I've Been Kicked Out of Better Places than This

No more creme brûlée for Steve , Amy or Leah!

Above you see Steve Swieciki, Amy Arundell, and Leah Lin. They’ve just been expelled from the Unity Caucus. As anyone can plainly see, they’re forlorn and brokenhearted.

Steve is the chapter leader of Lehman High School. Lehman is a very special place for me. It’s the first place I ever taught. In 1984, I was a musician, just back from Europe, with no work stateside. All I had was a big old brown Mercury, and my driver’s license was on the verge of expiration. While I was riding the subway back from Jamaica DMV, where I stood on a long, long line to renew my license, I saw an ad that changed my life. There were all these happy people, and a message that says, “If you have a college degree, you can teach in NYC.”

I wanted to be happy too. So I went to Court St., took a writing test, and they dispatched me to Lehman HS. On my ninth day, I was formally observed. I was advised, in writing, to be more “heuristic.” There was also the plain implication that I didn’t know what I was doing. This puzzled me, because I’d freely admitted that when hired. Later in my career, it became important for me to support those in need—I recall exactly what it’s like to have no support whatsoever.

In 1984, I met the UFT chapter leader of Lehman in a men’s room. He said, “Pssst—kid, you wanna join the union?” He gave me a little card that I filled out and mailed. At the time, I had some vague notion that union was a good thing.

The current chapter leader of Lehman is Steve, on the left in the photo. I assume he has a better approach to recruiting. That said, I know he saved a few para jobs when they were unfairly dismissed. He further managed to get a reluctant DOE to cough up for lost pay when one was unjustly suspended without it.

Steve became disenchanted with Unity when they hid health care givebacks in Appendix B back in 2018. He also did not much care for leadership instructing members to shun brothers and sister unionists who didn’t drink the Unity Kool-Aid. The last straw, for him, was when they publicly shamed a working paraprofessional who needed a second job to make ends meet.

On ABC presidential candidate Amy Arundell, Steve says:

I was the delegate at The Cinema School, and my chapter was dealing with a toxic bully of a principal who was stonewalling us in consultation. Amy was a Special Rep who came, at our request, to one of our consultation meetings and helped us break the impasse with the principal on several issues. We stayed in touch after that and became friendly over the years.

When she became Queens Borough Rep, I heard from countless friends in Queens schools who had similar stories to my own — Amy coming in not only with an assist, but also helping members organize themselves more effectively.

On the right you see Leah Lin. Leah’s a chapter leader as well, and has thousands of followers on Instagram. Her focus there is on contractual rights and empowering members. I’ve watched some of her videos, and she’s clear and authoritative. What’s more, she appears to make them in the morning before work (when folks like me are barely able to utter complete sentences). I’d bet she’s a great teacher. Leah takes action when she sees a need—she spearheaded a GoFundMe after a student passed and managed to raise $60,000 for the student’s family.

Leah has this to say about Amy:

She always had a vision on how to make our union stronger. She cared about people, showed empathy. And she always inspired me to do more because she herself always wanted to do more.

In the center of the photo, you see Amy, who’s managed to inspire a whole lot of us in UFT. While my hair grows grayer day by day, hers just gets more purple. But that’s not why we’re drawn to her. Once, we were out somewhere discussing something or other, and she said something that stuck with me:

I’m a worker bee. ~Amy Arundell

When Amy took over the Queens office, everyone noticed the change. As chapter leader of a big school, one thing I found frustrating was the grievance process. I’d file grievances, and they’d sit for months—sometimes years. All of a sudden, my District Representative was calling me and asking me about them. Have you had any action on this grievance? On that one?

Now, you may have noticed me being a wee bit critical of Unity Caucus from time to time. As a new chapter leader, barely anyone from Unity spoke to me. When I spoke to them, they tended to be curt and sarcastic in their replies. After a while, I stopped wasting my time with such nonsense.

Amy was different. She’d come to Lewis and address the staff whenever I invited her. Sometimes we got along. Sometimes we disagreed. In fact, the last time she came, she spoke in favor of the last contract. I spoke against it. We’ve always been able to disagree and respect one another nonetheless. Not only that, but Amy evolves. She grows and learns. That’s a good quality in a teacher (or any leader).

Amy’s not afraid of tough questions, and she won’t be ridiculing you, let alone turning off your mike at the DA. The ability to tolerate and respect dissenting opinions is an important quality, sorely lacking in current leadership. Frankly, I’ve seen the very same lack of tolerance in all the caucuses, sometimes shockingly up close and personal.

I’d noticed Amy well before she came to our school or took over in Queens. One morning, out of the blue, Amy called me. I was a little surprised. Amy got right down to business, She demanded I get an ATR teacher a job at Francis Lewis High School. I was surprised, yet very sympathetic to ATR teachers.

This person, said Amy, is a super teacher. For reasons I won’t share here, the person failed to make good initial impressions. No one was giving this teacher a chance. This person was very unhappy as an ATR, and wanted nothing more than to actually get back to teaching. I was intrigued.

I spoke with my Assistant Principal (the one who placed this letter in my file). She was open to giving this teacher a chance. She put the teacher in front of a few classes, and was favorably impressed. Unfortunately, the teacher froze in front of the principal, and went back to the ATR. Shortly thereafter, we got a new principal, tried again, and managed to get this teacher appointed. I’m very proud of that effort, but it was a team effort—along with Amy, my AP, and eventually, the current principal of FLHS.

We never gave up.

After the first time Amy called, I decided she owed me a favor. I’d been developing a network of support. My district rep was not bad, but he’d sometimes take days to get back to me. I often could not wait. I’d relied a lot on the late James Eterno. James knew the contract back and forth, and freely quoted chancellor’s regs, which at the time were very new to me. James, of course, was a teacher and chapter leader. He was also trying to save Jamaica High School. He was a little busy.

Amy was busy too, but she made it her business to get back to me immediately. When I had members being presented with 3020a charges (which are attempts to fire a pedagogue), she picked up the phone right away. She knew exactly what I needed to do. In at least one such case, Amy made a suggestion that ended up saving a teacher’s job.

If I were in trouble, there is no one I’d rather have in my corner than Amy. And now that she’s shed the shackles of the Unity Caucus and its odious loyalty oath, there’s nothing to hold her back. No longer will the UFT lobby against its own retirees. No longer will we have to wait until election time for improvements to the Welfare Fund.

And we’ll give paraprofessionals a raise instead of a (possible) tip. We will lead. As such, we won’t ridicule paras, and we won’t ridicule retirees either. Instead, we’ll fight for members.

To lead our union, there is no one more qualified than Amy Arundell.

Amy is the only candidate beholden to no caucus or set ideology. Her guiding light is serving members. ABC will fight for better working conditions, for fair salary increases, and will halt the insane practice of surrendering health care for sub-standard compensation increases.

I’m all in, and I’m excited. We can have a real union instead of a decrepit patronage mill run by what is, essentially, a cult.

It’s about time.