The UFT and Activism

Do they get to dictate what activism is?

Yesterday, someone on Facebook accused me of opposing activism. I was skeptical of some official UFT actions. Still, I’ve been pretty active since the 2005 contract, which cried out for activism. I guess some feel opposing bad leadership does not qualify as activism. Given our leadership’s eagerness to fold for the city, though, it seems a dire necessity.

As I write this, I’m hanging up on the Welfare Fund, which has left me on hold for 37 minutes. Ever since Mulgrew and his Unity Caucus made “improvements” to the phone system, we are all centrally screwed. I would gladly go to a demonstration to improve this. We are the union, and we pay the inflated salaries of a whole lot of people, ostensibly to serve us. This morning, they’ve wasted quite a big of my time. That’s not what anyone needs a union for.

I need a union to protect me, along with my brothers and sisters, from our adversaries. Our number one adversary is our employer, currently embodied in Mayor Eric Adams. When Mayor Eric Adams says he wants to degrade our health benefits, I’m glad to stand with my union to fight. When Mayor Eric Adams says he wants to give us a compensation increase barely one-third of inflation, I’m ready to descend upon City Hall with all my union brothers and sisters.

Our leadership, though, has asked for neither. Instead of that, they’ve asked me to stand up for a “fair contract.” The contract, though, contained both of the glaring flaws noted above. Leadership wanted me to go to Starbucks and have people there see me work. I don’t set foot in Starbucks unless one of my students gives me a gift card. Starbucks is virulently anti-union, and I have better coffee at home.

I’ve been writing for months about how our leadership has sold out our retirees (and now I am one). I have been quite active opposing private corporate insurance for retirees. I don’t want some clerk at Aetna determining I don’t need care my doctors deem necessary. In service members do not need a plan that’s 10% cheaper than GHI-CBP. How many more doctors need to drop our plan before Mulgrew climbs out of bed with Adams?

Last week, on one of the hottest days of the year, I stood outside with both retirees and active members while the independent Organization of NYC Retirees went to court to stand for us. By the next day, there was a ruling that this downgrade could cause us “irreparable harm.” They embodied not only activism, but successful activism.

Let me ask you this—if our union leadership supports things that cause us irreparable harm, why should we be at their beck and call? Why should we get out there and demand a sub-inflation raise? Why should we demand a contract that does nothing to address the downgrade of our health care?

As I’m asking this, a lot of members have more fundamental issues. A few years back, I was chapter leader of the largest school in Queens (and odd position for someone who opposes activism). I was ready to strike for safety. Members announced, with no shame whatsoever, that they’d be scabs. This tells me they don’t even know what union is.

Whose fault is that? We, as a society, don’t really teach about labor and union. I kind of learned as I went along. There is a great book called Beaten Down, Worked Up by Steven Greenhouse. If you read it, you’ll get a laundry list of things that UFT does NOT do. We could strike, or we could do a whole lot of things short of that. But that’s not how our leadership thinks. I’ll bet you dimes to dollars Michael Mulgrew, except possibly when he read my blog, has never even heard of this book.

That’s why we are asleep. We call Mulgrew and the Unity Caucus “the union,” as though we aren’t even part of it. Whole swaths of us think of Mulgrew as our mommy, and think he should come around and personally help when we are in trouble. Mulgrew’s caucus encourages that false dependency.

In fact, they are the ones who don’t want activism. The very notion of it makes them quake in their boots. If we were truly active, we would not stand for their sellouts. We would not stand for diminished health care. We would not stand for wholly insufficient compensation increases. We would not have 20% participation in union elections. Crucially, we would not have a caucus that doesn’t even know what union is running our union.

I wholly support activism. What I just saw in union leadership was a carefully choreographed rush to a contract. There were few opportunities to examine, discuss or question it. There was a kabuki dance of demonstrations to support whatever leadership wanted, and we were all supposed to believe that these petty actions had something to do with realizing a contract. The fact is the contract was set once DC37 agreed. We had absolutely nothing to say about compensation or health care, our most critical issues.

Leadership thinks we are stupid. Leadership hires people solely for the quality of obsequiousness, and many of these hires may indeed be stupid. But I know a whole lot of smart teachers. They can’t fool all of us. A lot of us who won’t be fooled are, in fact, the most active members they have.

I admire activism. That’s why I contributed to NYC Retirees, who went out and protected us from the machinations of Mulgrew and his fellow union bosses. You should do so as well, and here is how.

Let’s be active. Let’s promote activism. And let’s be done with the delusion activism is what current leadership wants from us. We are union, we will stand up, and we will protect ourselves.

And very soon, we will vote those bastards out and take charge.