The UFT Delegate Assembly Is a Scripted Event

The bosses go to "DA Prep" every month to plot it out.

Imagine all the VPs, Borough Reps, and some senior staff members got together before every DA. Imagine they called it DA Prep, and went every Wednesday the DA is held. Imagine they pre-arranged all the questions. Imagine they rehearsed the President to answer them. Imagine the President were borderline incapable of talking off the cuff. I don’t need to imagine. I have a highly-placed source who explained in detail.

Regardless, it’s a pretty remarkable thing to imagine. For one thing, the overwhelming majority of us are teachers. I can’t speak with confidence on what paraprofessionals, counselors, or other titles do. I can tell you, though, that a huge part of being a teacher is improvising, thinking on your feet. It’s not too much to demand a teacher union president be able to do the same.

In a classroom, you never know what’s going to happen. You never know what a student will ask. And honestly, sometimes you don’t know the answer. When that happens to me, I say, “I’m not sure, but I’ll find out for you.” Then I do.

Of course I plan my classes as well. I always walk in knowing exactly what I plan to do. I am quite open, though, to adjusting depending on student input. Once I was being observed and a student pushed me aside and took over the class. I was thrilled, and if I recall correctly, so was my supervisor. To me, that’s optimal. UFT leadership, though, plans so as to preclude actual member input. When the unexpected occurs, rather than embrace it, they flail and devolve into chaos (I’ll offer an example later).

The questions are planned as well. The President knows not only who will be asking which question, but also where those people will be seated. It’s not really chance that they ask questions from here and there. The questioners are known, and the answers are pre-scripted.

If you’re one of those people remotely listening to the DA and your comment isn’t called, don’t take it personally. When they ask what you want to discuss, you may just bring up something off agenda. However, if you happen to come up with a question they planned to answer anyway, you’ll get selected. Then, the President can give the agreed-upon response and give the appearance of the spontaneity so lacking from this process.

Of course our classes are nothing like that. We deal with what’s before us. In doing that, there are things I do not do, ever. I do not, for example, shut down kids who have questions, even when I don’t like them. I really try to encourage debate. (Perhaps I do it to a fault. We were once discussing whether or not teachers should be armed. I did too good a job of playing devil’s advocate, and a girl told me it was clear to her I wanted to see teachers armed. In fact I did not.)

If I were to insult someone, saying, like the UFT President does, that they don’t believe in democracy, I’d be in trouble. That would be a violation of Chancellor’s Regulation A-421. It would be no fun explaining that to a principal. I don’t have a microphone to turn off, like Mulgrew does. I suppose I could tape their mouths shut. Uber-reformer Michelle Rhee did that. She should’ve been fired.

But that’s par for the course at our delegate assembly. Are member concerns addressed? Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter because this is a scripted event. Now sometimes things break through. Maybe once in a while, one of the people in opposition is so insistent that their question gets answered. It happens. But the other 98% is highly rehearsed.

Sometimes opposition questions are anticipated. Maybe that awful Nick Bacon made a stink about this or that at Executive Board and they know it’s coming up again. They prep a response.

If something unanticipated comes up, they can always signal from the stage so that those in the know know they need to vote no. Maybe someone takes their glasses off and puts them down, thus ensuring that everyone in Unity Caucus is cued to vote it down.

And hey, if they don’t want a resolution to come up it can be buried under a sea of other resolutions. If they deem a resolution important, they arrange for someone to propose it take priority. In fact, they can continually put things up so that things they don’t want to vote on fail to come up.

UFT Delegate Daniel Alicea had a resolution on mayoral control that got stalled for 11 months. By that time, the election was over and the point was essentially moot. But that day, the unthinkable happened. Delegates, newly voting remotely, we not cued and failed to vote the way the bosses wished. Mulgrew seemed visibly freaked out as things went off script, and Daniel, rather than going through the trouble of modifying it so it could linger yet another year, simply pulled the resolution.

Generally, though, the DA is scripted. The room is largely filled with people who’ve literally sworn to support whatever the bosses tell them to. Therefore, it is rigged. I will soon write about how it can be improved. In fact, UFT elections are rigged too. I will give chapter and verse on that very shortly, as that is another thing desperately in need of repair.

Our union hall ought to be a place that encourages and reinforces activism. It ought not to be a Kabuki dance that simply reinforces the boss’s will. Frankly, the discouragement of real activism weakens our union. We need to strengthen it.

If the DA is supposed to be the highest decision making body, why is there so little time set aside for resolutions and debate? Why is the President’s Report the only part not time limited? Why is it allowed to be used as a filibustering technique to preclude that which UFT Unity bosses wish to avoid discussing?

Why, in fact, since the report is prepared beforehand, is it not simply emailed or posted online? Were that the case, we could use the saved time for questions, discussion, and debate. Of course the answer is that the bosses don’t want any of those things. They want presidential propaganda and the opportunity to run out the clock. 

That is not remotely how a union hall should be used. And that’s one more reason why we need to wake up. We need to vote for people who will represent us, who will improve things for us, and who will improve things for the community we serve.

There are more important things than providing “savings” for Mayor Eric Adams, and we very much need a union leadership ready and willing to work for those of us who do the work. Let’s be clear—UFT Unity does not “do the work.” WE do the work, and they’re making quite a bit it more difficult.