I know this from my own experience in the UFT. Since the introduction of charter schools into NYC a year and a half ago, the UFT has faced organizing challenges in public schools for the first time in 40 years. We are actually organizing in two charter schools right now, but the specific schools are not public at this time, as a matter of organizing strategy. It is a mistake to assume that what is publicly known is the whole universe of what is going on. And the choice is not as simple as looking for the charter school with the most discontent among teaches. If a start-up charter school is especially poorly organized, just tottering on the edge of collapse, it might be very easily organized, and then proceed to close, with the union becoming a convenient scapegoat for the closure. If such a school is destined to fail, you want it to fail on its own. In other words, there is a larger political context and there should be a larger political strategy for organizing decisions.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20010430/6ab9703b/attachment.htm>