Do You Know What This Is?

Most city teachers, evidently, do not.

(Hold that thought, please.)

I’m fond of British television. Whenever I spy a sale, I subscribe to Britbox and Acorn TV for a few months and catch up. On Acorn, there’s a show called You’re Killing Me that features Brooke Shields. She’s very funny in this. That said, I’m surprised I like it.

Why? For one thing, it’s not even British. I think it’s supposed to take place in New England, but it’s filmed in Canada. This notwithstanding, there’s a subgenre that transcends British TV, and it’s this—you’re in some bucolic or luxury setting with a whole bunch of well-off people, and every week someone is murdered.

Maybe this started with Miss Marple (and maybe that’s why I’ve never read Miss Marple). Still, if I were to move to Honolulu and someone got murdered every week I was there, I’d begin to wonder whether the palm trees and ocean were really worth it. Couldn’t I buy a passable piñacolada in Jackson Heights and just pretend?

In Murder She Wrote, did Angela Lansbury run around killing everyone just so she could solve the crimes? Is kindly Father Brown actually a serial murderer? I know—these theories are highly unlikely. Equally unlikely, though, is the premise that someone in a random idyllic setting gets murdered every week. (In my neighborhood, modest though it may be, we rarely have more than two or three murders a month.)

Somehow, when there’s a pattern like that, things must change.

Why, then, in our United Federation of Teachers, do we repeatedly make the same unforced error? Our largest mistake, by far, is electing Unity over and over again. How many times have they demonstrated to us that they can’t negotiate their way out of a paper bag? As we allow them to win again and again, what could we be thinking?

Maybe you’re saying, “I never voted for Unity.” And maybe that’s the case. But did you ever vote at all?

As you’ve taken the time to read this, it’s likely you have. You take an interest in our union and what it does. Alas, most do not. Most think “the union” is a free pair of eyeglasses here and there, or some person in the building we can bitch to when we get a crappy schedule. And depending on who that person is, it’s someone who tries to help, or someone who just doesn’t.

That’s a pretty cynical view of union, but it seems prevalent. 72% of members couldn’t be bothered voting in the last officer election. That’s a marginal improvement over the last one, but still, the landslide victor, yet again, is I Don’t Give a Crap. If we’re all union, that’s an epic fail.

Unity Caucus likes it that way, as it’s kept them in patronage gigs forever. Apathy is their super power.

Nowhere is this more evident than at the Delegate Assembly. Mulgrew talks as long as he likes, telling us how smart he is and what a fabulous job he’s doing. As far as I can tell, he’s never, ever made a mistake. Anyone who thinks he has is a rowdy hooligan being contrary for no good reason. He as much as said this at a recent DA.

All around him are his loyal supporters. I’ve been to many, many meetings. I remember once there was an incentive for ATR teachers to retire. I don’t recall what it was, but I remember ATR teachers telling me it was laughable unless you happened to be retiring anyway.

Still, at the UFT Executive Board, a chapter leader who had two dozen members at his school claimed to have met two ATR teachers that day who were raving about what a wonderful incentive it was. This was obvious fiction, and I doubt he knew a single ATR. Nonetheless, he was willing to get up and say that, and now he’s a full-time UFT employee.

Guys like him are why, back in the days when you called UFT and didn’t need to wade through Salesforce, you’d often get terrible advice. As a new teacher, I once transferred to a new school. The old one held my paycheck until I returned my keys. This was a tough ask, as I had another concurrent job some distance away. The UFT rep told me to call the police. I took a day off instead, returned the keys, and retrieved my check.

Service is rewarding. Helping people is rewarding. I didn’t make any money being chapter leader, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. On the other hand, lying about your corrupt leader so you can keep a cushy gig is something else entirely, yet common as dirt. As a result, well over half of our union has tuned out and given up. Walk to a mailbox? For this? Forget it.

Unity loves that attitude. In fact, to make sure nothing changes, they just rubber stamped a plan to not allow online voting. Check how it works out for other unions? Nah. Analyze our pathetic turnout? Why bother? Representatives of ostensible opposition groups ARISE and Retiree Advocate joined them in accepting the status quo. Unity can’t believe its luck having an opposition that doesn’t bother opposing.

My friends in ABC voted no, but were vastly outnumbered. Unity, exercising its self-awarded royal powers, stacked the deck so that even if all opposition deemed it worthwhile to, you know, oppose, they would prevail. In typical authoritarian fashion, they appointed enough Unity members to win regardless.

Here’s the thing about Unity members—they don’t really make choices. They signed an oath to vote as they’re told. If they fail to do so, they’re fired. In the upper echelons of our union, competency is meaningless. Anyone failing to demonstrate sufficient fealty to Snowflake-in-Chief Mulgrew is out on their keester.

Michael Mulgrew talks a big game about due process, but acts like the worst principal in the city.

Restrictive voting? Check Hiring for loyalty rather than ability? Check. And the Delegate Assembly? You know what really says outright that it’s a show rather than a union meeting? Every month, we get an email from Mike Sill that says highlights from the meeting. Sill highlights that Mulgrew said this, and Mulgrew said that. What members did or said, if indeed anything, is of no consequence whatsoever.

It feels like we’re all living in North Korea. If this is the kind of union we want, we need do nothing at all. That’s precisely what Unity counts on. It’s worked for decades.

If we’re really “New York’s Brightest,” or anything remotely resembling that, we’re gonna have to get off our collective ass and vote, even if it means walking to that frigging mailbox.