In Gratitude

I'm very grateful to those of you who read my scribblings

I’m having a medical procedure this morning, and may be offline for a few days. It’s not anything life-threatening, but it’s got me in a reflective state of mind. I’m very grateful to have real Medicare, so as not to require Aetna’s pre-approval.

While I’m deeply grateful for my family (dogs included), I’m going to focus on people and things Union Matters related, as that’s where we are. If you’re reading this at all, I appreciate you for that alone.

I very much appreciate those of you who’ve invited me into your private inboxes. I have multiple email addresses for different reasons. I maintain one for commercial stuff, one for personal stuff, and as I’m working F-status at Francis Lewis High School, I have a DOE email as well. I’m territorial about my email, and if I have a say, I don’t let just anyone in. I’m sure I wouldn’t be in yours if you didn’t consider it important.

I’m thankful to Marianne Pizzitola and the NYC Retirees for assuming leadership when we faced cuts to our health care. With none coming from the Imperial Unity Patronage Cult, they satisfied an urgent need. At first I didn’t see them for what they were. That said, the more I learned about the differences between traditional Medicare and so-called “Advantage,” the more I realized we were being sold out by people we paid to represent us.

I thank Bennett Fischer for being brave enough to be Chapter Leader of RTC. I thank him for his incredible patience as he continually negotiates with Unity leadership. He forges ahead as Unity Big Shots struggle to appear that they don’t hate him and everything he stands for. I thank Retiree Advocate for successfully opposing those same “leaders,” who sell us out for less than nothing. I thank them also for inviting me to be part of their slate.

I’m thankful for everyone who comments here. I don’t always agree with comments, and I don’t always respond, but I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts.

Thanks to my paid subscribers, who’ve decided this work deserves support. I very much appreciate it. Among other things, you help with my frequent contributions to NYC Retirees, and I’m going to make another right now, in your name. I do, in fact, spend a lot of time writing and editing these pieces.

Alas, I also find typos and errors, no matter how many times I go over stuff. Frequently, I correct them on the page, but am too late to correct emails that have already gone out. Sometimes editing for one mistake simply creates another. For all that, I apologize.

I’m grateful to those who send this work out on listservs. I’ve never really been good with them, for one reason or another. But several of you, particularly Norm Scott and Pat Dobosz, have been fantastic about getting this out there. Thus, folks who are even more protective of their email addresses than I am get to read this.

You probably don’t expect me to thank UFT Unity. I was pretty shocked when they used my dues money to pay lawyers to threaten me. That was a new low, even for them. Very shortly after I published that, my former domain, nyceducator.com, was blocked on Blogger. While I can’t know this for certain, I strongly suspect those same lawyers sent a cease and desist to Blogger’s owner, Google. I don’t much believe in coincidence. Regardless, as a result I ended up here, with thousands more readers than I ever had on Blogger. So thank you, Unity.

Sure, from time to time I kid our friends in the Unity Caucus, as they’ve sold out our health care, and hire for loyalty rather than competence. Like most members, of course, I don’t much appreciate patronage recipients who are spectacularly incompetent. However, I know some good people who ended up in Unity (albeit likely as not by accident). They are diamonds in the rough (as opposed to opportunists at the trough). I won’t mention you here as thin-skinned King Mulgrew might fire you for it, but I do appreciate you.

I appreciate those who give me story ideas. I owe a great debt to Daniel Alicea, who is on top of everything, always, despite working full time and taking care of several amazing young kids. (He also creates remarkable images.) Marianne Pizzitola seems to know everything about our struggle, and from time to time, shares info with me. Norm Scott will clue me in to things I hadn’t noticed, and give me the push I need to write about them.

I thank Nick Bacon, for his incredible energy and devotion. He is the primary writer of the New Action Blog, and reports in detail what happens at both the UFT Delegate Assembly and the Executive Board. I used to do that myself (and may do so for the DA in the future, now that I’m a delegate again). But I love Nick’s approach. He writes a few paragraphs to start, summing up what’s important, and leaves it to readers whether they wish to plod through the rest. I’m also just discovering Ronnie Almonte, who recently write a great piece about the priorities of our Welfare Fund.

While I’m more focused on health care these days, I very much appreciate the warriors who work to protect public education (particularly since UFT Unity so frequently drops the ball). I’ll mention just a few. Of course there’s Diane Ravitch, whose books finally made crystal clear to me why Bloomberg was doing what he did. There’s tireless class size advocate Leonie Haimson, who runs Class Size Matters and takes no guff from the powers that be. And there’s Carol Burris, a former principal (!). She’s been fighting insane mandates and so-called “school choice” for decades, and shows no sign of slowing down.

I very much appreciate my colleagues, especially those in the language and ENL departments, at Francis Lewis High School. I appreciate Floraine Kay, my current co-teacher, who has a unique gift for teaching. There’s also my extraordinary AP, Jackie Irving, who, aside from being the best ESL teacher I’ve ever seen, can write (a big thing, in my book) and has a keen sense of humor.

As chapter leader, I had all sorts of conversations with FLHS Principal David Marmor. Once, I told him if I were an ATR, I’d never be hired, regardless of teaching ability. I’d established myself as a pain in the neck who wrote about everything and spoke to reporters about anything. “I’d hire you,” he said. I was skeptical. And yet, despite intense disagreements we’d had over the years, he did that very thing after I retired. I’m grateful for that (and also to be able to keep at least one foot in the classroom).

I’m grateful that, one day in 1984, as a newly unemployed musician, I saw a subway ad, saying if you have a college degree, we need you to be a New York City teacher. My first year was brutal, with 5 preps and the worst administration I’ve ever known. I’m surprised I made it through. Despite all the nonsense perpetually swirling around education, since I figured out how to do this job, I’ve loved it.

Finally, I’m grateful for the great privilege of retirement, a gift few Americans have anymore, a gift that affords us the freedom to do things we love. It’s on us, as union, to preserve this, to set an example for other unions, and even non-union employees. That’s why, while we have leadership intent on moving us backward, we must resist.

I hope we can be an activist union again, and inspire other Americans to demand what we have and more. More immediately, I'd like to ensure our in-service colleagues retain it as well. Our fight is for their rights as well as our own. We proved last year that we have the will to change things.

Next year we will take it full circle, and elect leaders instead of self-serving, self-important bosses. Then, we’ll all have one more thing for which to be thankful.