Ed Notes Online: Randi Weingarten Is Behind The Rebellion Against NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi

When the stories of the rift between the UFT contingent in the NYSUT and the Iannuzzi supporters first surfaced, I thought there was no way UFT President Michael Mulgrew was behind the plot without Randi's okay.

I have never seen Mulgew take any actions that weren't already Randi-approved - from the Thompson endorsement in the 2013 NYC mayoral election to the APPR deal Mulgrew and Iannuzzi made with Cuomo in 2012 to refusing to rule out a Cuomo endorsement in 2014, every major decision Mulgrew has made is the same kind of decision that Randi would have made when she was heading the UFT.

This was why it didn't make sense to me that Mulgrew was making a powerplay for the NYSUT without Randi's okay, though Norm Scott and some other people on the Internets were saying that it didn't make sense Randi was behind the Iannuzzi shiv.

Tonight Norm reports he has multiple sources telling him that Randi Weingarten is indeed behind the Iannuzzi shiv:

Randi is behind the so-called NYSUT insurgency multiple and trusted sources have informed us. I don't have particulars but this info came in response to my comments the other day in this post (The Battle for NYSUT: Ebbs and Flows)

While some think Randi must be behind the move of the UFT to take over NYSUT completely and totally (they pretty much have a lot of control now) this doesn't have her fingerprints. What does she have to gain from trying to push out Iannuzzi - who she helped put in? Or pushing out Maria Neira who she promoted from the UFT Exec Bd to a NYSUT VP?

You know, I should have trusted my instincts all along but the total level of how nonsensical this is in terms of Randi's own self-interest led me out of the real world into fantasy land -- that Mulgrew might have stepped out on his own. These quotes from Reality-Based Educator:

Literally up is down and black is white. The less aggressive "challengers" are getting supported because the Iannuzzi regime hasn't been aggressive enough.....Orwellian beyond belief - but par for the course at the AFT/NYSUT/UFT. ...  Reality Based Educator at PerdidoSS

My sources say that Randi could not accept Iannuzzi and crew's blatant rejection of Cuomo which would leave her without a role to play with the big boys on the state Democratic Party level. My sources say that it more important to her than even considerations of splitting NYSUT.

Of course Randi's staying relevant and having a role at the state Democratic Party level is more important to her than anything else, even considerations over splitting the NYSUT.

That's because when it comes to Randi Weingarten, there is nothing she does that is not completely in her self-interest - it's always about her, whether she's making deals as a union head or pushing little kids out of the way so she can grab a microphone and hog a stage.

Couple of days ago, I had a back and forth on the Twitter with some folks over Rand.

The point I tried to make over and over (not sure how effective I was with 140 characters) is that Randi Weingarten cannot be trusted, that she specializes in betrayal and deception, and nobody should look to ally with her in the battle against ed reform, CCSS, etc. because her word is worthless and she will turn on you in a split second.

I had the NYSUT battle in mind when I was saying this because I just knew that even as Weingarten was hailing Iannuzzi on the Twitter for getting a "no confidence" vote on King and withdrawing support for CCSS that behind the scenes she was having a shiv stuck into him for those very moves.

And of course this is all about Cuomo - both Mulgrew and Weingarten refuse to criticize Cuomo because they want to continue to have access to him (and yeah, I know Randi was at an anti-Cuomo protest last week, but her criticism of Sheriff Andy was so mild as to be almost useless.)

This is all about maintaining power, maintaining access, maintaining privileges - as I said earlier, Randi's self-interest.

And the Orwellian part of all of this is that even as the "insurgent" slate backed by Mulgrew and Weingarten look to do Iannuzzi and his group in for not being "aggressive" enough against the state reform agenda, they are really doing him in because he is being too aggressive against it.

It's making Cuomo unhappy, and Cuomo doesn't like to be unhappy, and if you watch closely enough, you'll see that neither Randi nor Mulgrew like it when Cuomo is unhappy either.

So they're taking care of business, making sure Sheriff Andy gets happy, gets a couple of bags of campaign cash with UFT and NYSUT stamped on them, making sure that there is no real criticism of APPR or the tax cap or any of the other Cuomo reforms that are really hurting schools.

This makes Cuomo happy and that means Randi and Mikey still have access to him, though I don't exactly know why anybody would want access to a politician who only allows access to him if you agree with him 100% already, which is kinda where Cuomo is on a lot of things.

But as I wrote before, this is how it works in AFT/NYSUT/UFT land where war is peace and betrayal is loyalty and you should never ever trust anything Randi Weingarten says - anything - because she is full of crap 100% of the time.

Here we have just one more example of it in the NYSUT battle.

But as Norm says, the plus side of all of this is, it may open up the eyes of some people around the state when the new "more aggressive" slate comes in and gets less aggressive than Iannuzzi and we go back to business as usual in AFT/NYSUT/UFT land.