Unity Revels in Its Blunders

They try to scrub the past about one, and organize an expensive gala luncheon over another.

I’ve written repeatedly about my mistake policy—I apologize and try to fix things. Unity has a very different policy. They act like nothing bad ever happened, move on, and either a. ignore the issue, b. blame someone else for the issue, or c. resolve the issue somehow and pretend they didn’t create it in the first place.

The jury is out for the first issue, which is December 23rd on the school calendar. I’ve written about this before. I got a lot of feedback on Facebook from some Unity big shot who didn’t consider it worthy of discussion. But we knew, from recent experience, that opening one day during Christmas break was a bad idea. In fact, the late James Eterno wrote about it and predicted it would recur.

That happened in 2019. This year, 2024, James’ prediction came true. This was surprising to me. I remember 2019. Not only did Unity fail to do so, but they further celebrated the calendar they’d negotiated.

So the holidays were added, and the calendars were set. The UFT Patronage Cult had access, and announced it to members. Ironically, the very next text celebrated the contract agreement. So here’s a question—if you have a recurring issue with Monday, December 23rd, and you are able to negotiate the calendar, why not just write it into the contract?

Of course, Unity had another notion. It was better, evidently, to freak out the entire city, parents, children, and UFT. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Or, let’s wait for a seventh grader to start a petition, and then hope for the best.

Learn from mistakes? That’s not part of the Unity Loyalty Oath, so who needs it? So Monday night, Unity had the Executive Board do a resolution about it. After all, who’s gonna remember they’re the ones who screwed it up in the first place?

In other news, Unity’s Tom Murphy did a fabulous job running the Retired Teacher chapter. He managed to keep questions to an absolute minimum at worst, and forbid them utterly at best. I seem to recall one meeting in which Tom grudgingly allowed one question about Medicare. There were others, I suppose, where there may have been multiple questions on it (if only to have one of their plants announce, falsely, that there were no preapprovals in Medicare Advantage).

But that wasn’t Murphy’s prime achievement. I’d argue that was his managing to run every meeting I attended with no motions and no voting whatsoever. So there was no chance whatsoever of any noisy, troublesome protestors making the statement that they did not want their health care made inferior by Michael Mulgrew.

When there finally was a vote, it was a vote to elect new leadership. Tom Murphy lost by a landslide. How does Unity respond to that?

There’s going to be another big, money-losing party at the Hilton, where Unity members, if not comped, will pay 50 bucks each to celebrate the man who dutifully quashed our voices for years. We will celebrate the man who did King Mulgrew’s will, while ignoring us, the lowly commoners who wished only to preserve the health care we were promised all our careers.

For years, we were denied representation, and our voices were effectively silenced by the Unity Patronage Mill. Now our leadership invites us to celebrate the man who orchestrated that. Make no mistake, this is yet another in a series of “screw you” statements to the newly-elected Retired Teacher Chapter.

Of course, as Murphy would argue, it’s important to be civil at all times. I, on the other hand, would argue that Mulgrew’s Unity Aristocracy is not civil at all. I’d argue that using our dues money to celebrate the man who made sure our voices were not heard, even in our own chapter meetings, is just about as uncivil as things get.

Of course, I’m just a lowly commoner. That said, you’d better believe my vote this May will go to ensure King Mulgrew is deposed. It’s time for us to take hold of our own health care, our own future, and our own union. We need this not only for our own sake, but also for the sake of those who follow in our footsteps.

Thanks to Daniel A.