of the year is often more well attended than later in the year.

The Agenda tells everything about what UESF is all about right now...elections, elections, elections. There was a special order of business on elections and 7 of the 10 resolutions put forward by UESF involved election initiatives.

The meeting actually opened with a report on the new certificated member evaluation form put together by SFUSD and UESF. It's a very standards based evaluation form. It's sort of complicated, but it looks like a clearer form. If you don't know about it ask your principal to show you the DRAFT form and take a look at it.

After that, COPE director gave a speech on supporting Jerry Brown, Barbara Boxer, supporting Prop. 24 and 25, opposing Prop. B and UESF's 3 candidates for Board of Education. Then, the meeting took on a more organizing role as people were directed to 6 different staff members to get all the literature, to get a sheet where we do a voter questionnaire (and pitch) to each member at our respective sites and to sign up for two potential days of phone banking.

In many ways, what UESF did here is exactly what I think they need to do in general. Use the Assembly as an organizing center for our union. Problems....there was no time allowed for discussion of the relative merits of the various candidates. UESF endorsed and that's a done deal. It will also be a shame if UESF stops the organizing at the Assembly after the elections. There was more fire for action from our leadership this month than during our contract last year where it was very much 'wait and see'. There is little doubt Prop. B must be opposed and Prop. 24 and 25 must be supported. Kim Shree Maufus has been a fairly staunch union supporter and a supporter of progressive causes. Outside of that...questions arise (at least for me).

There was a resolution to support the Oct. 2nd mobilization to Washington DC calling on Washington to support a public works programs that will provide jobs during the recession. Great!

Next, were a series of resolutions on various election issues:

On opposition to a change in Health Service elections
Support of a Real Property Tax initiative - Tax on Office buildings and properties over $5million
Opposition to Prop. B -
Support of Election day registration
Support of Non-citizen voting in School Board elections
Support of Proposition J and Opposition to Proposition K - support Hotel Tax (J) and oppose effort to stop tax increase (K).

All these initiatives are good ones. The only problem was that all had already been acted on by UESF so there was no point in voting on them. They were made 'moot'. It moved the agenda along, but again, there really needs to be a way of involving more of our members in this process. Tom E. raised as much in the meeting. At the same time, I am not sure how this can be done short of organizing an August Assembly.

Next was the debate on the Oct. 30,31 Budget Cuts conference which was year 2 for the people who had initiated organizing around March 4th last spring. UESF agreed to send two observers. EDU argued for making those 2 observers "delegates", for UESF to endorse the conference and to send $100 to the conference organizers to defray cost for the Conference. The overall aim of EDU's amendments were to have UESF play a more active role in supporting the budget cuts conference.

UESF leaders pretty quickly challenged the idea of sending delagate idea saying that the democratic process of the conference was not clear. Lita urged a 'friendly' amendment for 'representatives' but to have UESF play more than an observer role at the conference. Dennis said there was no such things a 'friendly' amendment. So the discussion continued about 'representative' vs. 'delegate'. Nevertheless, in the time alloted for discussion the lines of debate were clear. UESF was fairly hostile to the students and groups organizing this and were unwilling to endorse without any endorsement from the SF labor Council or any other union. EDU was arguing that UESF play a leadership role by endorsing and play a more disisive role in making links with forces outside of EDU..particularly students and college workers affected by budget cuts.

15 minutes ran out just as the debate started. EDU argued to extend debate. The room ultimately voted against (24 - 21). Then the voting commenced,

Sending "delegates' or 'representatives". Failed . 28 - 19

Endorsing the conference. Failed. 27 - 19

Sending $100. Passed. 28 - 21

Votes are rough because I did not write them down. Overall, this was short of what EDU wanted but it was good and somewhat puzzling to see the Assembly vote to send money but not endorse. Overall, the vote reflects the divisions between PLC supporters and EDU supporters in the ASSembly. Each group seems to be hardening in response to each other in the absence of new forces in the room. That is my sense at least.

Still it was good to have the discussion and to talk about UESF's relationship to activism both within and outside it's union.

Andy Libson

Next the resolution on "Waiting for Superman" came up and both Susan Soloman and Dennis Kelly took the opportunity to speak on the movie and UESF action around it for approx. 8-10 minutes before the signatories to the resolution were called on to motivate it. Dennis also talked about how AFT is encouraging locals to not "just be in opposition" to the film but to talk about good schools that work. I motivated the resolution adding three things to the critique of the film a) not a single teacher interviewed b) no explicit raising of issues of race and institutional racism c) total union-bashing and the film makers and supporters know it. I also noted that the original resolution called for picketing and was more "oppositional" in its tone. I made the argument that we should be oppositional to the film AND accept and analyze critiques of the public school system (as opposed to not being oppositional and then being defensive about the state of US public education). I should have been more explicit that it seems problematic to put up two resolutions (this one and the October 30/31 one) that have been completely gutted and not note that in the resolution itself. Lita and I talked about sending a note to the office to request something along the lines of "Resolution passed AS AMENDED by the Executive Board" or something along those lines.

I did not move to amend this resolution (as gutted by the EBoard) because we decided at the EDU meeting that we will organize our own protest of this film and build it on our own. I felt very glad of this decision when Dennis made a point of saying that, "WE took the lead on this and had a flier ready for it even before AFT did and sent ours off to AFT to look at." It is because of EDU that UESF did anything at all around this film (sound familiar) and they squandered the chance to really organize something at that.

As to the reports:
No word yet on when EdJobs money could be expected to rehire people and get rid of furlough days - but this is what is likely to happen. Superintendent Garcia is reported to be willing to talk about rescinding the 5 certificated and 40 classified layoffs that still stand and the MOU that we signed with the district means that the district has to use new money to pull back furlough days.

Adrienne Johnstone

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