How Unity Bought Me Off

Swimming pools, movie stars, and creme brûlée

Before we get started, Happy New Year, all! I wish you a joyous and fulfilling 2025. We can make this year better than the last. Thank you for reading! This has been a really gratifying year for me, and I’ve loved writing for you!

When I became a chapter leader, I replaced a Unity member. He asked me whether I was going to the chapter leader training. I told him I probably would not, as I was working weekends back then. He announced that I wouldn’t be attending to all my colleagues at a meeting. I was embarrassed. I decided to attend.

It was not particularly helpful. I had over three hundred members at Francis Lewis High School, and the job was insane. I loved it, though. I was helping people all the time, and it was very gratifying. That said, when I first started, I met a friend of mine at the Delegate Assembly who was also a new chapter leader. He told me he represented only 12 members! Though I really liked this guy, I wanted to hit him at that moment. (I’m glad I didn’t, and we’re still friends.)

I really learned to be chapter leader on the job. As one crisis passed, and another took its place, I’d frantically adapt. I developed a network of supporters. James Eterno had an encyclopedic knowledge of the contract and chancellor’s regs. My DR was helpful, but often took a long time to get back to me. One day, out of the blue, Amy Arundell called and asked me for a favor.

The favor Amy needed was to help an ATR teacher get a job. This ATR was a super teacher, but found it tough to get hired. It took some time, but between Amy, my supervisor, and myself, we got this done. From then on Amy became my go-to, and she always helped immediately. If she couldn’t, she found someone who could. We weren’t always successful, but we always tried our best.

As time went by, and things began to repeat themselves, I learned to stand on my own as chapter leader, and needed less and less help. I don’t think chapter leader training was designed to help people like me. I met a lot of other people there, though, and was left with a very good idea who the training was for.

Chapter leader training catered more to this person, below:

This year, I’m a chapter leader. Everything is new to me! And when I went to my first chapter leader training weekend, my District Rep. took me aside and asked me if I was enjoying myself. I was!

What’s not to like? Here I am, staying in a fancy hotel, with my own room, and the kind of peace and quiet I haven’t known since I became a teacher three years ago. And the meals! All you can eat. There was all this fancy food, and it was amazing. Then one of the more experienced chapter leaders showed me the desserts, and introduced me to creme brûlée! I never heard of it before! It was incredible!

It’s this pudding stuff, and it’s kind of vanilla or something. It’s velvety smooth. But that’s not all! On top, there’s some kind of crust or something. They light it up and you can see the flames on it. But it was still good the second day! It forms a thin crust that’s crunchy, and it’s really, really good with the vanilla pudding stuff underneath.

Before dinner, there was a wine and cheese party, all gratis. They served appetizers, including these little crab cakes that had some kind of chipotle aioli dipping sauce. I couldn’t stop eating them. My friends were all about the little hot dogs. They were okay, but those crab cakes were incredible. It was like cocktail hour at a wedding or something

Afterward, we had a big dance party in the ballroom. The DJ was the best! I don’t know what time I went back to my room, but it was a pretty full day.

The next day were more classes, but classes there were different from ones I had attended before. For one thing, there were coffee pots and danishes outside each classroom. And the classrooms were conference rooms, not like the ones I work in, or even the ones I went to college in.

In between classes my District Rep. approached me and asked whether I was having a good time. I was having a great time! Then he asked if I’d like to do this sort of thing more often. Well of course I would!

Here, sign this, he said, and you can join the Unity Caucus. You’ll go to AFT conventions, and NYSUT conventions, all expenses paid. The AFT conventions could be anywhere in the United States, even Hawaii! And wherever they are, you’ll get meals and room comped just like you do here! UFT covers all expenses!

All you have to do is vote the way we ask, support whatever contracts and candidates we ask you to support, and if things go well, maybe you can get a cool after school gig working in a UFT office somewhere. And there are all sorts of extra trips you might get to go on!

Man, this is so much better than my job! Everything is clean, no one is screaming at me, and no one is coming in to evaluate me. I see a lot of creme brûlée in my future!

And as for you crazies out there bitching just because you don’t get to vote on your health insurance, your co-pays are through the roof, your pay doesn’t keep up with inflation, or because your supervisor is certifiably insane, all I can say to you is this—Are you gonna provide me with creme brûlée?

I didn’t think so!

That’s why I’m sticking with the Unity Caucus!