A Momentous Opportunity

The Retired Teacher Chapter election initiates a new era for the United Federation of Teachers

First, if you haven’t voted, do it now. That’s the most important thing.

I put off retirement for a year or two. I wondered how my writing would be relevant if I were no longer working. Union activism, in one form or another, had become such a fundamental part of my life that I couldn’t imagine leaving it behind.

How was I to know that this year, the RTC chapter would become the most important factor in the struggle to make an activist, representative union out of our UFT? We stand at the precipice of a new era in our union, and we are, surprisingly, in a position to lead.

Of course, this is not all our doing. We owe quite a bit to Marianne Pizzitola and the NYC Retirees. Who’d have imagined a retired EMT would come, seemingly out of nowhere, out-organize and outplan the status quo of Michael Mulgrew and his fellow sellouts in the Municipal Labor Committee? Who’d have imagined retirees would kick their asses in court over and over again as our union leaders helped the city to break its promises to us and dump us into an inferior health plan?

Who’d have imagined, in one of the most blatant anti-union moves ever, that Michael Mulgrew would attempt to pit in-service teachers against retirees? I was in-service at the time, and I was shocked to see Mulgrew tell us, if we didn’t change the regulation that guaranteed health care for retirees, we’d all have to pay $1500 a year in premiums.

Despite that, Mulgrew had no issue charging retirees $2400 each, or $4800 a couple per year to keep the health care they already had. While he didn’t mention that in the email (go figure), that was certainly his goal. He even sent Unity members to the City Council, demanding the right to pay extra for the care they’d been receiving free of charge.

Pitting one faction of the union against another is the most blatant anti-union act I’ve ever seen from an ostensible union leader. It is, frankly, pathetic we have a President who lacks the remotest notion of what union actually is. That’s before we even examine his eagerness to impose fees most retirees can’t pay, after getting his people to get up in front of God and everybody and declare his Advantage plan was not good enough for people who got sick or got cancer.

Who among us has not been sick? Who among us could not get sicker at any time? Who among us could not get cancer? If Michael Mulgrew doesn’t understand that, he’s unfit. Furthermore, anyone who blindly supports Mulgrew to hold onto a patronage gig is just as unfit.

I absolutely believe Michael Mulgrew, Tom Murphy, and the other great minds of Unity determined we, the retirees, were a bunch of happy-go-lucky galloots who would go along with whatever they saw fit. That’s not me. Is it you? I doubt it. How do you like being stereotyped like that?

I don’t care for it at all. Furthermore, I’ve yet to meet one single retiree off the Unity Gravy Train who supports being treated like this.

I’m very proud to be part of Retiree Advocate. We are running against Mulgrew, Murphy and the Unity Patronage Machine. We believe, if the highly compensated Unity supporters need real Medicare, that all NYC retirees need it as well.

We believe that everyone who served the city needs the best care, particularly during the years when we are most vulnerable. We believe this extends well beyond highly compensated UFT Unity bosses, to UFT paraprofessionals, to DC37 workers, and to everyone who’s devoted their lives to serving this city.

I remember when I became a teacher. My father was not excited about it. He told me I’d never get rich. (He was right.) He told me, though, that I could expect a good retirement and excellent benefits from NYC. Michael Mulgrew sold us out.

I have no doubt he regrets that every day of his highly compensated life, as he sits at 52 Broadway, doing Whatever It Is he does up in that ivory tower.

It’s ironic that, despite being retired, we are the future. We will lead. And when rank and file sees what we have done, they will know they can do it too.

The only thing we need to do is vote. If you haven’t got a ballot, call the American Arbitration Association at 800-529-5218.

This is our time.