Unity Celebrates COPE

And once again, poses the burning question, Is Marianne Pizzitola a right-wing extremist, OR a left wing extremist?

When I was running for chapter leader, UFT sent a couple of guys over to organize in our school. I think this was some program with one guy from Unity and another from New Action. They were both retirees, and they were doing a COPE drive.

My friend, a Chinese teacher, was sitting next to me. She was confused. “What is COPE?” she asked.

COPE, I told her, is what UFT uses to support political causes. For example, I said, we used it to support Governor George Pataki. He thanked us by vetoing a bill that would’ve improved the Taylor Law. We also supported a legislator named Serphin Maltese, who was responsible for breaking two Catholic School unions.

One of the organizer guys heard this, got really angry, and came over to us.

“You can’t say that!” he said.

“Yeah, but I just did,” I pointed out.

The guy started screaming at me, pretty intensely.

I stood up, and I told the guy he didn’t get to tell me what I could and could not say. I’m here every day, I told him, and you, you are nobody. There was much finger-pointing.

A guidance counselor walked over and kind of forced me to sit down. Perhaps she anticipated something bad happening. Perhaps she was right, and perhaps that’s why she was a guidance counselor.

After I became chapter leader, and after we’d gone a few years without a contract, I began to think maybe we needed to support the union politically. UFT asked me if they could bring a speaker by. They sent the Queens political director, who showed up almost an hour late.

I signed up exactly two members that day—myself and a close friend of mine. The political guy, with no time to do the COPE drive he came for, got up for the few minutes we had left and told the crowd that Michael Mulgrew was very smart, and that we would get our contract. Months later, members were asking me to bring the guy back so they could punch his face out. (Years later, UFT spend hundreds of thousands of COPE dollars vainly trying to get that guy nominated for City Council.)

When the constitutional convention was rearing its ugly head in NYC, COPE became more of an issue. One day, at a union meeting where our guest was Amy Arundell, both she and I asked members to sign up. We recruited almost a hundred members that day.

We did manage to push that convention back. And we did eventually get a contract. It was pretty terrible. We sort of got the raises NYPD and FDNY had gotten maybe four years earlier, but we had to wait another four years to get our back pay, and without interest. Those who resigned or were fired got nothing. We imposed a crap pattern on the rest of the city, including a year and a half of nothing.

With that contract, Michael Mulgrew and Unity began their unprecedented sellout of our health care. This cost them the RTC chapter last year. While they did manage to eke out a victory this year, by the lowest margin in their history, this may not last. Their best hope, I suppose, is for our friends in ARISE to refuse to work with ABC. That, potentially, could keep that Unity hegemony going for quite a while.

Of course, there are a whole lot of people with a vested interest in keeping Unity in charge. There are a whole lot of jobs at stake. Unity doesn’t love my friend Marianne, without whom I would likely not have Medicare right now. Medicare is the best health insurance I’ve ever had. Before Unity imposed the Mulgrew Tax, my only out of pocket expenses were for pharmaceuticals.

When I first began hearing about Marianne Pizzitola and NYC Retirees, a friend from Unity told me she was MAGA, too far right. Thus, we were supposed to oppose her. During the last RTC election, they portrayed her as allied with MORE. Thus she was DSA or something, too far left. Thus, we were supposed to oppose her.

Now, a longtime Unity Patronage Cult member is upset that Marianne is talking about COPE. This guy says, because she’s helping members who wish to drop COPE, that she’s MAGA, too far right. Thus, we’re supposed to oppose her. Evidently, if COPE dollars somehow end up supporting Democrats, anyone who tells people how to stop COPE contributions is MAGA.

That’s news to me. After Mulgrew paid UFT lawyers to threaten me with civil and criminal penalties for parodying him, I not only pulled my COPE contribution, but also told people how to drop out. Last time I checked, I wasn’t MAGA.

Let’s look, though, at the logic that would label me or Marianne MAGA. By that logic, if you pay into COPE, you want me to stop using my First Amendment rights to express myself. Therefore, you not only want me to face civil and criminal penalties for parodying our Dear Leader, but furthermore, you are anti-American. You oppose the most fundamental freedoms granted by our Constitution.

Not only that, but if you support COPE, according to the logic of this writer, you oppose improvements to the Taylor Law. After all, these improvements were stopped by Pataki, and COPE supported Pataki. You, therefore, don’t believe in the right of union members to strike. You support draconian penalties, two days pay for each day on strike, as well as being stripped of tenure, as Norm Scott was when he walked the picket line.

Furthermore, according to this logic, if you pay into COPE you are fundamentally anti-union. After all, Serphin Maltese broke two Catholic school unions, and your money supported him. Unlike Unity writers, I’m glad I don’t need to resort to outlandish leaps in logic, like those above, to support my opinions.

I know Marianne Pizzitola. I speak with her. I understand exactly why she does what she does. She represents what is, essentially, a one-issue group. As such a representative, she takes public positions only on that issue, and a few related sub-issues. Thus, the seal of approval from NYC Retirees goes out to a wide range of candidates. Some I admire, and others I revile.

You may admire the ones I revile, and revile the ones I admire. Sly Stone said, “Different strokes for different folks.” We can argue about these strokes, if you wish. I’d just as soon not.

The fact is, though, that Unity’s very best writer, the only one I’m certain doesn’t rely on AI, twists logic into knots, and regularly resorts to outrageous, contrived fallacies to support whatever nonsense the Patronage Cult wishes to push on any given day.

Here’s an indisputable fact—Unity is out there lobbying against Intro 1096, which the Retired Teacher Chapter endorsed overwhelmingly. Isn’t it the job of UFT leadership, to whom we pay dues, to reflect our interests? Isn’t it their job to lobby for us, instead of against us? Isn’t that kind of Union 101?

Here’s another—we don’t get a whole lot of input into union endorsements. Unity makes a big show of some committee doing interviews and questioning candidates, but they’re very restricted in what they ask, and results seem predetermined. People I know who’ve sat on these committees describe them as more restrictive than C30 interviews for school administrators—the ones in which you ask everyone exactly the same questions, get no follow up, and admin can overrule the consensus whenever it wishes.

Mulgrew knew his endorsement of Mamdani would be controversial. After all, a whole lot of his peeps made a big deal out of calling my friend Amy antisemitic, and some people bought that. Anyone who thought Amy was antisemitic thinks Mamdani is too. Unity, having no moral center, applies ever-shifting standards whenever it deems them convenient.

But they’re fraidy-scared regardless. That’s why, in both of Mulgrew’s nebulous Town Halls, he never said out loud that he was about to endorse Mamdani. It seemed a grand exercise in, the buck doesn’t stop here. The DA makes all the decisions. I just work here.

He said he spoke to Mamdani about perceptions he was antisemitic, and said that Mamdani had addressed it somehow, but never said anything like, “He’s not antisemitic.” It was, for me at least, really weird watching Mulgrew trying to make this endorsement while taking no responsibility whatsoever for it.

Look, there’s democracy, and there’s democracy. For my money, voting yes or no for one pre-selected candidate doesn’t cut it. If UFT, with all its communication resources, was unable to survey membership, it’s absurd to contend chapter leaders could survey members on short notice during summer vacation.

If the best Unity could do was survey less than 2% of membership, we have a problem. If I recall correctly, Mulgrew told retirees we had chosen Cuomo and Landers as top candidates. He then went on to endorse someone we did not, if the survey means anything. I think he said in-service went for Mamdani and Landers.

Before the primary, Mulgrew told us the poll results were “all over the place.” After the primary, he told us he only got 2300 or so responses. The question then becomes, was he lying then, or is he lying now? How are we supposed to trust a guy who alters his story to suit the situation?

As you’ve undoubtedly gleaned by now, I don’t trust him at all. I don’t trust his Unity Patronage Cult to work in our interests. Furthermore, I feel absolutely no regret in declining to spend one extra dime so they can work against our interests (let alone threaten me with more lawsuits).

That’s why, right now, I’m gonna make another donation to NYC Retirees. I want Marianne and her people out there battling to retain my health care, even as Unity works to control and demean it. I’ll make this contribution in the name of Michael Mulgrew.

Please join me, and contribute as you are able. Somebody is on our side (even if we’re paying someone else).