Brooklyn friends school in New York is a Quaker institution which posits as its central value, its “brand” if you will, is creating students who will fight for social justice.<\/p>\n
However, it appears that when it is their ox that is gored, they will go above and beyond to screw their own workers<\/a>.<\/p>\n They are trying to decertify their union because it is “Incompatible” with their Quaker faith.<\/p>\n Just in case you are wondering, Quakers have a long history of pro organized labor activism.<\/p>\n It’s just that this this school rat-f%$# administrator does a not want to be inconvenienced:<\/p>\n Everyone knew there would be layoffs at Brooklyn Friends School. Not even a school where tuition is the cost of a new car is safe from a major recession. The letters, though, were a shock. A couple weeks into severance negotiations with the staff union, head of school Crissy C\u00e1ceres made an announcement. The school had filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board asking it to decertify, or disband, its union. The presence of a union violated the school\u2019s Quaker character, she wrote in two August 14 notes to teachers and families. \u201cIf we are to fully practice our Quaker values of respecting others and celebrating every individual\u2019s inner light while compassionately responding to existing needs,\u201d she said, \u201cwe must be legally free to do so.\u201d<\/span> \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n But look deeper, and a question presents itself: Is this spiritual warfare, or something more profane?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Spolier, C\u00e1ceres isn’t a member of the Quaker meeting, and she is making sweeping generalization that unionization runs counter to the religion.<\/p>\n This corrupt, profane, narcissistic, and sociopathic.<\/p>\n This is not William Penn, this is William Edward Hickman,*<\/sup> “What is good for me is right.”<\/p>\n \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span> There is no social justice without economics. <\/p>\n Everything else is just virtue signaling.<\/p>\n It is also amazingly self-destructive and stupid:<\/p>\n \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span> If someone asks you why “The Left” hates comfortable liberals, it’s hypocrisy, and this is about as good an example of that as you could hope to find.<\/p>\n
<\/span> In this intimate school community, the news was an earthquake. It \u201ccame out of the blue,\u201d remembers Sarah Gordon, who teaches third grade at Brooklyn Friends and belongs to the union\u2019s negotiation committee. Nobody knew the school was even considering such an extreme decision. \u201cIt was like \u2018wait, this is what you were doing?\u2019 We had no idea,\u201d echoes Laura Hulbert, a learning specialist.<\/span>
<\/span> At a different institution, that sense of surprise might be less profound. Employers usually don\u2019t welcome unions, and they can adopt ugly tactics to prevent workers from organizing. But Brooklyn Friends isn\u2019t the average workplace. The school is famously progressive. Parents hear of its commitment to social justice on orientation tours. Second-graders study the lives of labor leaders Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez as part of a curriculum on \u201cchange-makers.\u201d The school\u2019s union \u2014 which includes about 200 teachers, maintenance staff, and office workers, and is represented by United Auto Workers Local 2110 \u2014 seemed like a natural extension of its left-wing ethos. At least to staff.\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/span>Conservative Christians and right-to-work groups hailed the Bethany decision, [Which said that a religious school was not covered by the NLRB]<\/span> which means that liberal Brooklyn Friends could soon have some uncomfortable company. It may also find itself at odds with other Quaker institutions. The Friends Council on Education told Intelligencer in an email that it has no formal position on unionization at its member schools, including Brooklyn Friends. But other Quaker organizations have unionized without incident. Teachers at Friends Seminary in Manhattan have a union. So do the employees of the American Friends Service Committee, which a source described as being \u201clike the Peace Corps for Quakers.\u201d A 2016 statement on the Committee\u2019s website praises <\/a>Walter Reuther \u2014 a storied leader of the United Auto Workers \u2014 in effusive terms. Brooklyn Friends itself has acknowledged Quakerism\u2019s links to labor in the past. A blog post<\/a> on its website celebrates Bayard Rustin, who in addition to being a Quaker and a civil-rights activist also co-founded<\/a> the A. Philip Randolph Institute of the AFL-CIO.<\/span>
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<\/span>\u201cThis school is incredibly diverse on so many levels, and I think that they care a lot about diversity and social justice. They can talk about that quite a bit,\u201d McMackin said. \u201cBut the one thing that\u2019s really lacking is economic diversity, and that contributes to the culture of the school.\u201d She and Roddick receive financial aid to send their son to Brooklyn Friends, as do many other families. But overall, she added, \u201cthere is a very affluent culture there,\u201d populated by \u201cart dealers and finance bros\u201d and other pillars of Brooklyn high culture. That influences the school\u2019s rhetoric, she concluded: \u201cWhen they talk about diversity, when they talk about social justice, they\u2019re really talking about every other type besides economics.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/span>\u201cBrooklyn Friends is never going to have the tradition and gravitas of Packer. It\u2019s never going to have the toniness of St. Ann\u2019s, or the campus and athletic spirit of Poly Prep. But what Brooklyn Friends does have is social justice,\u201d the former faculty member said. \u201cWhen the board makes decisions like currying the favor of the Trump-dominated NLRB to try to decertify a union, in addition to feeling dishonest it seems like one of the stupidest things the school could do.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n