Cowardice in the Face of Hate – or how someone made me miss Randi Weingarten

Randi Weingarten was a lousy UFT president. We never should have had a non-teacher as president. But that’s relatively minor. When she left, the union was far weaker than when she arrived. And that is huge.  Some of the details:  Under her tenure our big high schools were broken up, weakening the union, and making education WORSE for many students. And she didn’t just watch it happen, she participated.  Under her tenure, we had the 2005 contract, full of give-backs, rammed down our throats. The damage done in that “deal” lives with us today; seniority, innocent before being proven guilty, right to grieve… and the list goes on.

But there were positives. And one that stands out: on political endorsements we started considering where politicians stood on “human rights” (mostly revolved around gay and lesbian issues). We stopped supporting Dov Hikind and Serph Maltese and their ilk, just because they voted the right way on Political Action’s checklist. If they stood for hate, we wouldn’t stand with them. This was a battle. Previously the UFT supported incumbents mostly for being incumbents, checking a small number of votes, and not looking at their record beyond. That’s pretty lousy. But under Randi, we fixed that. Or I thought we did.

Fernando Cabrera peddles hate. I’m not going to say “homophobic” – let you decide. Maybe we should have known in 2009 when we endorsed him for City Council. Maybe we should have known in 2013 when we endorsed him for City Council. But in 2014, he announced it loud and clear. In Uganda.

Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSs8UQQgOVc

Here’s gay city councilpeople denouncing Cabrera: http://observer.com/2014/09/lgbt-council-members-lash-out-at-cabrera-over-uganda-comments/

I spoke at the UFT Exec Board on June 5, 2017, against the proposed endorsement of Cabrera for the 14th City Council District (west Bronx, roughly Kingsbridge down to Tremont). Paul Egan’s defense of Cabrera was weak, and came down to saying that we don’t endorse on a candidate’s personal beliefs, but on where they voted on the checklist. But members of the Exec Board, Unity members who usually vote lock step as their superiors tell them, remembered that we no longer use the checklist method of endorsement when “human rights” is at issue. Several abstained (silently). And one broke ranks and voted no, a rare act from a member of this top-down caucus. The endorsement of Cabrera must have passed about 45 – 7, far closer than they are used to.

At the Delegate Assembly Wednesday June 14 I raised the same objections (some smaller issues, but essentially, he does not share our values, and in the age of Trump he will be empowered to act on his hate). This time Mulgrew was chairing, and he did not call for a separate vote on Cabrera, instead voting simultaneously on a dozen races, mostly non-controversial. UFT practice is to call for a separate vote when there has been an objection. I tried to call a point of order, he called me out of order. Afterwards he said he realized he should have divided the vote.

Occam’s Razor. Which is more likely? The UFT president momentarily forgot a procedure that he has watched others carry out, and that he has carried out himself, many times? Or, having heard that Unity had trouble keeping its votes in the Exec Board, he was afraid to allow delegates to vote on Cabrera alone, fearing an embarrassingly close vote, or even an overturn of Political Action’s choice?

You can decide for yourself. Me, for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I miss Randi.