Let's Ask Some Questions
RTC leadership has invited the UFT Political Director to address us.
If it were up to me (and of course it isn’t), I would not be inviting the UFT political director, Vanecia Wilson, to address our first meeting in three months. Don’t get me wrong—I have nothing against her. She seems very nice, and the last time she spoke she let me know there was an event to support our current Congresswoman Laura Gillen in my home town of Freeport.
I searched the UFT website in vain to find exactly where and when that event was. I ended up making a bunch of phone calls and only because I know people, I found out. When I got there, I saw it was the same handful of UFT staffers that show up to every event. They need to be there so Unity can pretend we have an activist union—a big reason they need replacing. But that was hardly Vanecia’s fault. This stuff surely predates her tenure, and were it not for her, I’d never have heard about it at all.
Were it up to me, I’d invite experts on the crap shoot Unity is playing with our pension fund, and I’d make sure we heard about every angle of this issue, not just the Unity spin. I’d then allow the chapter the opportunity to discuss and vote on whether or not to support it. This bill has evidently been under discussion for two years. That’s more than enough time to have presented it in detail, debated it, and voted on it.
Alas, caucus leaderships don’t fret over such details. Information? Debates? Voting? Instead, Mulgrew gets up, presents himself, like he’s just wheeled in the Ten Commandments from the alley off Broadway, and insults anyone who dares question his Word. (They don’t mouth off like that on the 14th floor, if they know what’s good for them.)
This notwithstanding, the market is particularly volatile at this juncture, and I’m not inclined to invest an extra dime. The union has misled us repeatedly about this plan, most recently claiming to oppose it when they’d evidently already committed to it. Had they really opposed it, at this point they’d be lobbying the Senate relentlessly and taking it up with Governor Hochul, rather than sharing an email that holds no actual significance.
In any case, I’m certain the political director has priorities. I’m equally certain said priorities are dictated by Michael Mulgrew and Unity’s Very Smart People. UFT employment is at will, well beyond a curiosity to those of us who’ve spent years battling to protect union jobs and contractual rights. I’m sure this young woman needs her job. So why is she here instead of experts who can address the pension bill?
Decisions for the Retired Teacher Chapter (RTC) are largely made by the Retiree Advocate Steering Committee—11 unelected, self-appointed leaders who shut the rest of us out in typical caucus fashion. They’ve made nice with Unity, ignored our decisions, and gone their merry way. At least two of them are running as UFT officers so as to prolong the caucus-driven, top-down status quo for yet another miserable three years.
Since the UFT political director is scheduled to address us, let’s ask her some pertinent questions. Sure, UFT bosses will view questioning as impertinent, but we all know their ideal goal for us—that we all sit down and shut up.
Note to Unity—We are not afraid of you, and we will not sit down and shut up, ever.
Here are some question suggestions:
Have you or your office been told to, or have you interacted with New York State legislators to oppose NY State legislation (Senate Bill 2025-S3607 and Assembly Bill S3607/a4639 that would guarantee no diminution of public service retiree healthcare benefits? It’s plainly obvious that our chapter overwhelmingly supports such legislation.
If you are opposing it, why are you deliberately working against our interests? If not, why are you not actively lobbying for its passage? We’ve heard that “union opposition” is a reason this legislation has been held up? We do not oppose bills designed to protect our health care. Aren’t we the union?
Have you or your office been told to, or have you interacted with City Council members about Mulgrew's position opposing Intro 1096? Michael Mulgrew’s name appears on a letter suggesting that 1096 interferes with collective bargaining, and that the bill itself is illegal.
Have you, or has anyone from UFT, lobbied the city council to oppose 1096 because it supposedly interferes with the union's right to collective bargaining? As we are no longer salaried, why would anyone be collectively bargaining for retirees? And if you are, in fact, bargaining for health care purposes, why on earth do you work to diminish rather than improve our benefits? What exactly do we pay you for?
If you contend that you collectively bargain for us, why do we not get to vote on contracts?
Aren’t contracts collectively bargained? More to the point, if you’re making changes to our health care, why do we not get to vote on them? Doesn’t rank and file get to vote on contracts? Do you consider us to be of lesser importance than rank and file members? If so, why? If not, why didn’t we get to vote on the Great Medicare Sellout?
Since our chapter voted overwhelmingly to support Intro 1096-2024, if you are lobbying against it, doesn’t that indicate you are actively working against our interests? Don’t we pay dues? Isn’t it your actual frigging job to represent our interests?
If that bill is illegal, why is 12-126 legal? It establishes minimum city contributions. Why would our leadership not wish to preserve our health insurance as is? Do you deem it smart to set a precedent that we give up health care to get raises that hover around cost of living? Is it even marginally ethical to make retirees pay for such bone-headed deals?
You appear to contend you are representing our interests by opposing 1096-2024. Doesn’t that suggest that you deem us insufficiently intelligent to make our own decisions?
While we’re on the topic of respect for retirees, what is your position on paid UFT employees spreading ageist memes among chapter leaders at the UFT Delegate Assembly? What is the official UFT position on ageism? If we oppose it, why did the UFT Executive Board applaud the person who engaged in it? Is ageism acceptable if you announce to the UFT Executive Board that you are nice to your grandma?
Have you been involved with any UFT discussions or lobbying with the Governor or members of the New York State legislature, or pension trustees, to get a law passed that would allow the City to reduce its current contributions to TRS, a change that the police and firefighters unions have not agreed to?
How long have you known about this proposed pension change? We’ve heard it was being discussed as early as two years ago. Why didn’t UFT hold a forum with objective voices explaining pros and cons of this to us? Why didn’t UFT bosses, who frequently claim to be democratic, hold a vote to determine whether or not we supported it?
Why did we have to read about it from ABC members on Substack rather than at uft.org? Seriously, do you think we are too stupid to understand the deal? Too old? Do you think being nice to your grandma somehow makes up for this clear lack of respect?
Why do you suppose the police and firefighters declined to go along with this?
If this gambit fails, and we end up losing money, what will the consequence be? Will in service members get fewer or smaller raises? Will they be denied retro pay? Will there be a Tier 7? Could the state constitution be amended so that we lose part or all of our pensions? Would such losses be applicable only to unions that participated?
Of course, you could also ask Mulgrew.
That said, we have a pretty fair notion what Mulgrew’s response will be.
We have Very Smart People and how dare you question our Supreme Knowledge? You are spreading misinformation and fear mongering. You are sowing mistrust. You ought not to disagree with us at this time, as we have serious enemies. You are exploiting this for political gain.
Blah, blah, blah. Same old Unity playbook.
These are the same answers Mulgrew gave when we challenged his positions on Medicare Advantage. Of course, there’s the requisite invective.
You’re conspiracy theorists. You don’t believe in democracy. You’re spouting fairy tales. You’re enemies of the union.
Personally, I’m sick and tired of hearing the same old garbage from caucus hacks. It’s about time we had a democratic, member-driven union. For me, it’s as simple as ABC.
Gracias al ángel misterioso .
PS: While you’re waiting to ask those questions, please sign this petition opposing the scheme to delay pension payments.
I'm Bennett Fischer and I am the chapter leader of the UFT Retired Teachers Chapter. I am also an avid reader of (and paid subscriber to) the Union Matters Substack. The RTC does indeed have the UFT's Political Director, Vanecia Wilson, scheduled to speak at our meeting on Tuesday. I think it's important to hear from our political director about actions UFT retirees can engage in to oppose the Trump-Musk administration's horrible attacks on the labor movement, federal employees, the Veteran's Administration, our social safety nets, education funding, and on the civil rights of all Americans (to name only a short part of the list). And because we have questions about the city's proposed changes to its schedule of payments to our pension systems, the TRS trustees will be at the meeting too.
The RTC newsletter I sent out on March 4th listed actions that our members can engage in to at least get the ball rolling in pushing back against DOGE's chainsaw attack on the civil fabric of our society. I also wrote about actions that our members could take in support of Intro 1096, to strengthen the law protecting our health benefits.
But you never saw that in the newsletter.
You may recall that at our December meeting, the RTC passed a resolution, written by Arthur Goldstein, in support of lobbying for Intro 1096. In my March 4 newsletter to the RTC, I wrote about the importance of lobbying our City Council members and I included contact links to the City Council offices. But if you read the newsletter, you didn't read about Intro 1096, because that was censored by UFT Legal Counsel, Beth Norton. She advised me that the union would not allow me to print something, using union resources, that encouraged members to support legislation that the UFT deemed to be in violation of the Taylor Law and which, in the union leadership's view, impinged on the union's collective bargaining rights.
I will speak about this censorship at the RTC meeting on Tuesday. As I mentioned, there will also be discussion of the city's plan to change its schedule of payments to three of the city's pension systems: TRSNYC, BERS, and NYCERS. Arthur is right. There are many important things for our chapter to do, beyond hearing reports from the political director.
The censorship of the RTC newsletter is outrageous, to be sure. There are oodles of obstacles, large and small, that are placed in the RTC leadership's way every day. Retiree Advocate knew coming in that this was what to expect. I'm not letting myself be bogged down by the small stuff. I'm more interested in letting the small stuff slide off my back, and working together with people, rather than pulling apart. I'll make an issue of the important things when I need to, but I'm not going to amplify every little slight into the "outrage of the day."
What overcomes the small obstacles, are Retiree Advocate's 300 new delegates in the Delegate Assembly. That's caused a huge shift in DA dynamics, and that is where we can affect the most change. That's the kind of people power that beats Facebook posts, Substack articles and online petitions (though those also have a valuable place in the discourse of our union).
Unity leadership can delay and censor RTC newsletters. They can yell at me, ignore me, all of those things. But they cannot ignore our 300 DA delegates, who are well organized and doing a great job.
That's why we were able to pass the resolution "No Changes to Healthcare Without Delegate Assembly Approval" at the December DA. Not without amendment, and not without some political shenanigans, but we accomplished it nonetheless because we have an organized bloc in the halls of power.
We have had other accomplishments as well. We started a new retiree Facebook page where people from all UFT caucuses are welcome and can engage in discussion of union and retiree issues. And we can provide real, "official" information from the union about union benefits and union events. Is that so bad?
Does it suit everyone's taste? No. Arthur, for one, has told me that he is not a fan of our new Facebook page. And I understand that. It is too oppositional for some, and too conciliatory for others. Any UFT retiree may express their opinions and discuss issues - such as Intro 1096 - on our Facebook page (as long as they follow the simple, commonsense rules for posting comments).
So yeah, I'm going to be doing whatever I can to ask our members to support Intro 1096, though I can't do it in quite the same way I could if I was outside the union halls. I'm going to make sure issues affecting our pension systems are discussed in our meetings. I'm going to continue to invite UFT leadership to our meetings, not to give speeches, but to answer hard questions. I'll call out bad behavior when I see it, but I'm going to choose my battles. And I appreciate the diversity of opinions among our members, among the RTC executive board, and among the UFT leaders with whom we try to work, every day, for the good of the union.
The RTC executive board works together as a team to set agendas and come up with solutions to problems. As you may have discerned, we have a fair amount of (I hope) healthy dissention on our team. With the help of the team, and all our members, hopefully I'll get better at thinking outside of the box. We have a great group of experienced political strategists on the RTC executive board, including Gloria Brandman, Norm Scott, Michael Shulman, Bobby Greenberg, Jonathan Halibi, Marian Swerdlow, Bruce Markens, and Arthur Goldstein. Working with such a diverse, opinionated group of people ain't always easy, but it's always interesting, and well worth the hassle.