Our Vision for a Better Contract

And a better UFT

I’ve been working with a group of UFT members, and we call ourselves ABC, for A Better Contract. We have a new approach—find out what members want and need, and then work to achieve it. You’d think that would be common sense, but clearly it isn’t. In Spanish, there’s a saying, “El sentido común es lo menos común de todos los sentidos.” Common sense is the least common of all the senses.

A fundamental building block for our kids is ABCs, and fundamentals are vital. Our Unity leadership has abandoned a key fundamental of unionism—making things better for those of us who do the work. In fact, Unity claims they do the work. (Try telling that to a teacher facing 35 teenagers in a room with 34 desks.)

As a union, job number one is improving conditions for working people. Call us selfish if you wish, but making improvements for ourselves sets an example for others, and leaves a better world for our children. When unions do better, non-union shops need to compete as well.

We have an idea, an idea as simple as ABC. We build our agenda from membership demands. We’ve done several surveys, and we’ve identified areas of interest to members. We see this is the way forward (as opposed to taking unilateral action with no consultation or discussion whatsoever).

The biggest issue among those we surveyed is pay. Our current leadership takes what can charitably be called a passive approach. They let the city lowball the first union they can, most often DC37, and then settle for whatever. We have a different point of view. Join us this Tuesday, December 10th to discuss it with us.

Rather than look at pay issues, current leadership utilizes Municipal Labor Committee (MLC) to degrade health care, and seem eager give back as much as possible to the city. UFT leadership is directly responsible for the very worst of these changes. Unity, along with DC37, controls MLC, and foists their awful decisions upon our brother and sister unions.

Twenty-six unions in the MLC voted no, while others abstained. But their votes were swamped by the votes of the largest unions on the committee, AFSCME District Council 37 and the New York United Federation of Teachers.

We see MLC as a model for labor solidarity. We will work together to achieve meaningful raises for those of us that serve the city. Imagine a united front, demanding compensation increases that meet or beat cost of living. Instead of sitting around and hoping for the best, we will unite with our brother and sister unionists. Why on earth should we use our collective voice to degrade working and living conditions, particularly those involving our health?

Individuals are not as powerful as unions. By the same token, unions are not as powerful as groups of unions. It’s incredible that current leadership allows itself to be snookered by the city over and over, and lacks the fundamental foresight to unite and work for the betterment of all city workers and retirees.

In classrooms, we believe teacher voice is fundamental. Though we’re rarely credited, it can be individual as writer voice. We know, from long experience, that there is more than one way to teach. We’ve all been to September PD sessions that tell us this method is the Holy Grail, only to hear next September that it’s garbage, and there is an all new Holy Grail. We know that what works for me may not work for you, and vice-versa. We will fight for teacher autonomy, for the right of teachers to do what’s best for our students.

There is a large portion of our population that seems to believe you can just hand an accountant a math book, and he’ll be able to run high school classes. It’s quite clear to me that’s not the case. The assumption that, with a magical lesson plan, one can instantly run a class containing people, along with the assumption there’s only one way to do it, is idiotic. Evidently that’s not clear to current leadership. Unity has failed to circumvent DOE schemes to turn us into cookie cutter gingerbread people via scripted lessons.

Unity can’t be bothered considering consequences. They’ve haphazardly jumped on the HMH bandwagon, and now teachers are facing a mandated program and the sort of micromanagement that makes them want to run for the nearest exit doors. The new math mandates are disastrous, as teachers citywide are told they must do scripted lessons, for my money, a fundamental violation of our contract. Sign our petition to end scripted curriculum mandates.

We need a union that will think and plan before it jumps. We will resist programs that call for scripted lessons and their consequent 100% predictable micromanagement. We will resist programs that have not been sufficiently tested. And, if we make mistakes, we will correct them and move on. Our current leadership cannot admit it’s wrong, ever. Incredibly, it pushed most of our Executive Board to celebrate ageism rather than admit a glaring, obvious mistake.

We believe in public education, and we will advocate for it. We believe in union. We believe in teacher tenure as a fundamental protection for teacher voice. We will fight for enforceable lower class sizes, teacher autonomy and a more reasonable observation process. We will hold both Democrats and Republicans accountable for supporting public education (or not).

Teachers know it’s incumbent upon us to encourage and elicit participation from our students. It’s just as important that we do so for our membership, much of whom feel forgotten or invisible. An obviouss way to encourage new voices would be making it easier for them to vote. Our leadership, winning again and again via abysmal turnout, has procrastinated for years. They actively ignore this, hoping to win again via the apathy upon which they thrive. Sign our petition urging electronic voting, and tell them we won’t be ignored.

Unity, the controlling caucus, is in the habit of making decisions without consulting us. Instead of battling Tier 6 at its inception, they do nothing and wait years to face it. Instead of fighting for better pay, better working conditions, better health care, or even increased participation in union elections, they battle over where casinos are to be built.

Not only that, but they can’t even be bothered to provide us with any credible rationale as to why these issues are important to membership. Given the health care debacle that lost them the retiree chapter in a landslide, we know their tendency to make the wrong decisions and defend them no matter what. Despite their crushing loss, they not only still refuse to admit they made mistakes with our health care, but also refuse to support our battle to retain it.

We will support politicians who support union, who support working people, who support our causes. We will oppose those who do not, regardless of party affiliation. We will work hand in hand with groups who support our goals. For example, we are open to working with the Network for Public Education. We are open to working with NYC Retirees. We are open to working with Class Size Matters.

And of course, we want to work with you, and members of any and all existing UFT caucuses. Despite Unity’s expectations, we don’t work for our union. We are the union, and our union works for us. We need union employees selected for competence, rather than loyalty to King Mulgrew.

For years, as chapter leader, I had to tell members, “Call UFT. If you get someone who’s not helpful, get back to me. I’ll find someone who is.” When members came back, I’d get them in touch with people I knew to be reliable, or one of my go to sources that knew who the reliable people were.

It’s a new day. We can do better than same old, same old. Change is coming, and we can be that change. Join us on Tuesday.

We’ll work together, and this May we will take back our union, the United Federation of Teachers. We’ll remake ourselves into the “powerful teachers union” that strikes terror into the hearts of tabloid editorial writers.