A recent article in The New York Times discusses how a union leader was moving in a direction against the membership and undermining them, in the manner or guise of reform. We here in why did we join the union saw the identical pattern of that in our Local 100 especially in the previous leader Roger Toussaint. However the current leadership of Samuelsen a Toussaint protege and loyalist the goals are still fuzzy and not clear.
Even in Hollywood they referred to a phony and out of date union leader as seen in the movie ‘Waiting for Superman’. The movie clearly sends a message that this leader, first is harming the children and secondly is harming the members who are supposed to get protection. Finally the third message is that our schools have become dismal and has the worst failures worldwide at the education level.
There have been numerous reports regarding achievement that show peers that are 15 years old in the USA are below average in applying reading, mathematics, and science skills into tasks compared to students from around the world. The number of high school drop outs has sky rocketed currently and that relates and adds woes to the current unemployment figures. Since education contributes directly to the economy and the economy is in downward spiral everyone has a right to worry. Thus they are showing this phony union leader in the movie ‘Waiting for Superman’ to bring about change.
So how is it related to Local 100 since we are far from the education field? We here in why did you join the union observe the similarity of decisions. How the decision making process was undertaken by the Toussaint and possibly to some by his protege and loyalist Samuelsen that have caused harm to the membership. However we would like to caution Samuelsen that he has time on his side and should not undertake policies that would undermine the membership or put them in an unfavorable position. Whether Samuelsen would continue to reach out to the disaffected membership to seek common ground is unknown but it is up to him to make the right choices.
I would like to inform your readers of case# 10-0097 in the Second Circuit to overturn the Taylor Law. We are looking for Pro Bono Counsel and Amicus Briefs. end-the-taylor-law@googlegroups.com or google unconstitutional and "taylor law". Perhaps you could do an article on it.
ReplyDelete