<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=3>I don't know what goes into UAW decisions about specific targets for
<BR>organizing. Maybe Justin is right, and they should be organizing major Honda
<BR>or Toyota plants; maybe what Doug reports third or fourth hand is also
<BR>correct. Then again, maybe the long-distance observations are missing some
<BR>key questions. We are operating on a rather limited knowledge base with
<BR>respect to the selection of and activity in specific organizing targets, much
<BR>more limited than we are with respect to the set of issues that go into
<BR>general organizing strategy, unless someone has a direct 'in' to Solidarity
<BR>House they are not owning up to.
<BR>
<BR>I know this from my own experience in the UFT. Since the introduction of
<BR>charter schools into NYC a year and a half ago, the UFT has faced organizing
<BR>challenges in public schools for the first time in 40 years. We are actually
<BR>organizing in two charter schools right now, but the specific schools are not
<BR>public at this time, as a matter of organizing strategy. It is a mistake to
<BR>assume that what is publicly known is the whole universe of what is going on.
<BR>And the choice is not as simple as looking for the charter school with the
<BR>most discontent among teaches. If a start-up charter school is especially
<BR>poorly organized, just tottering on the edge of collapse, it might be very
<BR>easily organized, and then proceed to close, with the union becoming a
<BR>convenient scapegoat for the closure. If such a school is destined to fail,
<BR>you want it to fail on its own. In other words, there is a larger political
<BR>context and there should be a larger political strategy for organizing
<BR>decisions.
<BR>
<BR>Leo Casey
<BR>United Federation of Teachers
<BR>260 Park Avenue South
<BR>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
<BR>
<BR>Power concedes nothing without a demand.
<BR>It never has, and it never will.
<BR>If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
<BR>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
<BR>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
<BR>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
<BR><P ALIGN=CENTER>-- Frederick Douglass --</P></FONT></HTML>