Make SURE to VOTE

Your vote strikes fear into the cold, dead heart of the UFT Unity Noise Machine

UFT Unity does not respect your intelligence. That’s why they sent you an election pamphlet that leads off with an outrageous whopper of a lie. They say that their Advantage scheme is superior to Medicare. They neglect to mention it’s not currently in place because the Supreme Court of the State of New York has ruled otherwise.

Judge Frank ruled that Mulgrewcare held “the prospect of irreparable injury” for those of us unfortunate enough to be stuck in it it. I know an oncologist who advised me, even if I had to pay 10K out of pocket a year, to stick with real Medicare. She said she regularly had patients she needed to treat right away, but had to wait for pre-approval.

Mulgrew has a temporary agreement to do away with some pre-approvals. Is there anyone who believes, once city employees are stuck in this scheme, that Unity won’t simply allow them to disappear? Has anyone noticed that co-pays, under Unity, always go up, sometimes spectacularly, and services become more difficult to attain? I remember paying 15 bucks to go to the urgent care with GHI. Mulgrew made it 50, then 100. Where does it end?

If you have real Medicare and GHI Senior Care, visiting the urgent care costs you nothing. Mulgrew’s scheme includes co-pays. Does anyone besides Tom Murphy and the rest of Unity’s paid sycophants think that benefits retirees?

We know that Michael Mulgrew spearheaded upcoming cuts in health care for both us and our rank and file brothers and sisters. After all, why should he bother to simply negotiate cost of living raises for working teachers and others? It’s so much easier to give away our health care piece by piece, and accept whatever the city feels like dishing out. And why not dump cuts on retirees, who don’t benefit at all from contract negotiations? Ethics-shmethics is the UFT Unity way.

Mulgrew is that stereotypical burned-out teacher who hands out busy work and sits at his desk reading the Daily News. He doesn’t give a crap about those of us he’s paid to serve. And when he gets called on his blithering incompetence, he cites things that happened years, decades ago, and takes credit for them whether or not he had anything to do with them. He ignores everything he’s screwed up, and expects you to do the same.

UFT Unity does not value your health, your rights, or your voice. They only value getting their candidate in, by any means necessary. If you don’t believe me, take a look at how they sat on their hands during the Trustee election. Did you know that, if 10% of staff requests it, there could be informational meetings in your school about this election?

Few do. That’s because Unity doesn’t bother telling you. They don’t want voters to be informed. Informed voters might take note that, for example, our TDA pays 7% while that of every other city worker pays 8.25. Doesn’t that suggest to you that they have NOT been doing a great job looking after our pensions?

We also know that Unity did NOT put forth its most qualified candidate. We know that the Prime Directive of Unity is to serve Unity, not membership. In fact, we know that every Unity member signs an oath to do just that.

That said, their behavior during the trustee election was outrageous even for Unity. We knew a lot of members were excluded from the vote, having opted out from the vendor that ran it. Did UFT bosses move to fix that?

In fact, they did not. They did, however, make sure all of their paid flunkies were able to vote. They arranged with the DOE to have ballots sent to their UFT email addresses. Did some of them vote twice? Who knows? What we do know is the vote of rank and file was in no way a priority for them.

I’ve written in the past about how much Unity loves it when only 20-25% of rank and file votes. This Trustee election managed to beat that, garnering around 15%, a winning strategy for Unity bosses. It certainly appears they’ve prevailed.

UFT staff got right to vote. UFT members, not so much. We don’t need to go to court. We don’t need a TRO. All they need to do is have Ben, Christina and the two alternates deny being seated. That would be That.

Did Unity Trustee candidate Christina McGrath agree to that? Did she stand up for our right to vote? Did she stand up and demand the informational meetings to which we were entitled? Did she decline to be seated after an illegal election?

No such luck. Mulgrew would never put up with that. That’s why, this Tuesday, a half-dozen Unity Big Shots are going to certify this election. Make no mistake, if they refused to certify, the election would have a shot at fairness. Fairness, like activism, like an informed electorate, never works to the advantage of Unity.

So UFT Unity will pay lip service to democracy. They send emails telling members how to vote, but can’t be bothered with telling them about the rules the election violates. They say they’ve sent a protest of some sort, perhaps a strongly worded letter, to someone, somewhere. Maybe they have, though we haven’t seen it. Perhaps they’ll send another. They’re good at paying lip service.

They pay extensive lip service to reforming Tier 6, though when it first appeared they did absolutely nothing to oppose it. It was fine until people started complaining about it. Why weren’t Unity bosses complaining about it when Cuomo pushed it through? Why weren’t they actively fighting it? Ask Mulgrew and wait for the crickets.

They pay lip service to lowering class sizes, despite the fact that for over half a century they’ve opposed every move, including resolutions I made at Exec. Board, to improve or fight for it. They did absolutely nothing to enforce the Contract for Excellence that’s been kicking around for decades. I am not highly optimistic this new regulation will work either.

Right now, Michael Mulgrew and his Unity sycophants are battling our efforts to protect retiree health care. They lie outright in their campaign flyer, suggesting Advantage is superior to real Medicare. They speak of a “pay-up” option, which likely as not entails keeping what we already have. Who knows? Furthermore, they’re working on a scheme to cut 10% of Eric Adams’ cost for in-service health.

If you are a retiree, check the box for Retiree Advocate, and mail it in immediately. That is how WE will take control of OUR union. Here are step-by-step instructions.

Our future is in our hands. It behooves us to grab it from Mulgrew’s grasp, and to do it right now.

VOTE, VOTE, and VOTE!!!