LA Teachers' Union upset election

Apologies for posting such lengthy excerpts, but the LA Times requires you to be registered to view the whole article.

Members of L.A. Teachers Union Elect New Leaders
By Cara Mia DiMassa, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times
March 2, 2005

Los Angeles teachers threw out most of their current union leadership Tuesday, electing as president a special education teacher and a slate of newcomers who campaigned on a social justice-centered agenda.

By more than 2,000 votes, teachers selected A.J. Duffy, a 35-year district veteran and longtime union activist, over incumbent President John Perez. About 11,300 teachers, or 27%, of the union's 41,000 members cast ballots.

It was the first time in United Teachers Los Angeles' 35-year history that an incumbent president and his slate had been ousted.

"This is a really completely new look to UTLA," said Duffy, a special education teacher at Palms Middle School. "From the top down. We're all activists. We're all organizers. We go to work with the community."

Duffy was supported by the new United Action slate, which pushed for what one incoming UTLA leader called "militant rank-and-file unionism."
...
"Our slate won every single race, top to bottom," said Joshua Pechthalt, the union's incoming vice president. "This is wholesale change in the union."

So this sounds exciting, right? A social justice slate? I'm here thinking that this means social justice for the students....

...teachers who supported Duffy said they blamed the current union leadership for an 18-month delay in negotiations over a new contract.

[The district] recently offered teachers a 1.5% raise; Perez countered that teachers should get at least 2%. Duffy, in campaign materials, told teachers that, because of cost-of-living increases, "any pay raise less than 7% means a pay cut."
...
Teachers, Pechthalt said, look to contracts first. "If you can deliver a good contract, you can keep the support of the membership. Perez has not been able to do that," he said.

So now I'm confused. Is the union really pushing social justice, or what I would call social justice, i.e. justice for teachers AND students? If so is it just the spin (from whatever quarter) that is trying to say it's all about the contract, money-grubbing teachers, blah-de-blah?

Or is the union's definition of "social justice" different from mine (i.e. protect the teachers's salaries = main priority; students, not so much)?

Obviously teachers are workers, and there's a lot to be discussed with regard to the impossible working conditions (and the gendered aspect of that--teachers like nurses are expected to be "naturally" good at their jobs and not need training or support or real money)--I'm not trying to undermine the necessity of a union to protect teachers--but I had understood that the big change in LA was about a new alliance among teachers, parents and students for the good of all, and this doesn't sound like that, exactly... so what's the story, I wonder?

If Duffy spends all this time as a union activist... how good of a special education teacher is he? What KIND of a special education teacher is he? Hmmmmmmm....