How the mighty fall. NYC Mayor Eric Adams was just indicted. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to see corrupt leaders go down. For my money, union leaders who’ve spent years trying to benefit mayors, their contractual adversaries, instead of their members, certainly qualify. While we’re not likely to see them frog marched out of their offices, we’ve certainly got the power to vote them out.
And I don’t want to hear about how tough it is to get by on triple the average teacher salary either. Leadership is never an easy thing, and that includes those of us who stick to our actual jobs.
When I became chapter leader, I noticed that things everywhere suddenly became my fault. Not all were within my control. I worked in a big school with hundreds of members, so there were always problems. Sometimes I made mistakes. When I did, I simply said, “I’m sorry,” and corrected what needed correcting. (I do that in the classroom too.) For my money, that’s how you resolve a mistake you make.
I worked up a network of support sources. Frequently, I’d go to uft.org, look stuff up, and send links and quotes in emails. People thought I knew everything. I most certainly did not. But every time I resolved an issue, I knew what to do the next time it popped up. I also worked up a pretty substantial support network. The late James Eterno was a great help to me. Amy Arundell was amazing and knew no fear. Unlike many of her colleagues, she never held it against me that I wasn’t part of her caucus.
The first time I ran for chapter leader, I had three opponents. I ran three more times, and no one opposed me again. I went out of my way to help everyone, no matter my personal feelings, and I really loved the job. It was tough, and there was always conflict. I found a balance and kept doing it until I learned just how discouraged a person could become providing online instruction.
Contrast self-correction, willingness to learn and/ or apologies with the Unity message:
This is a complex issue. You are all too stupid to understand why we need to sell out your health insurance. Sure, the NY State Supreme Court says this is an inferior plan. Sure, they say your doctors may not accept it. Sure, they say, and even Aetna says that you will have procedures your doctors want denied. Sure, there are issues with these plans and everyone knows it.
But we say that’s not true. Trust us. Never mind that the first plan, which we said was the bestest ever, went right down the drain. This time for sure! And we’ve excluded some pre-approvals temporarily. Will they return once we dump you into the system and they expire? Who knows? Trust us!
Even after retirees vote them out 2-1, they continue singing this same song. And the next verse? The one that comes after Mulgrew says he opposes MA and blames the city? The verse after he takes no responsibility whatsoever, and does absolutely nothing to make sure we don’t end up having Aetna staff, or even Aetna AI making our medical decisions?
You have been hoodwinked, Unity tells us, by retired paramedic Marianne Pizzitola. You are her puppets!
She’s an interloper! Who the hell does she think she is, organizing thousands of retirees, raising all kinds of money, and battling the program in which we have decided to dump you? We know what’s good for you, and she has no right to interfere!
Listen, here’s what’s important—it’s our job to organize thousands of people. Never mind that we aren’t doing anything of the sort. Never mind Pizzitola is working to retain your benefits while we’re working to reduce them. Put it out of your mind that NYC Retirees fight against co-pays while we battle for them. This is our job, we know better than her, we know better than you, and we know better than everyone and anyone. Trust us!
Unity is freaked out that we wish to invite Marianne to address our first RTC meeting. They’re quite accustomed to having us sit down and shut up. Maybe all those folks with Unity retiree shirts will protest. I’m good with that. Let’s observe the behavior of the “champions of civility.” The fact is I attended a year of Tom Murphy’s meetings. He did his darndest to pretend there was no health care issue. We listened to a bunch of people tell us how great things were.
We were told our signs were not allowed. We were limited in how many questions we could ask (if indeed we could ask any). There was never a motion period. There was never an opportunity to vote. At all. On anything whatsoever. Let them wear their shirts and battle to bring that back.
Some people like Medicare Advantage, said Tom Murphy. I understand that. MA is great, if you don’t get sick. But Unity badly bungled our issue—we did not want to lose our health care. Unity, despite all their talk, has done absolutely nothing to support our cause, or us, when you get right down to it.
The bottom line is this—we no longer trust them. This Sunday at 9:30, Unity is holding a huge Pity Party at Westinghouse High School in Brooklyn. I hear they’re holding a separate meeting with Unity retirees. The problem with Unity is this—they think that by going on Facebook and insulting people like me they will score points, somehow.
They have no other play, no other thought. Let’s insult our opponents. Let’s make things as difficult as possible for them at every juncture. Let’s subvert the ones who win elections every way we can. Here’s the thing—a great deal of our work, because of Unity’s juvenile intransigence, is outside of the union structure. We ally with Marianne and NYC Retirees because, unlike the Unity Caucus, they fight for our cause.
Any time Unity wants to fix that, I’m open. Any time they want to work with us, I’m ready. However, espero sentado. I shall sit while I wait.
Unity fights to keep their jobs, to make more money, to stay out of the classroom, to gain second pensions funded by us. They do nothing to support us and seem to believe their primitive antics will make people vote for them. They are clueless beyond belief. Let them meet. Let them plot.
If I were Michael Mulgrew, I would publicly apologize for trying to sell out retirees. I would make sure retirees retained their health care, no matter what I had to do to attain it. Were he to do that, he might earn back a little trust. From all I can see, he hasn’t got it in him. Nor has his caucus.
And honestly, why should they? While we work in schools (and I still do f-status, three days a week), dealing with difficult students, overcrowding, and supervisors of every stripe, they sit in climate-controlled offices doing relatively cushy jobs.
I don’t want a cushy union job. That said, the RTC voted for me. They want me working for them. That’s why I’m here. Compare my work to that of the person who ran/ runs the UFT Facebook group they’re trying to steal from us. She ran a highly censored site that never reflected member interests (and yes, I will cover that in more detail). She assiduously suppressed our voices, and for that she pulled in over 38K from our dues, as of the last year I can look up online. Nice work if you can get it. Still, I wouldn’t do it at any price.
We are interested in representing the members. We’re interested in amplifying member voice. We’re interested in improving conditions for working and retired UFT members. We’re interested in savings for union members, for working people,as opposed to Eric Indicted Adams. We’re absolutely not interested in establishing a veritable one percent for ourselves, as the elite, privileged, invitation-only Unity Caucus has done.
Let them do their worst. Last I looked, worst is what they do best. They are the disease, and our votes are the cure.
Change is coming. Circle May on your calendar.
Mulgrew showed up and was interviewed by local NYC news, all innocent, regarding mayoral travails. There is a public relations arm we are missing. Please put out a press release, labeled as such, find news outlets, reporters, volunteer (Bennet Fisher?) for interviews with a succinctly prepared sound bite. We are not yet professional. Mulgrew is getting PR advice. (I was a small newspaper/magazine journalist for decades before DOE, school social worker.)