What Did The UFT Leadership Get To Look The Other Way On Cuomo's Charter Deal?

Michael Fiorillo on the news confirmed today by the NY Times that the UFT leadership did nothing to fight the charter school protections Cuomo wanted enshrined in the budget that give charters unlimited expansion rights, free rent in NYC public school buildings or the tab picked up by the NYCDOE and other goodies that the charter entrepreneurs wanted:

Does this (mis)leadership ever fight anything?

So, the APPR deal, which never should have been agreed to in the first place, will be tweaked - which would have happened anyway, since the admins are being crushed by it - in exchange for allowing charters to run wild, which is guaranteed to reduce UFT membership substantially in the coming years, as the charter cap is enlarged or eliminated altogether.

I have said that the UFT is a dues collection agency, but I was obviously wrong, since a real dues collection agency would have a better sense of self-preservation.

Cuomo and his backers from Hedgistan must be laughing among themselves when they observe the rubes from the UFT; it's no wonder that, behind their occasional condescending remarks, they think of us as chumps.

And:

These people are bought and sold. 

Weingrew thinks that the members will be mollified by a (five year late) contract - obtained while stabbing De Blasio in the back - despite the unending concessions (Common Core, APPR, VAM, charters run wild, etc) that he has made.

Are these people deluded, actually thinking they will organize charter schools? Or is something else allowing them to agree to the public school's and the union's eventual destruction?

Good question - is the UFT leadership complicit in the destruction of the union through ineptitude, delusion or deliberate collaboration?

I'll leave that question out there for now, but let's make one thing clear:

By failing to fight the charter school power grab, the UFT leadership have sowed the seeds of the destruction of traditional NYC public schools, traditional (i.e., unionized) public school teachers and by extension, the union that is supposed to represent and serve those teachers.