Shun Them!

UFT Unity wants to cast out all dissenting voices, leaving its elite patronage cult free to do whatever.

I should know better, but I was a little shocked by UFT Secretary LeRoy Barr’s message at the last UFT Delegate Assembly. Of course I shouldn’t be. At a recent Executive Board meeting I had the misfortune to attend, UFT Boss Michael Mulgrew said that opposition was doing the same thing as enemies of union.

Mulgrew is a weak, petty man who can’t take criticism. That’s one of many reasons he’s unfit to lead. That’s why he can’t stay on topic when he speaks, and blurts out whatever is on his mind at the moment. That’s why he’s nowhere on social media, and largely available only to paid sycophants.

LeRoy Barr is smarter than Mulgrew. Yet it’s his job to reflect him. Nick Bacon has complete notes on the last UFT Delegate Assembly. Another member sent me these notes, reflecting the Barr’s comments regarding commemoration of the UFT’s 64th anniversary:

They always look for ways to unify, they didn’t ultimately look for ways to divide. If you have those who are external and they want to divide us .. I want you to shun them. If you have those who … who are internal and they want to divide it I want you to shun them, because at the end of the day, we have to add and multiply.

The big question here—Who are “they?” Were I discussing enemies of union, I’d name them. A few names jump to mind—Mike Bloomberg, Eva Moskowitz, Betsy DeVos, just off the top of my head. LeRoy Barr is a bright guy. He knows who these people are. It’s no coincidence that he didn’t muster the name of a single enemy of union.

On the other hand, I don’t believe the United Federation of Teachers behaves much like a union. Barr is right that a union should seek to come together, rather than divide. However, you certainly can’t unify a group by shunning voices of dissent. In fact, the greatest divisions in this union are instigated by our so-called leadership.

One egregious example occurred in October 2022, when Mulgrew sent an email telling us, veritably blackmailing us, to change a city council regulation so the city could force retiree Medicare recipients into an inferior “Advantage” plan. They schemed with Eric Adams to charge retirees 5K per couple to retain the care they’d been receiving free for decades. Back then I wrote:

So let's see if I've got this straight.  If we don't agree that retirees must pay $5,000 a year per couple to retain the care they've had forever, in-service members will have to pay $1500 a year. It's kind of hard to see the union in that. In fact, it appears we're pitting one section of the union against another. 

Doesn’t it, though? Despite Barr’s contentions, Mulgrew is doing nothing to unite us. He’s dividing us, creating a zero-sum game, unequivocally pitting retirees against in-service members. Evidently, when Mulgrew does it, it’s fine. If you do it, you must be shunned. This, according to the UFT Unity Patronage Cult, is how you run a union.

On this astral plane, the way you mobilize and motivate a union is by working to improve things for all members. If there are groups with different needs, you have to view them individually and see to their needs. Instead, Mulgrew and his minions were working to screw over one union faction (others would come later). And it gets worse.

By allowing an upcharge for real Medicare, Mulgrew’s cult was giving the option only to those who could afford it. A retired teacher might be able to afford an extra 200 a month per person. A retired secretary? Not so much. A retired paraprofessional? Forget it. (And don’t get me started on DC37 employees making near minimum wage.) UFT bosses were already shunning them, in their way.

It is not me breaking this union into winners and losers. As a union proponent, I would not do that. Unlike Mike Mulgrew, I know what a union is. If you want to know what a union is, read Beaten Down, Worked Up by Steven Greenhouse. There, you’ll see all sorts of things union can do, and you can easily contrast them to actions taken by Boss Mulgrew and his patronage cult.

Here’s the thing—Mulgrew’s UFT Unity is elite. You can’t just join. You have to be selected. But if you are, you can travel to conventions on the union dime. You can get a part time gig answering phones after school. If you are really good at sucking up to Michael Mulgrew and his minions, you may get a full-time gig spreading The Gospel According to Michael.

However, aside from being servile and ready to do whatever, that particular gospel is pretty challenging to follow. Let’s take a look at an exchange from Nick Bacon’s notes:

Mulgrew: was about paraprofessionals, now about our negotiating strategy. Always have to do…All of us negotiated, para chapter, made presentation on a particular financial matter. Also, the need to go away, because pattern bargaining will handcuff our lower salaries, have to keep. Teachers and higher paid chapters would get a higher percentage than lower ones (3k for all, higher percentage for paras). Went back to our committees, agreed all would be 3k. We’re not going to allow things to divide us. Not an attack on another, negotiating strategies are still left to that.

Call the question before house:

Georgia: not speakers on both sides.

Mulgrew: Don’t have to.

There’s a lot to unpack here. Of course Mulgrew doesn’t need speakers on both sides. Anyone who opposes his Word must be shunned. Then, there’s the typically incoherent nature of Mulgrew’s utterances. Most important, though, is the fact that Mulgrew suggests a one-time 3K bonus is somehow a substitute for a living wage. He’s admitting outright that he has no strategy whatsoever for meaningfully helping paras.

He’s also given up on making any improvement on pattern bargaining. Whatever DC37 takes is what we get. If he, Michael Mulgrew, negotiates eighteen months of zero percent compensation increases, the whole city must follow. (And yes, in 2014 he did that very thing.)

Unity’s message has nothing to do with unionism. I see no evidence they even know what union is. Union does not sit on its laurels. Union strives to improve things for working people, and set an example for non-union shops needing to compete. In stark contrast, Mulgrew works to enrich city coffers, handing over more than half of our Stabilization Fund to the city in 2014 in exchange for a crap contract, and agreeing in 2018 to save 600 million a year, forever, to the city for a three-year agreement that was just okay.

A union stands up. A union fights. Meanwhile, Mulgrew Worshipper Tom Murphy lectures members on how we should be polite. Read the Greenhouse book, and you’ll learn that union has won nothing, ever, by simply being polite. In fact, we didn’t win the right to unionize by being polite.

This country was not founded on being polite. Jim Hightower asks, “When a fox attacks a hen house, is it uncivil for the hens to raise a ruckus?”

Ask yourself that question as Mulgrew’s thugs work to strip us of our health care. Ask yourself that question as your insurance changes, and your co-pays go nowhere but up. Ask yourself that question as Mulgrew and the other Great Minds in his Municipal Labor Committee continually fail to imagine a way to make pattern bargaining approach cost of living. (They could, for example, agree upon a minimum before one union screws all city workers.)

A union does not shun its members. Mike Mulgrew does not give a hoot about the United Federation of Teachers. All he cares about is his salary, the extra 330K he spends, somehow, from our Welfare Fund, and maintaining his cult’s stranglehold on the union. If Mike Mulgrew cared about us, he would not have removed Amy Arundell, who even Unity opponents grant was doing a great job running Queens UFT.

Mulgrew and every one of his toadies need to go. We need a union answerable to members, not bosses. We need to support one another, not Saint Michael’s privileged social club.

Don’t forget to vote.