On Experience

Unity touts experience as a reason only they are fit to serve.

One of Unity’s big talking points is that only they have the experience to lead. If you take that at face value, it means no one else is suitable to replace them, ever. Yet in other settings, administrations change, and so far, no such change has resulted in the end of the world. Some, in fact, have resulted in marked improvements.

Unity pointedly excludes anyone unwilling to sign their loyalty oath. I’d argue we’d all be much better off with leaders that served the members, as opposed to a 60-year-old machine dedicated to perpetuating itself above all else. Loyalty to members should always trump loyalty to caucus.

As chapter leader, I frequently heard members complain about abusive supervisors. I was able to compel supervisors to follow rules in our contract and elsewhere. Michael Mulgrew’s constrained by neither contracts nor DOE rules. He behaves like one of the worst supervisors ever. He fired Bennett Fischer for writing an email he didn’t care for. He fired Chad Hamilton for dropping out of Unity. Competence? Lack thereof? Neither here nor there.

In fairness, Mulgrew’s right when he says we haven’t got his experience. But he hasn’t got ours either.

It’s jarring to hear Michael Mulgrew instruct us about Danielson. Like many of his Very Smart People, he himself has never experienced a Danielson observation. He literally has no notion of how they make us feel. In fact, when Mulgrew gets negative feedback, he can rule you out of order, claim you don’t believe in democracy, or simply turn your microphone off. I’ve seen him do all those things (Of course, if you work for UFT, he can reassign you or simply tell you to get lost.)

When I first ran for chapter leader, I had no experience whatsoever. I was a teacher, and I was a blogger, but I had little idea what the CL job really entailed. I ran against at least three other people, and was a little surprised when I won.

Let me tell you—it was trial by fire. I gave up a pretty great adjunct job at Queens College just to keep up. Francis Lewis is the largest school in Queens, and the most overcrowded in the city. I literally could not walk down the hall without people stopping me and asking very challenging questions.

It was quite a shock to the system for me. On the positive side, whenever I walked into a classroom, I felt very confident. I know how to do this, I would think. After becoming chapter leader, I really appreciated teaching more.

I started keeping a little pad in my pocket. I would write down questions, find the answers, and report back to people. A Unity rep, visiting the school, advised me, “Tell them to put a letter in your box. 90% of them won’t bother.”

That sounded very familiar to me because it was precisely what my predecessor used to say to us. I must’ve been among the other 10%, because I placed a letter in the box every single time he told me to. Sometimes I got responses, and sometimes I didn’t.

Jobs are what you make them.

Instead of telling people to put a letter in my box, I set up a school email address. I collected the personal emails of almost everyone in the building, sorted them by department, and made myself available to all. It was much more efficient than the pad in my pocket, the notes in my box (or not), and I was able to respond to all.

I quickly learned uft.org, had a lot of information. I was often able to send links with quotes and explanations. If that didn’t work, I’d call the late James Eterno, who knew everything. Later on I met Amy Arundell, helped her, and determined she owed me a favor (which she repaid many, many times). Soon I had people thinking I knew everything, but that wasn’t true. I just knew people who knew everything, and I made it my business to get to know as many such people as I could.

What I’m saying is this—just like I learned to teach, I learned to lead. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. But is experience the be-all and end-all?

Listen to Barack Obama on Instagram.

Once you sit at these tables, with folks with fancy titles, and you talk to ‘em, and you go, “They ain’t all that.”

In case you’re too busy to listen, Obama speaks of meeting Very Smart People, you know, like the ones Mulgrew always talks about. He speaks of meeting people at Harvard. Then he speaks of US Senators. He gets all the way to world leaders, determining people in every circle are smart, not so smart, good, bad, and run the gamut pretty much everywhere. He concludes, “Do not let people think you do not belong.”

If you’re like me, you’ve likely wondered why, with all that experience, Unity makes such bad calls. The move to place retired teachers in Medicare Advantage was borne of sheer hubris. After all that time, entrenched in power for decades, Unity assumed they could do no wrong. They assumed retirees would put up with anything, support them no matter what fecklessness and indifference they displayed.

It quickly became clear that retirees, en masse, treasured Medicare. I’ve had it for over a year now, and it’s the very best medical coverage I’ve had in my life. Also, before Unity stuck their greasy paws in it, there were no copays. That’s important for people on fixed incomes, particularly those whose pensions are not very high.

As if that were not enough, they floated an option to pay 200 a month, each, for those who wished to retain real Medicare. To support this, they sent two retired UFT Vice-Presidents, both of whom had pensions well beyond those of lowly members (what with higher pay and second pensions funded by said members). Of course they could afford it. Paraprofessionals? DC37 retirees? Not so much. The indifference and insensitivity was beyond palpable.

The callousness of Unity is mind-boggling.

Another Very Smart thing they did was support mayoral control under Michael Bloomberg. This resulted in Bloomberg having absolute power, veritable mayoral dictatorship, over city schools. When I ran for chapter leader, I wrote my very first op-ed in the Daily News, opposing mayoral control. I made 350 copies and stuffed them in member mailboxes, with a piece I wrote asking people to vote for me on the other side.

I won the election, but Bloomberg closed a whole lot of schools. I remember repeatedly going to Jamaica High School while Bloomberg’s people sat there, indifferent to teachers, students, parents, clergy and an entire community. While Jamaica was closest to my school community, this drama played on a seemingly endless loop, all over the city. By supporting mayoral control, Unity’s Very Smart People helped enable all those closings.

And then there was the Absent Teacher Reserve, also negotiated by Unity. A small army of teachers wandered from school to school, often settling nowhere. It was better than being fired, but very, very tough. I’d have been miserable in the ATR. I was very lucky to have transferred from John Adams High School when I did, or I’d almost certainly have become part of it.

Another flash of inspiration from Unity was reducing our TDA interest from 8.25% down to 7%. As part of Randi Weingarten’s givebackpalooza back in 2005, she agreed we’d come in a few days in August. To get that back, she lowered our TDA. Even now, every union but us receives 8.25% interest. Over the years, that results in very significant losses for UFT members.

We can’t afford to leave our future in the hands of those who’ve betrayed us over and over. Experience is valuable, and we’ve experienced decades of uninterrupted Unity leadership. As it’s not working for us, I’m running with and voting for ABC, A Better Contract.

Join us. We can and will do better.