An Activist Orientation for CFT’s 2005 Convention
CFT delegates march out of their convention on Friday, March 18, to hit the streets and leaflet passersby about the anti-education ballot initiatives circulated by Governor Schwarzenegger.
Beneath the shadow of Governor Schwarzenegger’s attacks on public education and public workers, four hundred delegates to the statewide CFT convention debated and crafted their responses during the weekend of March 18-20, 2005 in Manhattan Beach. In a spirited foretaste of coming actions, chanting and sign-wielding delegates left the convention hotel during lunchtime of the first day to march to a nearby shopping mall, where they leafleted shoppers and passing drivers, asking them not to sign the Governor’s reactionary ballot measure petitions. The convention also reelected President Mary Bergan, Secretary Treasurer Mike Nye, and Senior Vice President Marty Hittelman to another term of office.
Discussion and Action
That combination of discussion and action marked the entire three-day meeting. Certainly the main speakers during the plenary sessions moved readily from analysis of the current dire situation to prescriptions for remedies. Kent Wong, Director of the Center for Labor Research and Education at UCLA, rebuked the governor’s attacks. He told his audience about the unfair attempt by Schwarzenegger to single out the two small UC Labor Centers for elimination, leaving all other similar UC programs intact. At the end of his remarks, the delegates picked up signs and walked out of the hotel.
Accompanied by television cameras and a radio reporter, the members walked three and four abreast on the sidewalk of Rosecrans Avenue, strung out for more than a block, drawing appreciative honks from passing motorists responding to signs like “Fund schools today or prisons tomorrow” and “Don’t grope my pension.” They handed fliers to shoppers explaining that the governor's proposals to privatize their pensions would have a detrimental effect on retention of good teachers, and garnered "thumbs-up" signs and supportive comments from lots of mall crawlers.
Bill Fletcher, Jr., former Education Director of the AFL-CIO, in a keynote address [Microsoft Word document], delivered a fierce critique of the labor federation’s failed efforts to transform itself and its member unions over the decade of John Sweeney’s presidency. While acknowledging the AFL-CIO leadership’s good intentions and several key initiatives, Fletcher lambasted the federation’s foreign policy, which he characterized as more or less a continuation of its historic cold war orientation. In its current internal debate, he said, the AFL-CIO needs to begin with the question, “How, over the next twenty to thirty years, do working people achieve power?”
In a surprise, unscheduled appearance, state Treasurer Phil Angelides brought a loud cheer from the crowd with his stark comparison of the governor’s promises and actual record: “He promised to protect education, but he cut funding at a time when California ranks 43rd in the country in per pupil spending, at the very time we need to prepare our children for the economy of the 21st century. He won’t ask the most fortunate to pay one dime more or close corporate tax loopholes, but he told 25,000 students, who had done all their work and made all the grades, that there was no room for them at our state colleges and universities.”
AFT Secretary Treasurer Nat LaCour spoke at great length, focusing his remarks on AFT support for the CFT in facing the challenge of the governor’s attacks.
Awards
Among a number of award highlights, two stood out. Assemblyman John Laird from the Santa Cruz area received CFT’s “Legislator of the Year” award. Laird ripped the governor for calling teachers “special interests.” He told the crowd that his mother had been a teacher, and he had watched her spend her own money in her classroom year after year. Meanwhile, he remarked acidly, “You have people paying more to have a photo taken with Arnie than my mother ever made in a year. Who’s the special interest?”
The CFT’s highest honor, the Ben Rust Award, was bestowed on Lance Widman, longtime instructor and union activist from El Camino College. First several colleagues affectionately reminisced about Widman’s tireless service on behalf of the membership. One drew a roar of laughter when, recounting how Widman had coaxed him into running for president of the local, he recalled that he had asked Widman, “How much time will it take to be president? To which Widman disingenuously replied, “About two hours a week.” Widman’s humor and sharp tongue were displayed both in his colleagues’ remarks and in his own, during which he reeled off half a dozen of the best anti-administrator jokes the crowd had ever heard.
Resolutions
My favorite part of any CFT convention is the floor discussions, and this year proved no exception. The delegates, after some debate, approved a resolution bumping the per-capita payments to CFT so that the statewide organization could mount an effective political response to the governor’s attacks. Another resolution generating heat called for local support actions to accompany the May 25 demonstration in Sacramento. An amendment to that resolution added the words, “including job actions,” and, after eloquent and passionate arguments on both sides, it passed. Other resolutions reaffirmed CFT support for US Labor Against the War, Labor History Week, organizing pre-school workers, and defined benefit pension plans (and opposed the governor’s attempts to privatize the latter).
"I went to four workshops and they provided me with what they were meant to provide, as biilled," said Michael Mills, president of the Peralta Federation of Teachers. "The legal update paid immediate dividends, as did negotiating a long-term disability for a member. Marty Hittelman's directed me to where the shekels were in his session on district finances. I came away knowing that we're going to be mobilized against the governor's direct attack on education in California."
—Fred Glass
