Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Along with"Sit Down and Shut Up," a Unity motto

Mulgrew fancies himself a king, but that’s on us for putting up with him. He bullies his way into our Retired Teacher Chapter meeting, lies that he simply wants to say happy holidays, and demands we join him in working against our interests. He precluded our vote to support 1096, but at the next meeting, 82% of us told him where to stick his ideas.

On the whole, though, our union is transfixed with apathy the likes of which, as teachers, should shame us to no end. It’s true that our jobs are challenging, sometimes unbelievably so. It can drive us to give up, but we are New York City teachers. We are tough. We face and overcome any and all challenges.

It’s on us to rise and respond. In this, Mulgrew’s patronage cult holds considerable sway. However, as we see in the so-called para respect bill, Unity only does so when backed against a wall (or in the case of paras, a three to one electoral loss). We can push that office, or even take it over, but only if we focus and work at it.

There’s a piece in the Daily News that grabbed my attention this week. Evidently, a superintendent’s husband is alleged to have concealed his identity to post things about one of Unity’s Most Faithful, District Representative Adam Shapiro. The article does not specify accusations against Shapiro. However, the main story is the unsubstantiated allegation against the superintendent’s husband.

It’s curious to me that one unsubstantiated allegation merits a story while the other does not even merit mention. I don’t know exactly what the rationale is here, and I suppose you’d have to ask the reporter. I also don’t know how guilty either party is.

What I do know, though, is that Unity makes a policy of trotting out anonymous attackers. They write Substacks, often as not via AI, and conceal their identities. Why? Well, if you knew that the person writing the piece was being paid with our dues, you might infer that they were motivated by protecting their salary and privilege, as opposed to informing us.

Through the last two campaigns, I’ve had people posting personal attacks against my friends and me. They sometimes came here and posted in the comments. Fairly quickly, I determined to ban anyone doing this without disclosing their identity. They would generally bitch about it here or elsewhere. But not one of them admitted who they were.

It’s not only ironic, but also disingenuous that Unity musters the audacity to accuse people of what, for them, is standard operating procedure.

While not the direct target of the complaints, Lynch-Reyes found herself in the crosshairs. After the setback came to light, her husband, Miguel Reyes — according to the UFT’s general counsel, Beth Norton — allegedly struck back. Falsely claiming to be a staff member at the Midwood school named Jose Tricoche, he made a series of social media posts personally attacking Shapiro, the union claimed.

“The UFT has a good faith basis to believe that ‘Jose Tricoche’ is Ms. Lynch-Reyes’ spouse, Miguel Reyes,” Norton wrote in a Jan. 13 letter to Liz Vladeck, the top lawyer for the city’s public school system.

Hey, for all I know, she’s right. But “good faith basis” is not actually evidence (and I personally trust anyone repping Unity about as far as I can throw them).

I’ve had multiple anonymous Unity Hacks in my comments section. Sometimes, they portray themselves as simply uninterested observers. Then I go to their profiles and see they subscribe to every Unity Substack there is. They whine about censorship when I tell them they can give their real names or be blocked.

Here’s the thing—they’re liars. They know it too. They’re too fraidy-scared to tell who they are. If they did, their motivation would become clear. It’s pathetic. More pathetic is that, fancying themselves Masters of the Universe, they see fit to complain when others indulge in the same practices they do.

Let’s talk about Michael Mulgrew’s crack lawyer, Beth Norton, whose salary we pay with our dues. He trotted her out at that December RTC meeting to join in his attack on Intro 1096. Perish forbid we should pass a regulation to protect our health care from Michael Mulgrew, who’s demonstrated he’d sell us out in a New York Minute.

Mulgrew brought her up to underline his false claims that protecting our health care was somehow a violation of the Taylor Law. This law restricts working people, not retirees. Norton being a lawyer, Mulgrew saw her presence as an appeal to authority, another in Unity’s giant grab bag of logical fallacies.

It’s certainly true that lawyers should know the law. It’s also true, though, that we sometimes call them “mouthpieces.” Their jobs entail arguing in favor of their clients. Of course there are multiple sides to any story, but Beth Norton’s job is punching up Unity’s, however flimsy it may be.

UFT lawyers have attacked my freedom of speech, as well as that of my slate, ABC. They seem to feel their prime membership directive, Sit Down and Shut Up, trumps the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Their legal maneuvers are frivolous and capricious, but good enough when their only purpose is appeasing King Mulgrew.

It’s good, though, that Beth Norton is ready to spring into action with great alacrity when needed. This bodes well for her continued employment, as snowflake Mulgrew can’t wait to purge anyone who displeases him.

That said, Norton is not remotely this effective at other things. When some cowardly misogynist asshole dropped a photo of my friend Amy Arundell in UFT urinals, with a legend stating, “Piss on my face,” Norton was unable to determine who did it. To use her words, I have “good faith basis” to believe it was a Unity member who saw fit to do this.

Despite the fact that this happened at UFT HQ, and despite the fact that there are, in fact, cameras all over the place, even outside the frigging bathroom door, neither Norton nor anyone on her crack legal team was able to discover who did this. Where there’s a will, there’s usually a way to get to the bottom of such things.

Of course, if you’d rather not get your BFFs in trouble, you might not be motivated to discover what they did. I don’t trust Unity to investigate itself, and I don’t trust their lawyers to do so either. Do you?

It’s sad that our leadership so plainly (and so obviously) adopts double standards. It’s important, though, that we call them out on such things. Mulgrew may fancy himself a king, but he’s just an everyday demagogue. He may in fact step down soon. If he does, just like the legendary Hydra, a largely identical head will take the place of his.

It’s solely on us to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Thanks to Daniel A. for graphic.