UFT Paraprofessionals Overwhelmingly Reject Unity

But they're stuck with them anyway. Here's why:

The Fix Para Pay slate beat the pants off Unity, but only ran a handful of candidates. Even worse, they decided to be bipartisan and run a Unity member for Chapter Leader. That member betrayed them, trash-talked them, and Unity plastered his comments all over their social media. I hear they also gave him a job, but I can’t confirm that.

Regardless, one of the most despicable acts Unity has ever committed was their treatment of Migda Rodriguez, then 2nd Vice Chair of the UFT Paraprofessional Chapter. I understand a lot of what they do, even when I disagree, but attacking a working woman, a mom struggling to support her family, went beyond the pale. I contacted a UFT Unity leader, who surprised and disappointed me by defending this behavior.

Regardless, the voting results are in, and as for slate voting, the Fix Para Pay slate got 2516 votes while Unity got 892. That tells me an overwhelming majority of paraprofessionals reject the Unity Caucus. Last year, rather than fix para pay, Unity pushed them aside, granting them a party and a handbook.

Now I like parties, but given a choice I’d opt for a living wage. As for handbooks, they’re just not the sort of thing that impresses me. I failed to electronically sign I’d read the Francis Lewis High School handbook in 2022, and a secretary dragged me to an office and forced me to sign physically. Yet every week some bot in my DOE email still reminds me I need to sign. (I don’t know about you, but I’m just not a great lover of handbooks.)

Let’s get back to Migda, who should have run for CL, but who’s now 1st Vice Chair-elect. Unity froze her out. They didn’t give her time off. They didn’t give her a union position. They didn’t give her a salary, an office, or even a lousy UFT email address (let alone the means to address her chapter).

This was, frankly, disgraceful. And even as this was happening, the 2nd Vice Chair who Migda replaced had all the things they denied her. Essentially, the Unity Caucus decided paraprofessionals, rather than be repped by people they chose, should be repped by Whoever Michael Mulgrew Golly Gosh Darn Felt Like.

In a democracy, the President doesn’t get to select who represents individual districts. And in a union democracy, the President ought not have the right to override the will of the members. Yet that’s exactly what Mulgrew and his patronage employees did.

It was, in fact, Unity that unilaterally decided paraprofessionals had to run slate voting this year. Perhaps they knew how few candidates Fix Pary Pay had and hoped to freeze them out entirely. In any case, they didn’t bother running this change by the UFT Executive Board, or the Delegate Assembly. They just declared that’s the way it is.

Some democracy that is.

In any case, Fix Para Pay cleaned their clock, and the next time they run they will recruit a full slate, just like we at Retiree Advocate did this year.

Meanwhile, paraprofessionals are stuck with a chapter leader against whom they voted overwhelmingly. In Unity world, that means little. As long as the sitting CL serves Mulgrew, who cares about membership? In fact, the current high school VP did not win a majority of high school votes, but sits anyway because Unity changed the rules. In the case of paras, they merely manipulated a candidate.

The result is the same. Paraprofessionals are denied representation of their choice.

And going forward, if Migda Rodriguez and her elected slate members, the Secretary and seven Executive Board members, are not given paid positions, time off from their paraprofessional responsibilities, and the means to work for their constituents, it will mean only one thing—it will signify that Unity could not care less about voices of paraprofessionals.

I will continue to write about paras and advocate for them. They are UFT members, just like you and me. It’s disgraceful that the Unity Caucus sees fit to ridicule them, manipulate their elections, and worst of all, deprive them of their voice within our union.

Paraprofessionals work all day, with only a break for lunch. They focus on one kid at a time. Honestly, I don’t think I could do that job. They deserve to be treated with respect.

I challenge you, Michael Mulgrew, to make that happen.

As of last week, even you know what exactly will happen if you don’t.