Mulgrew's "Very Smart People" Blunder Again

We are strong. We are determined. Unity is clueless.

Michael Mulgrew tried to pull a fast one, because he thinks we are stupid. The “very smart people” with whom he hangs nod their heads and kowtow to him. “Good idea, Michael.” “Great work, Michael.” Stay the course, they say.

We pay people to advise him like this. He is so weak that he can hear nothing else. And they know only one playbook. They’ve just lost two elections, and overwhelmingly. To them, the massive losses are a signal to do business as usual. Perhaps they feel, as a result of the elections, business should be more usual than usual.

They’ve always done it this way. They’ve never done it any other way. What’s their game plan?

Let’s pretend we care about retirees. We’ll pass a resolution at AFT. Then they will all think we care about them. They’ll drop all the lawsuits demanding to retain their current health care. They’ll stop annoying us with all that legislation that keeps us from paying back the billions we owe the city.

After all, only we were clever enough to agree to pledge the city billions for contracts that didn’t keep up with inflation. Those bastards in opposition could never have been this creative!

Once we pass this resolution, Michael, retirees will regard you as a deity. They’ll throng you on Broadway, just begging to touch the hem of your garment. They’ll demand that we bring back Tom Murphy for another term. They’ll impeach those opposition bastards, and demand another three years of RTC meetings with no motions and no voting on anything.

Following that train of thought, UFT Unity sent us an email bearing Michael Mulgrew’s signature:

This fight needs to be national.

Perhaps it does. But that doesn’t preclude fighting locally, where, unlike a national fight, we have a chance of making an immediate difference. In fact, with the brilliant and capable assistance of Marianne Pizzitola and NYC Retirees, we’ve been making a massive difference over the last three years.

Of course, I support retaining Medicare and Social Security benefits. Who could argue with that? In the very next line, however, Mulgrew’s “very smart people,” the ones who almost certainly write this stuff, tip their hand.

Protecting health care at the local and state levels isn't enough.

That may be true. Our national health care system is very much in need of repair. But anyone who’s been paying attention for the last 20 years knows that the national system is largely deadlocked. Were it not for one of the last votes of Senator John McCain, the Affordable Care Act would be dead and we’d be back with the nothing it replaced.

Here in NYC, we are battling, right now, to protect our health care. Mulgrew is doing absolutely nothing to help us. He appears to believe, along with his “very smart people,” by sending us an email, that we will forget all about this. But we are not that stupid. Someone here is doing something very stupid. But it isn’t us.

Mulgrew, once again, has acted unilaterally. He has not consulted RTC leadership, and we are not represented at all at the AFT Convention. He thinks, because he has access to a microphone, to an email list, that he can fool us. He thinks, by doing something largely unrelated to what we are fighting for, that he can divert our attention.

Mulgrew, using these same tactics, has not managed to fool us in the past. He placed Tom Murphy in charge of the chapter, and Murphy did away with motions. He did away with voting. When he could get away with it, he didn’t even allow questions.

We responded loud and clear. We sent Murphy packing. And while he may have procured a gig over at AFT, he has not won our support or vote.

I know I’m not one of Mulgrew’s “very smart people.” I’m grateful for that, because if I were, I’d likely have signed over my bank account to some Nigerian prince I met on Gmail long ago. That said, Mulgrew has no more credibility than the mythical prince. He’s not fooling anyone but himself.

I’m glad he’s staying the course. He’s making it that much easier for us to defeat him and his craven, festering patronage cult next Spring. Retiree Advocate managed to recruit 300 delegates to run against the cult. We are going to recruit at least 450 more from rank and file next year.

We are coming for you, Mulgrew. We are taking back our union. We are going to bring back democracy. We are going to bring back activism.

And we are going to represent members, not Eric Frigging Adams.

This notwithstanding, you are making it very easy for us. For that, we thank you.