Why I’m proud of my union leadership. Maybe next year.
As just one blogger who participated in yesterday’s blog action day, I thought it was a great success.
I stopped counting at 60 posts at www.edusolidarity.us
The posts ranged from poetic, to biographical, to polemical, to historical. Some short and to the point. Others long and single spaced.
Everything was good.
Thanks to the instigators: Ken Bernstein, Anthony Cody, Ed Darrell, Nancy Flanagan, Jonathan Halabi, Jamie Josephson, Stephen Lazar, Debbie Meier, Doug Noon, Kate Nowak, Sabrina Shupe and Jose Vilson.
It was good and powerful that these posts on why we support our unions was a grass roots, net roots effort.
We are not union bosses or PR flacks. We are the union.
On the rare moments that we are recognized, it is as union activists, not union leaders.
At the risk of being the skunk at the party, too often our union’s leaders have not acted as if they were worthy of us and our co-workers.
From the offensive invitation offered to Bill Gates by the AFT’s President Randi Weingarten at last summer’s national union convention, to the roll-over strategy of the IEA leadership on such issues as teacher evaluation and pensions, the leadership has disappointed.
On the other hand, more tough-minded leadership like that in Chicago has stepped up and gives all of us hope that things can change.
It would be great if next year we could do a blog action day on why we are so very proud of our union leaders.
