History Is SO Darn Unforgiving

And it's a long, slow learning curve for poor UFT Unity

When I was a kid, I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle. Bullwinkle could never successfully pull a rabbit out of his hat, and that makes sense. After all, how many times have you pulled a rabbit out of a hat? Granted, there are better magicians than Bullwinkle, but none of them leave their hats lying around my house, at least.

Ever since they lost two major elections, Michael Mulgrew and his entire Unity Patronage Cult have been endeavoring in vain to pull that rabbit out of a hat, or from, well, anywhere. They’d never lost a major election before, and had no notion how to behave. At first, they thought they’d had an epiphany:

Let’s say we now oppose the Medicare Advantage plan we’ve been trying to dump on the retirees. Let’s say we now oppose the 10% cheaper plan we’ve been itching to dump on everyone else.

In fairness, that’s not really all they did. They also had a lawyer write a letter saying UFT opposes the MA plan. It was sent back because they had no standing. But instead of redoing it, the correct way, they say, “You see? We did something.” And instead of admitting the MA plan is inferior and NOT what we were promised, as has been established in court, Unity blames the city.

They introduced a resolution at the AFT Convention. Sure, they’d introduced similar resolutions before. Yes, the RTC had passed a resolution opposing the privatization of Medicare well before Unity started forcing it upon us. And sure, the DA passed it as well. But this time, they really, really meant it. Not like those other times.

Yet here we are, one court case away from being dumped into Aetna Medicare Advantage. All those Unity resolutions. All those Unity good intentions. All those votes, all that sound, fury, and patronage signifying nothing.

UFT Unity, as I’ve written before, thinks we are a bunch of galoots. They think we’ll buy anything they sell. Frankly, for most of my career they’ve been correct. Things have changed, but even after being clobbered in two concurrent elections, no one’s sent Unity the memo. Dealing with adversity is just not in their DNA.

When they dusted off a resolution at the DA, last agreed to in 2007, to do something about COLA in pensions, they expected us all jump up and cheer. They expected us to think, “They fixed it!” instead of thinking, “They’re promising to fix it again, just like they promised to do 17 years ago, failed, and are now promising again.”

More intentions. And on the basis of said intentions, the relative goodness of which is dubious at best, they expect us to vote for them. They expect us to oust RTC Chapter Leader Bennett Fischer, immediately if not sooner. But Bennett, unlike Unity, actually allows us to vote. By virtue of that alone, it’s hard for me to imagine how Unity woos anyone back.

Predictably, they’re going about it all wrong. They can’t help themselves. Their longstanding custom is to say, “We stand for this,” or “We oppose that,.” Then, solely on that basis, they demand applause and adulation. It makes no difference, apparently, when they unilaterally reverse said positions. When Unity, against the will of the Delegate Assembly, promotes Medicare Advantage, or opposes New York Health Act, they figure that’s fine.

I probably should not offer advice to the Unity Caucus. After all, I’d like their perpetual control over us to come to an end. I’d like their awful, awful deals to come to a screeching halt. I’d like to see democracy practiced in my union, just as it was at the RTC meeting last week. In fact, I’d like to see leadership that does what teachers do—elicit thoughts and opinions. Members are the heart and soul of our union, and we need to elevate their voices, not lecture them about civility.

Leadership needs to encourage and respect member action, not bend over backward trying to suppress it. The fact is a whole lot of retirees support NYC Retirees, because NYC Retirees support us. I gladly donate a whole lot more to them than I pay in union dues.

I emailed Michael Mulgrew and Unity months ago what they needed to do. If they want a shot at regaining our support, they have to stop trying to bamboozle us with happy-sounding resolutions. If Unity ever wants retirees to vote for them again, they need to actually support NYC Retirees, who are battling to support our health care—Unity needs to put our money where their mouth is. They need to donate as though it’s some gala Mulgrew wants to attend. They need to file amicus motions, the right way.

Furthermore, Unity needs to make sure a bill to protect us is passed either at the city or state level, or preferably both. If they do that, there’s a road back. Honestly, though, Mulgrew’s statement that he’d only fight for us if we lost at the Court of Appeals, NY State’s highest court, is ineffective. Mulgrew, having never been judged by Danielson, may not know that term. As a longtime chapter leader, I know the sting it holds for teachers.

Of course, Mulgrew had more important things to do than answer my letter. Maybe he’s off having breakfast with the mayor. I hear that, when Christine Quinn, the former City Council Speaker who enabled Bloomberg’s third term, holds a 10K per table gala, he’s there with his BFFs, paid for by our dues. You won’t catch and rank and file there. On October 2nd, Adcom approved maybe 30K in trips and donations. Likely they’re good causes. But—why isn’t our health care a good cause?

Unlike Mulgrew, you won’t find yourself gifted 8K in US Open Tickets any time soon. Of course, those US Open tickets came from now-dissolved law firm Stroock and Stroock. We paid them tens of millions to do Very Important Work. One Stroock or another threatened members for using the UFT logo when they wrote, and threatened me with civil and criminal penalties for the offense of parodying Michael Mulgrew. So what if Mulgrew took a teeny-tiny kickback from lawyers creative enough to go after members while being paid by their dues?

With such Important Business at hand, why should Mulgrew answer member email? I happen to be the Vice-Chair of the Retired Teacher Chapter. It’s just a title, really. There’s no job attached to it except the one I’ve created for myself.

Just because the overwhelming majority of my peers elected me, that’s no reason for the President of our union to lower himself and respond to me. Ask yourself this—when is some lowly member, title or no title, going to gift him tennis tickets? Furthermore, the 200,000 of us have ten minutes a month at the DA to ask him questions. Shouldn’t that be enough?

Unity is free to ignore my concerns. Still, those concerns are largely why they lost the RTC election. Admittedly, I’m not advising Unity Caucus. The people who are, the ones who demand civility, have different ideas. They think the way to win hearts and minds is through insightful, creative measures like name-calling, or shutting out member voice. For example:

Hijack the Delegate Assembly, over which you have total control. Make sure the people who sit through two hours of it have no time to get any business done, Then, unroll a sparkly resolution. Hope no one notices it’s a retread from 2007. Pretend you are a silent film hero untying a damsel from a railroad track.

Since you don’t control it, disrupt the RTC meeting. Insult their guests. Insult the people running it. Boast of how you demanded the valuable privilege of paying 5K per couple, per annum, to start, for health care they now get for free. Then, of course, preach about how tirelessly you fight for premium-free health care.

I mean, they must know what they’re doing. Mulgrew calls them “very smart people.” They’re canny enough to twist themselves into pretzels doing everything except fixing the problem that they created.

They’ll boldly go on social media and anonymously criticize me, Norm Scott, Daniel Alicea, and Nick Bacon for everything but the problem Unity created. They’ll ridicule UFT paraprofessionals for working second jobs to make ends meet. They’ll withhold their names or use phony ones, and make baseless abusive claims. But they won’t directly address or resolve the problem.

That makes them the problem.

We are the solution.