ISO In the House! (My email to Brian Jones)

Back in MArch when the blogger Chaz accused MORE (the union caucus) of moving to the left, I thought he was, well nuts. Chaz' conclusion, that this cool little caucus had been taklen over by the left (and byleft, I mean members of the Internation Socialists Organization (ISO)) may have been correct after all.
Just today, I receievd an email on the MORE listserv from Brian Jones. Here's the email:

Dear planning listserv,

Thank you for serving as the volunteer planning committee. Your work has gotten MORE to where it is today!

We now have a several committees up and running, including a steering committee.

The steering committee decided to take several steps to streamline our use of email and to create a more transparent and democratic use of email.

For those reasons, we voted to terminate this listserv, and move its various discussions into the committees and to the discussion listserv.

For general discussion and debate of important issues, please use the MORE discussion listserv.

Since some people have complained about receiving too many emails, we will be re-starting that listserv very soon. Stay tuned for an email that gives you the opportunity to re-subscribe.

We are also starting a separate news listserv for articles and other news items. Stay tuned for the email to subscribe to that listserv as well.

We will continue to maintain a discussion listserv for chapter leaders and delegates ONLY. This listserv is for discussing school-based organizing issues. If you are already on this listserv, then you will remain on it. If you would like to join that listserv, send an email to: chapterleadermeetup+subscribe@googlegroups.com.

For concrete work and decision-making (drafting leaflets, etc.) please use your respective committees.

You can contact any of the committees directly with the following email addresses:

MORE COMMITTEES

The Steering Committee makes proposals for MORE's general membership meeting agendas, and makes decisions for MORE between membership meetings.
steering@morecaucusnyc.org

The Media Committee handles social media, the blog, press releases, and the production of most leaflets.
media@morecaucusnyc.org

The Newsletter Committee produces the MORE newsletter (launching this fall).
news@morecaucusnyc.org

The Testing Committee works on challenging high stakes standardized testing.
testing@morecaucusnyc.org

The Chapter Building Committee deals with the ins and outs of school-based organizing.
chapters@morecaucusnyc.org

The Contract Committee is looking carefully at our upcoming contract to help MORE develop a strategy for a contract campaign.
contract@morecaucusnyc.org

Feel free to send any questions about these changes to me.

Brian
for the MORE Steering Committee

I have been a little concerned about an agenda that didn't put teachers (and parents and students) first for sometime now. With this concern, I've observed that the voice of one full wing of the caucs (the Trade Uniosts or teachers' rights people) has been lessened and and the other wing (the International Socialists of the World(!)) has been on the increase. That big uber committee, Steering, is overwhelming influenced by the 'ISO crowd. So shutting down the 'plan' list in favor of the larger list (which is never used, and which I was actually never added to anyway) was more a way of lessening the democratic structure (and containing disucsion within the several committees) than it was a way of increasing democratic structure. I understood it as the socialist crowd saying "hey; we've pretty got control of this steering committee now, so we're going to go ahead and shut down other vehicles for communication. Thanks and have a nice day"

So I quit. I never was much of a union person anyway. And I sent the list this  reply:

Brian,

This isn't, in my opinion, anywhere near the transparency that I was assured would exist when I joined MORE. It sounds more like you nice folks in steering are containing much of the discussions to committees, then allowing the general listserv to continue. Moreover, it sounds, very much Brian, that the decision (which wasn't discussed anywhere outside of steering?) wasn't as democratic as I have come to expect, and have experienced, MORE to be.

 

For those reasons, and because I'm not comfortable with what appears to be an ISO agenda (at the direct cost of a Trade Unionist agenda) asserting itself, I'm going to go ahead and say goodbye to MORE. I wish you well, I just don't wish to work with you.

 

Now before you go taking to the keyboard like a, well, a warrior, I'd like to point out that a single brick bat was delivered in this entire email (which is quite a feat for an edu blogger), so I expect a response in kind which would include, and would be limited to, such messages as "ok" "be well" or even no response at all (preferably the latter).

 

Thanks very much and be well
Johnnie Doenuts

 

Thing is, it got bounced. MORE had already shut down that list before anyone could express any opnion abotu it at all! No discussin there. No democracy.

Now I know the decision to shut down the planning list wasn't unanumous. It surely wasn't discussed with the general membership, including a lot of folks who have been workign very hard for the organization. We all just got this email today, you see and ..poof! The list was shut down. So I have to quit publicly!

Dear  Brian and MORE (including the folks who I adore),
Please accept this cordial goodbye.
Good luck with that whole 'democratic' thing.


MORE to come ;)