May 24, 2018

From Marjorie Stamberg to my Colleagues in P2G



From Marjorie Stamberg to my colleagues in P2G

The union is as strong as its active members. That’s why I’m asking for your support for re-election as a UFT Delegate.

As a UFT Delegate, I have been an outspoken voice for our school community – students, teachers, paras, secretaries, counselors, school aides, custodians, staff and parents. To continue my advocacy for all, I’m asking you to re-elect me as your UFT delegate.
I have spoken out for solidarity and defense of public education. This is doubly important now, as we face an offensive by Betsy DeVos and the union-busting Janus case financed by the Koch Brothers – as well as the teacher-bashers and hedge-fund charterizers from Wall Street and the White House on down. 
As convener of the P2G-UFT committee in defense of immigrants, I have reached out to local communities, churches, and community literacy programs to build support networks for our students and families.  In this, I have worked closely to with our dedicated staff of advocacy managers for English Language Learners as they provide “Know Your Rights” workshops, and other critical resources for immigrant communities citywide. 
As we in P2G are scattered across over 80+ sites in all five boroughs, I have sought to keep the membership fully informed of developments in education and in our school directly. Each month I attend the UFT Delegate Assembly and send out critical analysis of what’s going on in our union.   
Our listserv, PathwaysTeach, which I set up to pull us together as a chapter, has become a major source of information on educational issues.
We need to build strong union chapters in every school in the DOE, and around the country to face huge challenges. Courageous teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona and around the country to are standing up to union-busting and a stop to the devastating cuts in education for teachers, families and the kids.
As one of your delegates, I have been fighting on critical issues. 

  •  Save our space at the Marcy Avenue Hub in Bedford/Stuyvesant! With the incredible dedication of our colleagues at the Marcy Hub, we have been fighting against a charter co-location that would slash our space and cutback our ability to defend and educate our students in the Bed/Stuy community and all over Brooklyn.
  • A Supreme Court decision is coming in the Janus case which seeks to bust our union and all public workers unions.  Lobbying is no strategy. Our union must fight for our rights, our benefits, our working conditions, and for everyone in public education – educators, students, parents, and the communities where we live.
  •  In P2G, we have an urgent need to protect our immigrant students and families from threats of deportation, the axing of DACA, and to build a safe space for all students in our school.  This is especially urgent in P2G where 31.4 percent of P2G students are English Language Learners; 44.1 percent of our students were born outside the U.S; and 51.1 percent of our students speak a language other than English at home.
  • The TASC test embodies the false values of high-stakes testing. The elimination of French-language tests discriminates against our Haitian and West African students. We must fight for non-discriminatory student evaluation and more programs to prepare literacy students and English-language learners.   
  • We need to put a stop to the “school-to-prison pipeline,” to use our power against racist discriminiation, to defend women’s rights, gay and transgender rights and the democratic rights of all!
Facing a war on public education coming from both Democratic and Republican parties, UFT president Mike Mulgrew and the Unity Caucus bureaucracy have always relied on lobbying the legislature in Albany. I have called instead for mass mobilization. If Eva Moskowitz can pull charter students out of class to push the privatizers’ agenda, we can bring out a far greater power – the 100,000 UFT teachers, and families of over one million students. But that requires a leadership willing to fight.
As a member of Class Struggle Education Workers, I have been on the picket lines with school bus drivers in New York, and organized solidarity action with teachers in Mexico. I have marched in defense of African American and Latino youth against police violence. I have opposed union endorsement of candidates of any of the capitalist parties.
In 2008, I initiated the citywide UFT protest of some 200 teachers demanding full rights for ATRs. In 2009, I led the successful campaign in our chapter to beat back so-called “bonus pay,” being pushed by both the DOE and the UFT leadership.
We are the union, not some overpaid bureaucrats at 52 Broadway and the AFT in Washington. The union is our first line of defense. Make the union work for us through active participation. The UFT has power – we are the largest union in NYC. But we have to use it, or lose it.
I stand for:
  •          Stop racist school closings and charter co-locations.
  •         Oppose mayoral control: for teacher-student-parent-worker control of the schools.
  •          Full union rights for ATRs; for a functional ATR chapter.
  •         Education is a right, not a commodity for sale in the capitalist market. Free, quality public education for all.
  •          Oppose “Unity Caucus” which bureaucratically controls our union and has been steadily eroding our fundamental rights, giving up seniority transfers, supporting disastrous mayoral control, and capitulating to teacher evals tied to test scores.
  •          Fight bipartisan assault on public education by Republicans and Democrats alike. We need our own class-struggle workers party; together with the TWU and all city workers we can shred the no-strike Taylor Law.
Marjorie Stamberg – Educator and Union Activist

 I am a longtime socialist and labor activist, organizer and defender of civil rights, women’s rights, gay  and transgender rights and immigrant rights. My experience includes:
  •         18 years as a teacher in the DOE: P2G Manhattan Hub, GED-Plus; ASHS; Monroe HS; HS of World Cultures.
  •         UFT Delegate, GED-Plus and P2G since 2009.
  •        DOE city-wide mentor program as ESL specialist to support new teachers, in conjunction with UFT Teachers Center.
  •         NYU Adjunct Instructor, American Language Institute; Hunter College International English Language Institute, Adjunct Instructor.
  •        Adult Education Program, DOE: ESL instruction for immigrant families and workers.
  •         Presenter, NYCoRE (New York Collective of Radical Educators): (“Teachers in Struggle; From Mexico to NYC”).
  •        Member, Class Struggle Education Workers
  •        Former member, Communications Workers of America (CWA), Locals 9415, 1150, 1101, as telephone operator and first woman switch-man in New York Telephone



Class Struggle Education Workers (CSEW) is part of the fight for a revitalization and transformation of the labor movement into an instrument for the emancipation of the working class and the oppressed rather than, as it is at present, an instrument for the disciplining of labor in the interests of capital. See the CSEW program here.