Sunday, August 22, 2010

Pegging the Irony Meter

As reported in the August 13th New York Post:
In a move of stunning hypocrisy, the United Federation of Teachers axed one of its longtime employees -- for trying to unionize the powerful labor organization's own workers, it was charged yesterday.

Jim Callaghan, a veteran writer for the teachers union, told The Post he was booted from his $100,000-a-year job just two months after he informed UFT President Michael Mulgrew that he was trying to unionize some of his co-workers.

"I was fired for trying to start a union at the UFT," said a dumbfounded Callaghan, who worked for the union's newsletter and as a speechwriter for union leaders for the past 13 years.

Callaghan said he personally told Mulgrew on June 9 about his intention to try to organize nonunionized workers at UFT headquarters.

"I told him I want to have the same rights that teachers have," said Callaghan, 63, of Staten Island. "He told me he didn't want that, that he wanted to be able to fire whoever he wanted to."

The UFT has long strenuously resisted city efforts to make it easier for school administrators to fire teachers.

"This is the exact antithesis of what they preach, and Michael Mulgrew is the biggest hypocrite out there," Callaghan fumed.

Callaghan said he's planning to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against the UFT for illegally blocking his unionizing effort.
The best thing for our public schools, especially the students, would be the disappearance of the teachers' unions. And it may be that the best thing for workers in all industries would be the end of unions.

(via Instapundit via Deceiver)

5 comments:

Warren said...

Here's the outcome of the linked article about the L.A. Times' probe into teacher performance:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teachers-react-20100816,0,6701929.story

UNION LEADER CALLS ON L.A. TEACHERS TO BOYCOTT LOS ANGELES TIMES

A.J. Duffy objects to the paper's analysis of the effectiveness of more than 6,000 elementary school teachers.

The Los Angeles teachers union president said Sunday he was organizing a "massive boycott" of The Times after the newspaper began publishing a series of articles that uses student test scores to estimate the effectiveness of district teachers.

"You're leading people in a dangerous direction, making it seem like you can judge the quality of a teacher by … a test," said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, which has more than 40,000 members.

Duffy said he would urge other labor groups to ask their members to cancel their subscriptions ...

Geoffrey Britain said...

"The best thing for our public schools, especially the students, would be the disappearance of the teachers' unions."

You got it. But it's even worse than this example of blatant hypocrisy.

Check it out and be sure to click on the NEA website link to confirm it. They're not even trying to hide it anymore.

National Education Association Selling its Saul

"The National Education Association (NEA), the U.S.'s largest labor union, is promoting communism to the millions of American public school teachers it represents. Teachers who are influenced by their union's efforts are more likely to indoctrinate American children into communism.

For the past several months, the NEA website has recommended that its members read books by communist sympathizer Saul Alinsky. And, for a time, the website listed October 1 as a day for teachers and students to celebrate the anniversary of the Communist takeover of China by Mao Zedong."

Yup, then NEA, the largest labor union in the USA is celebrating the anniversary of the greatest mass murderer in history's triumph...

Bob Cosmos said...

How did the NY Times report on this lawsuit?

OBloodyHell said...

> And, for a time, the website listed October 1 as a day for teachers and students to celebrate the anniversary of the Communist takeover of China by Mao Zedong.

Got a cite for that, even a non-working one, GB?

A_Nonny_Mouse said...

Poor Jim Callaghan learned his Rules for Radicals a little too well, I guess.

(One of Alinsky's "Rules" is "Make them live up to their own book of rules".)

So it's "unions, unions, unions" for everybody else, but not for YOUR group, eh, Mr. UFT Union President Mulgrew?

Bwahahaha!