Thou Shalt Not Question the Trustees

Mulgrew uncovers a lost commandment

It’s silly season folks, announced Michael Mulgrew in the March DA. For some reason, after losing two concurrent elections by landslides, he pretends they’re a laugh riot of some sort. It’s far more likely he’s ridiculing those who see fit to run against him (in a fashion he fancies to be subtle).

Unity has controlled the UFT since its inception, and they figure they should therefore control it forever. Perhaps it’s another commandment, but Mulgrew hasn’t proclaimed it (as yet).

He was very specific, however, about the trustees. Their Word is not to be questioned. They are like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way. How dare I write about their actions? I should simply accept them without question. It’s irresponsible to be curious, to wonder why they do what they do. Whatever they do, it’s for the best, and Mulgrew hath spoken.

This is a vital point. In fact, it’s so vital that my opponent for UFT Assistant Secretary, Michael Sill, felt the need to drop a link to a Substack post he wrote in the comments. He offered no accompanying comment. I followed the link, and read the post in question. It begins like this:

Over recent weeks, our pensions have been a hot topic in the UFT blogosphere. Many of you have seen the infamous yellow flyer, which claims that Mulgrew wanted to borrow money from the pension fund.

As you also now know, that is an utter fabrication. It’s a lie.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? The playbook is open for all the world to see. And it’s taken directly from Trump.

I was pretty surprised to read that. I sometimes write about pensions, but I don’t write yellow flyers. I don’t know what they say, where they come from, or who wrote them. In fact, for all I know, Unity produced them themselves so as to create a straw man they could argue against. While I very much doubt that’s the case, it’s clear Unity’s arguments have little to do with what I wrote.

Mulgrew’s just declared his trustees are not answerable for their actions. Why, then, am I answerable for the actions of others, especially when I have no idea who they may be?

I decided to send Sill an email. Here it is:

Hi Michael,

I’m going to remove the link from your Unity post from my blog comment. Here is why.

You cite a yellow paper. I did not write the yellow paper. I have never seen the yellow paper. I have never written that anyone is taking money away from our pension.

Your piece has absolutely nothing to do with anything I wrote. I will not have you advertise the Unity Substack at my place. If you want to talk to me, you know where to find me.

Sincerely,

Arthur

I deleted the link, as I said. Shortly thereafter, he posted it again. I deleted it again. Then it showed up once more, and I deleted it a third time. I decided to write him again.

Okay Michael. After I explained myself, you’ve seen fit to post the link twice more, and I’ve deleted it twice more. I will make my first email public, and make it part of a post.

Thank you for providing me with material.

Arthur

I am indeed grateful. It’s a big responsibility to keep up this page. I go through different periods. Sometimes I build up a backlog of posts and take time putting them out. Other times, I’m scrambling to find things to write about. Happily, this post fell right into my lap.

Michael Sill, with his various responsibilities, kindly took the time to demonstrate his psychic powers for us. Evidently they’ve led him to determine I produced a yellow paper somewhere, somehow, that it was full of lies, and that I was inspired by Donald Trump to deliver said yellow paper.

Alas, since absolutely none of these revelations contain any truth whatsoever, I’m not the purveyor of the “utter fabrication.” In fact, reviewing Sill’s words, they appear to be pure projection. I can’t describe his message better than he did. In his own words, “It’s a lie.”

Does Sill even understand the bill? Does he even understand what members are asking for? Does he care? Does he understand that there is no financial crisis indicating we should be doing this now? The only one I know of is Mulgrew’s idiotic agreement to sacrifice 600 million a year in health care costs, forever, in exchange for a three year contract that may or may not have met cost of living.

Or is Sill simply doing as he’s told, regardless of whether he’s right or wrong?

Of course, as Mulgrew says, “It’s silly season.” Given that, why not trot out the UFT Assistant Secretary out and have him pretend he’s the Amazing Kreskin? Sure, he can’t read minds any better than Mulgrew runs the union, but hey, everyone should be able to try something new every now and then.

Here’s what’s really silly—the presumption that we may not question the folks looking over our pension funds. (I hear Mulgrew made that pronouncement at Executive Board as well.) Regardless, whether trustees are doing good, bad, or indifferent work, these folks represent us. As representatives, they are accountable to us. Now you wouldn’t have suspected that if you’d attended the Retiree Teacher Chapter (RTC) meeting a few days back.

In fairness, Victoria Lee appeared to be Not Insane. Perhaps that was because she was the first speaker, but she also appeared Not Insane at the following night’s DA. That does not mean I agree with everything she says. Despite Mulgrew’s autocratic insistence otherwise, I don’t have to. For example, someone suggested to me, contradicting Lee’s assertion otherwise, that these things do not just happen every ten years or so, even if it happened once about ten years ago.

What I really did not agree with, though, was her statement that we were somehow responsible to monitor their actions. Since they work for us, it’s on them to tell us about what they’re doing, as well as why they do it. The fact they feel no such compunction indicates they subscribe to the boss mentality that infects groups like Unity, as well as the other caucuses with their flagrantly undemocratic “steering committees.”

Unity fooled us by passing the 2018 contract and then springing Appendix B upon us. Mulgrew misrepresented the cuts as a minor thing. It turned out co-pays exploded and retirees were to be dumped into Advantage plans or pay hefty fees, unaffordable for most. And now, they muster the audacity to demand we trust them?

I’m tired of sitting through meetings that are exercises in performative democracy, with little to no importance placed on member voice or interaction.

No one needs to listen to Michael Mulgrew bloviate for as long as he sees fit.

When RTC sat through Tom Murphy’s meetings, the ones with no motions, no voting, and precious little chance to exercise our collective voice, Trustee Tom Brown came and gave us a lecture on how good we had it. We had this. We had that. The audience was primarily concerned with the fight to retain our excellent health insurance. Rather than address that, Brown says, you enjoy this and that. You enjoy a death benefit.

Who enjoys a death benefit? And now Mulgrew demands I never question these people, one of whom gives long speeches to transparently designed to divert us from our concerns. Why should we sit down, shut up, or give up? Because we have a death benefit?

It’s beyond arrogant for Unity to come to our meeting and feel entitled enough to preclude absolutely all member business.

But this is Unity 101. After years of attending Delegate Assemblies, I understand they are scripted events. I also understand Mulgrew gets very upset when things go off script.

Last week Mulgrew did not get to endorse any of his 1096-opposing City Council members. While our health care may not be a worry for Michael Mulgrew, his political power certainly is. Perhaps he underestimated how much time Victoria Lee’s do-over presentation would take. Somehow, he failed to get anyone to extend the meeting, though he certainly dropped hints.

Our retiree battle is, and always has been, about protecting our health care. That’s how we ousted Unity last year. I don’t know how much clearer things can get. Yet Unity continues to play games. They don’t support MA, but they don’t support any legislation that will protect us either. They don’t support MA, but they’re part of an amicus brief supporting the city’s efforts to dump us into it.

The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. And now they want to come in here and advertise their stuff. Sorry, but I’ve built up my readership here for years, ever since Unity sicced UFT lawyers on me and my old domain was suddenly blocked.

You know what? I’m not here to advertise for you, Mike. Go do that on your own.

It’s outlandish your boss has the nerve to tell us to blindly trust these people. They come to our meeting, take up ALL our time, fail to leave us one minute to conduct any business whatsoever, and then get angry at us. I mean, doing whatever you feel like is pretty much business as usual at the DA, but we voted you out, overwhelmingly. It’s our turn.

If we’re concerned about the way our pension plan is financed, we have every right to ask questions. Sorry, but Unity rules don’t apply to those of us not on payroll. In fact, they ought not to apply to anyone.

We’re working on that too, Mike. ABC believes in transparency.