The Kiss of Death

The UFT and mayoral endorsements

Above you see the beginning of the end. That’s Randi Weingarten, former President of the United Federation of Teachers, cozying up to anti-public education champions Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg. That’s from 2005, which brought us the giveback-loaded teacher agreement that reduced us from an activist force to a company union.

It’s become progressively worse. Over the last decade, Mulgrew and his Very Smart People felt comfortable and entrenched enough to sell out our health care for cost of living or less. That’s cost them dearly and I think their time is up. But UFT mayoral endorsements began to fail well before that.

There are different schools of thought on why our political clout may be dissipating. Perhaps it’s the fact that fewer members live in the city. I found myself pretty decisively priced out of Queens back in 1992, and moved to Freeport, on Nassau’s south shore. More and more of my colleagues, if they can afford homes at all, are moving to Suffolk, or even New Jersey.

Perhaps it’s the sharp decline in union activism. When Norm Scott and I went to a SAG-AFTRA demonstration during their strike, we were surprised to see just a handful of UFT staffers. More recently, when I tried to help Laura Gillen’s campaign, I noticed the same pattern. Just send a few staffers, get a photo for the UFT paper, and who cares whether or not members are genuinely involved?

Regardless, the last time the UFT endorsement was demonstrably pivotal was 1989. UFT took a chance, endorsed David Dinkins early, and did a David and Goliath thing—we managed to bring down Ed Koch, a veritable institution, in the primary. That was the first time UFT endorsed during a primary. (Given what followed, perhaps it should have been the last.) Dinkins then defeated Rudy Giulini in the general.

As mayor, Dinkins pushed through a 5.5% one year contract for teachers. It was considered a big win, but was roundly criticized by the press as too costly. Marcia Kramer had just jumped ship from the striking Daily News—convenient for her. On CBS, she called the contract a “grab bag of goodies” for us. Dinkins was not great at defending it.

Shortly thereafter, my very first UFT action was marching in a Labor Day Parade. We were given black UFT t-shirts that said, “Shame on City Hall” on the back. We planned to turn our backs to Mayor Dinkins as we passed him on a stand, but he got wind of it and ran off to watch tennis in Forest Hills. We ended up, of course, with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who I distinctly recall being no fun at all.

I can’t recall much beyond that, but I’m fairly certain we’d have been better off with Dinkins than Rudy. I recall seeing Rudy on TV, saying sure, I’d like to give teachers raises, but some of them stink, and they don’t deserve raises. Was UFT leadership so full of itself, even then, that it didn’t recognize we’d enabled an anti-labor mayor? I wrote about the 1995 infamous double-zero contract he pushed through for Chalkbeat:

The first union to be offered the double zero was the UFT. We rejected it, though then-UFT President Sandra Feldman had sent a stern letter warning anyone who thought we’d do better must be “smoking something.” The contract next went to DC37, which voted it up, followed by every city union, including a second-round UFT. There was a modification though-UFT teachers reached maximum salary in 22 rather than 25 years. As someone who’s now been on maximum for two and a half years, I’d like to personally thank every single teacher who was “smoking something.”

But there was more to the double zero contract, and I’m not certain the Post ever picked up on it. It turned out that particular DC37 election was rigged. And though every single union after DC37 voted up this stinker, I never heard crusading mayor Rudolph Giuliani express a word of outrage about it. In fact, DC37’s then-leaders were jailed as a result.

After Giuliani’s first term, he seemed a shoo-in for the second. I don’t recall UFT endorsing at all in 1997 (but correct me if I’m wrong). You’d think a fraudulent contractual election might raise the ire in unionists, but I never heard a whisper about it from union leadership.

Ruth Messinger ran for the Democrats that year, and all the city papers endorsed Giuliani. Toward the end of Giuliani’s second term, of course, was 9/11. Giuliani was lauded as a hero. Those of us who worked for the city, including NYPD and FDNY, were no longer enthralled with him, as he’d given us zeros, and then left us all without new contracts.

The next mayoral election was a roller coaster. UFT endorsed Alan Hevesi in the mayoral primary. He was knocked out, and there was a runoff election between Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer. UFT endorsed Ferrer, who won the runoff. Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, as usual, bought that election fair and square. He proved a very formidable adversary for us (though you wouldn’t guess that from the photo above).

Ferrer once again ran against Bloomberg in 2005, and lost persuasively. UFT remained neutral during that cycle. Of course, this coincided with Great Sellout Contract, and leadership likely did not wish to upset the apple cart. We got more money, but worked longer hours. We gave up the right to grieve letters to file. We went back to doing lunch duty and potty patrol.

We also took a few days in August, which outraged members. Randi Weingarten bought them back by reducing our TDA from 8.25% to 7%. Even now, all city workers except UFT earn 8.25%. That’s proven to be one hell of a costly giveback.

Of course, Michael Bloomberg has all those billions of dollars, and managed to buy himself a third term back in 2009. Who cares if voters twice affirmed term limits? Not Mayor Mike. I thought we should oppose him. In fact, I went to UFT chapter leader training and said so. I was told we could only sway the vote by about five points. In fact, Bloomberg only won by five points. Voters were mad he changed the law.

So maybe we could have saved ourselves four years of Bloomberg—four years with no new contract, even as he settled with NYPD and FDNY. And Bill Thompson (who I affectionately dub Some Guy Who Didn’t Want to Pay Teachers) ran against Bloomberg. He was a little disappointed with us for, you know, failing to support him. In fact, he went and told the NY Daily News that the city couldn’t afford to give teachers the raises cops and firefighters got.

When Some Guy Who Didn’t Want to Pay Teachers ran again in 2013, UFT supported him against Bill de Blasio. We all know de Blasio won that primary, and the election that followed. I’m embarrassed to admit that I supported de Blasio and even went to his inauguration. I expected he’d dismantle Bloomberg’s machine at Tweed, but he did no such thing.

Why was de Blasio such a bitter disappointment to us? Could it be because we opposed him in the primary? Could it be that we failed to step up when Cuomo pushed through a rule stating the city had to pay rent for charters? Could it be he was too inept to even notice Bloomberg’s machine was left in place? All of the above? It’s an open question. But under de Blasio, Mulgrew’s Very Smart People managed to surrender our health care in ways no one had previously thought possible.

De Blasio ran again in 2017, and UFT endorsed him again. After all, there was still a lot of health care to give away. In 2018, we got a three-year contract that was close to cost of living. In exchange, Mulgrew and the Municipal Labor Committee agreed to Michael Bloomberg’s Long Cherished Wish—that we save 600 million a year in health costs for the city, in perpetuity. This little tidbit was safely tucked away in Appendix B, so those of us voting on the contract didn’t know about it.

Here’s what Michael Mulgrew told the UFT Delegate Assembly about it on October 12. 2018:

Health care negotiated with all unions. Done six months ago. MLC thought something bad could happen with health care because of DC. We wanted to lock in a deal. No additional copays, but made a change for all unions. We tried to get plan in better place. Was proactive approach. Has been out for six months. Was smart thing to lock down our health care with no significant cost ships to union membership.

You see that? He’s talking about how smart he is, which invariably means trouble. This was before he raised urgent care co-pays to a hundred bucks, among other Wonderful Surprises. He didn’t mention that he was planning to dump all the retirees into Medicare Advantage. He didn’t even mention that he wanted to charge retirees 200 bucks each, per month, to start if we wanted to retain our coverage. That would have cost my wife and me 5K a year.

Another thing that skipped his mind was the huge number of retirees for whom such costs would be prohibitive. It was just another day in the life of Michael Mulgrew, company union leader, saving hundreds of millions for our contractual adversary at our direct expense.

This brings us to our most recent election.In 2021, UFT endorsed Scott Stringer in the primary. He was accused of sexual misconduct, and his campaign crashed and burned. After that, UFT endorsed Eric Adams, the darling of charter school proponents, their very own six million dollar man. Along with Mike Schirtzer, I voted against this endorsement at UFT Executive Board. Everyone else went along with it.

Adams now has his own scandals, and appears to be chasing a presidential pardon. Stringer’s filed a defamation suit against one of his accusers, and is now challenging Adams again. Stringer’s not alone in being accused of sexual misconduct, and Andrew Cuomo’s name keeps popping up, like a bad penny, as a potential mayoral candidate.

Why hasn’t Mulgrew endorsed? Is he worried about his own upcoming election? Now I can’t read Michael Mulgrew’s mind, but the 2025 mayoral race appears wide open. I hope someone new and improved pops up.

Until then, I honestly can’t blame Michael Mulgrew for staying out of it. When Mulgrew sold out the retirees, he and his caucus stepped in quicksand. Not even I can blame them for not wishing to wade in any further. Still, I can understand why some see our endorsement as the kiss of death.

That said, I just heard a rumor Mulgrew wants to support Cuomo, but is waiting until after the UFT election to do so. Cuomo is just awful—anti-public education, charter supporter, bringer of both Tier 6 and Danielson, and scandal-ridden to boot. However, it would not surprise me in the least if Mulgrew wanted to support him.

That, of course, is just one more reason to vote for ABC this May.