Mike Mulgrew, Role Model
Another union boss follows in his footsteps, utterly ignoring membership.
I was gobstruck at what Michael Mulgrew and Unity did when our OT/PT chapter declined to ratify the contract he and his Very Smart People negotiated. For years, they’d been seeking salary parity with teachers. They’d rejected the previous contract, and it was sweetened a bit before they voted it back up.
Last time, things changed. They voted it down again, but Unity took a hard line. First, they isolated the OT/PT chapter from others that wanted to vote up the contract. Then, they told them to take it or leave it. They could vote on the same deal they rejected, and basically, if they didn’t like it they could all go to hell.
This, my friends, is not why you pay union dues. You pay union dues so that your ostensible leaders will work to improve your lot. You pay them so that your leaders will represent your interests.
Unity simply could not be bothered representing the interests of the OT/PT chapter.
This is in marked contrast with the way they treat paras, at least lately. Of course, paras voted against Unity 3-1 in the most recent chapter election. This was a wake-up call for them. Despite the fact that Unity had 450 million to give paras a raise, they’d opted to do nothing. After the election, they claimed paras deserved “respect.”
Translated, that meant Unity wanted to be re-elected. They don’t respect paras any more than they respect the OT/PT chapter. Of course, the OT/PT chapter must be considerably smaller than the para chapter. In our building alone, there’s one OT. one PT, and dozens of paras.
Unity has no issue telling the entire OT/PT chapter they can go to hell if they want more money.
Meanwhile, nurses at NY Presbytarian are still on strike. Their executive committee had voted to reject the proposal, but the bosses pushed it through anyway. The nurses overwhelmingly rejected the offer.
“Unfortunately now we’re at a point in which our union’s senior leadership, specifically our executive director and the president, have sold us out to management,” said Esteban Barrena, a nurse at NYP-Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.
I know that feeling very well. Why, exactly, did the nurses reject this offer?
The union’s executive committee had rejected the deal because the staffing proposals that the mediator had recommended would not guarantee job security for existing nurses, Loudin said. It also does not include the same staffing ratio enforcement language that nurses at Mount Sinai and Montefiore have had in their contracts since 2023, which the union has touted as some of the most secure in the country.
That sounds like a major inequity. I can’t blame them at all. You have to wonder whether their union bosses asked themselves, “Hey, if Michael Mulgrew can get away with this nonsense, why can’t we do it too?”
As for paraprofessionals, they’re still waiting on that 10K bonus. They may or may not get it. I haven’t got a crystal ball. I know that, if they did, every other union would be standing in line at City Council with their hands out, demanding similar deals for their underpaid members. Will paras get the money? Who knows?
Even if they do, NY State doesn’t consider them pedagogues. Secretaries, who spend most of their time in offices, are considered pedagogues, and therefore, like teachers, have tenure. While I absolutely don’t begrudge secretaries, I wonder why paras, who deal directly with kids, have no route to achieve tenure.
Paraprofessionals can go out and earn doctorates, and still won’t have tenure.
As chapter leader, I got to see two paras fired on the spot. I won’t go into why that happened here, but I’ll tell you a story about one of them. She was religious, as I recall, and as she was leaving our building, I was telling her that UFT would appeal the decision. She spoke to me of uplifting things her pastor had said to her.
A few weeks later, I was in my class, teaching, and got a frantic call from a secretary. She was on the line with the para’s family. The paraprofessional just had a stroke, and no longer had health insurance. The family was fretting over whether to place her on the ambulance. I was frozen. In an odd moment, for me at least, I had no idea what to say. Even if I did, I had to weigh what words I’d say in front of my students.
The secretary sensed my hesitation, and made an executive decision. “Put her on the ambulance,” she said. The next I heard of this para, she had died. I couldn’t help thinking that if she’d had due process, it wouldn’t have happened.
Ten thousand dollars is great to have. It helps you pay the bills. It will help you pay the rent (if the sudden rise in income doesn’t disqualify you from living where you do). However, it’s not precisely respect.
Respect would entail a campaign to improve working conditions. It would entail educating us teachers that paraprofessionals are not subordinate to us. I don’t know how many times I had to explain to teachers that paraprofessionals are not here to make copies or bring us coffee. Respect would entail, somehow, making sure that what happened to the para I knew happened to no one else.
And frankly, respect means that union leaders respect the will of the members. At that, Michael Mulgrew and Unity have failed absolutely. They are a cancer, and it appears to be spreading to other unions.
We need to stop that.
Thanks to Daniel A. for graphic.
During my years as an Administrative Assistant in the CUNY system, I was uniquely given the responsibilities of 7 different Chairs in the Department I worked in and took it on with a dedicated attitude and a quest to absorb knowledge as time went on. While it was a secret and any recognition I received was tantamount to signing an NDA, I still performed the tasks at hand without the Title nor the compensation. If asked to do it again. I most likely would, for the sake of the students and adjuncts I served. Adjuncts much like Paras and the Nurses are overlooked, taken advantage of, untenured and barely compensated for the amazing jobs they do in classrooms. Sure there is always a rotting apple in a barrel of two, as in all professions, but one good one reflects that good upon the whole. A calling , (such as Paras and Nurses in this case are), often become a scenario where they are disrespected, unnoticed and used by the systems, Their fight to be given the decency and gratitude they deserve is everyone’s fight. We need to support them because we recognize their worth. Thank you Arthur as always for bringing Union Matters to the forefront for all Employees and Union rank & file, not just in New York, but everywhere this injustice continues.
Arthur can’t agree with you more I’ve said it before, but will say it again: I could not have done my :job with out my paras. They spend more time with the students (at least in elementary school) than the classroom teachers do. Often times they know the children better and can get them to do things, calm down, focus etc better than the teachers. Yes they deserve all sorts of respect from our union. The OT/PTs do too. MM at the last DA was praising all these these positions. But what has the Union done for any of them but kick them around, disrespect them and certainly doesn’t pay them what they’re worth.