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Bill Gates addressed the 2010 Convention |
I don't expect anything too new or exciting coming out of AFT Convention, just starting in Detroit. The meeting is pretty well scripted and delegates, representing the union's 1.5 million members, are nearly all aligned with the Unity/Progressive Caucus and the current leadership is not up for re-election. But given the intensity of the attacks on public education, teachers, and all public sector workers and their unions, this year's convention does take on special significance.
There are several important things are worth noting as meeting gets underway. First is the setting in the Motor City which has become disaster capitalism's new great laboratory for corporate-style reform and union busting. Michigan's Tea-Party governor is putting entire cities under corporate control, disbanding elected local governments