Mixed messages from Unity

Mulgrew's Very Smart People claim they can help the paras, but retirees can piss right off.

The message seems backwards. We can’t support the retirees, because of collective bargaining and the Taylor Law, neither of which applies to retirees. But we have a magic formula to help paraprofessionals, who are subject to all of the above.

Where’s the para bill? Right now, it depends who you ask. It’s hard for me to believe anyone has seen it. Why? Cue Hall and Oates:

Because the bill (the bill) does not exist,

Because the bill (the bill) does not exist,

Because the bill does not exist,

Just a Unity lie….

Of course, one day the bill may exist. But speaking of Unity lies, UFT lawyer Beth Norton, along with Mulgrew and the rest of Unity, is telling the world that Intro 1096, which would protect retiree health care, is illegal. This is because, they claim, it would somehow violate agreements that do not apply to us.

If you think the Taylor Law applies to retirees, you might be in a cult.

That said, if the Taylor Law applied to retirees, we could go on strike. Under the Taylor Law, that might work for us. How?

Imagine a retiree strike.

For every day we went to work, the city would have to pay us two days. I mean, since people who generally go to work get docked two days for each day they’re out, it only follows that retirees get paid two days for each day they’re in. This makes as much sense as the blather currently being spread by Mulgrew, Unity, and the lawyer our dues pay for.

Henry Garrido is out there peddling DC37 members the same nonsense Mulgrew is pushing on us. These union bosses pretend to support us, but they’re tripping all over themselves to rationalize their opposition to Intro 1096, which would protect traditional Medicare for city retirees.

Here’s the thing—Both the Taylor Law and collective bargaining apply to paraprofessionals. They are full time city employees. So how on earth, if 1096 is illegal on the basis of a false pretense, can the para bill be legal on the basis of a legitimate one?

Unity messages are confusing, to say the least. We’ve gone to a rally to support a bill that, as far as I know, no one has ever seen. Our union money is paying for TV ads supporting the bill that no one has ever seen. How is it that the Very Smart People are supremely confident if they haven’t even figured out how to write the thing yet?

Are these actions designed to help paras, or promote the Unity Caucus as they face their first existential challenge in sixty years?

Not being psychic, I can’t answer that with 100% certainty. That said, their actions speak volumes. Where’s the bill, and how are we supposed to actively support it if we can’t even read it?

Suspending our skepticism, somehow the City Council is supposed to grant a 10K non-pensionable bonus to paraprofessionals. It’s a good first step if they can pull it off. Paraprofessionals work all day, get one lunch break, and that’s pretty much it. I am not at all confident I could do their job. They deserve better compensation.

A WPIX news story suggested that the para bill was “introduced in the New York City Council and is currently awaiting review in committee.” This assertion, I hear, came from a city council member. It’s hard for me to believe the member simply misspoke, but it’s possible.

It’s equally possible that someone gave this member bad information. Who would be motivated to do such a thing? I’d guess it would have to be someone wishing us to believe that this idea has somehow progressed beyond the status of a Mulgrew-inspired pipe dream.

Of course there are a whole lot of paraprofessionals who’d like this bill to exist. I can’t remotely blame them. I’d like it to exist too. A 33% salary bump is something worth fighting for. It’s something worth traveling to Manhattan for. It’s something worth standing out in the cold for. I know because I was out there with them, and I was freezing.

There were a whole lot of UFT reps there. They’d have us believe were they out there because they fretted over the plight of poorly paid paras. Or was it because Michael Mulgrew told them to get out there if they wanted to keep those sweet patronage gigs? Certainly, they’d have us believe it wasn’t because King Mulgrew ordered them out.

But if that were they case, why weren’t they out demonstrating when Mulgrew had 450 million he could’ve used to give paras pensionable raises?

Let’s face it—Unity members take action when Unity tells them to.

That’s why they’re not lifting a finger to protect retiree health care, even as we face losing it. How can they fight for paras and ignore us?

You’d have to search their consciences to answer that question. From everything I know, working for Mulgrew is like working for a bad principal. He’s a dictator, with few, if any, checks or balances. In fact, there are fewer checks on Mulgrew than on any bad principal. Union rules don’t apply to the guy running our union. There’s no collective bargaining agreement for him to follow.

That’s why Michael Mulgrew can unilaterally take positions on things like congestion pricing and where the city can build casinos. He can personally overrule the DA when they vote to support the NY Health Act, twice. He can announce that we are the UFT. Yet he very much behaves like he, and he only is the UFT.

And hey, if you actually work for the UFT, he can move or fire you with no due process whatsoever. I personally know two members fired based on his whims. He said as much to at least one of them. This goes against everything I learned and practiced as chapter leader. It’s on us to force principals to follow rules, whatever the risk to ourselves. Our president is the top officer in our union.

As far as I can determine, no rules whatsoever apply to Michael Mulgrew.

That’s why he can get an idea, claim to have been working on it for seven months, and have nothing whatsoever to show for it. Imagine bringing an idea like that to your principal. Imagine trying to rationalize it in a Danielson observation. Sure, nothing happened in the actual class, when I could have taught, but I have an idea I’ve been working on for seven months, and I can show it to you pretty soon, maybe.

Michael Mulgrew considers it feasible for us to believe that he and his Very Smart People have been working on this idea that he shared it with neither the DA, the UFT Executive Board, or the Paraprofessional Executive Board. Mulgrew and his minions claim it is so. We lowly serfs are expected to take their word without question.

What’s tough to understand, though, is why he’d have 450 million dollars to solve this issue in a way that is both permanent and pensionable, but choose rather to gamble on a bill that appears not to exist. And let’s face it, even if the bill should somehow pop into existence, it would be subject to approval or termination year by year.

Here is what we need—we need a leader who will stand up for paraprofessionals. We need a leader who will stand up for retirees. We need a leader who will stand up for every working UFT member. In fact, we need a leader with the intelligence and determination to think outside the box, and make the Municipal Labor Committee work for us.

That leader is Amy Arundell, and I’m behind her 100%. In a few short weeks, you’ll get the chance to vote for the change we need. That change is ABC. That’s why I support ABC. and that’s why I’m running with them. Remember us when you get your ballot.