Unity to Paras--Go Screw Yourselves

Your votes mean nothing, they say.

Unity deems themselves pretty slick. I get messages from Unity members that call me “loser” and “brother” in the same paragraph. To them, there’s no contradiction. Maybe their own brothers call them losers. Who knows what makes people so openly passive-aggressive? It’s certainly a morally bankrupt culture, and it’s pathetic our union leadership is like that.

Michael Mulgrew went on a revenge spree last week, and his Unity ducklings got in line right behind him. He fired a bunch of people who supported ABC. The most egregious of these firings, for my money, was that of Migda Rodriquez. Migda won office by a 3-1 margin, and paraprofessionals expressed overwhelming support for her.

Here’s the thing—UFT elections are not remotely what you think they are. You vote people in, and they get titles. But titles mean nothing. Migda was elected as second chair. She’d have been elected first chair, but chose to defer to Some Guy. However, they Guy chose to screw over Fix Para Pay and defect to Unity. They gave him a job doing Something or Other in the Bronx (which surely must beat working).

You vote people into office, and your votes mean nothing. These people get titles, but jobs don’t come with them, as Migda was told when she was elected.

If elected titles mean nothing, what’s the point of having elections?

Unity gives actual jobs to whomever they feel like. That certainly explains why Migda’s opponent got a job even after losing the election. Paraprofessionals chose Migda. Unity decides the hell with the voters. They will pick the loser, because a loyal loser is laudable.

You see, with Unity, it’s not about whether you win or lose. It’s about exactly to which degree you’re willing to sell your immortal soul to Michael Mulgrew and the Unity Caucus. And it’s not like they’re coy about it. You join the Unity Caucus in hopes of personal advancement, and you sign a loyalty oath. Your loyalty to the caucus supersedes your loyalty to members.

That’s why, for example, Unity has no issues in launching juvenile personal attacks against working paraprofessionals. After humiliating elected OT/PT chapter leader Melissa Williams for stepping down after Unity abused her, they decided to humiliate Migda for not stepping down. You see, Migda needed a second job to make ends meet, and therefore could not attend meetings. Unity found that simply hilarious! They made a picture of her with a funny hat.

That’s the Unity sense of humor. It’s not a great leap in logic to imagine how their minds would jump to making decals of Amy Arundell, with odious labels stating, “Piss on my face.” Nor is it surprising that, rather than simply condemn this verified act, Unity counters with, “Someone from ABC is alleged to have said something distasteful, and that’s just as bad as a verified act.”

You see, if you aren’t Unity, you’re guilty until proven innocent. If you are, well, as far as I can see there are no consequences whatsoever.

In fact, I know of a particularly nasty representative who has a girlfriend, also a UFT employee, who’s known for her arts and crafts abilities. It would not surprise me at all to learn they had concocted this puerile, disgusting, misogynistic, hostile thing. Perhaps it turns them on. Who knows? Sit while you wait for Unity to get to the bottom of this one.

However, it’s not only your vote that means nothing to the Unity Caucus. It’s also the level of service you get from the union. That’s another thing that means nothing whatsoever to them. My friend Amy Arundell, along with ABC, managed to get a third of the votes from UFT members on our first time out. This means, of course that a third of the union gets no representation whatsoever.

That wasn’t enough for Unity, which fired Amy last week. Say what you will, but I’ve got a whole lot of first-hand experience dealing with UFT as both a member and a chapter leader. I’m here to tell you that no one, absolutely no one, served members like Amy. She made it a priority to help me, my members, and anyone who emailed me with anything she possibly could.

Unlike others in Unity, she didn’t give me crap about opposing their Patronage Cult, ever. She didn’t accuse me of outlandish acts I’d never consider, and others did. And while we’ve had lively discussions on more than one occasion, she never resorted to the juvenile name-calling I frequently get from their enthusiastic patronage recipients.

I was surprised they didn’t fire her sooner, to be honest. I suppose they calculated doing so might win her sympathy votes. Instead they moved her from job to job, probably hoping she’d quit and save them the effort. Where Amy was most effective was Queens Borough Representative. I know because I was chapter leader of the largest school in Queens both before and after she got that job. It was night and day—I no longer had to write articles in the NY Daily News to get attention for my members.

They fired my friend Leah a few weeks back, but she was only a part-time staffer. She’s still a chapter leader and an Instagram personality to be reckoned with. I hear they also reached their tendrils into AFT and fired a person who’d been relocated there.. I suppose he was laterally moved there when he somehow failed to please King Mulgrew, but here’s the thing about paranoic despots—reasonable compromises tend not to appeal to them.

This person is more than competent. I’ve seen him work. But despots with personal vendettas need to be satisfied. Clearly Randi Weingarten has no issue being a tool of Michael Mulgrew and the Unity Caucus. That’s why, for example, Tom Murphy gets an AFT position after overwhelmingly losing an AFT election.

Another person fired, I hear, is a longtime para rep. This rep came to Francis Lewis and helped a bunch of our paraprofessionals when a Unity Big Shot ignored them. Our paras had some retirement issues, and he met with them, and me, and put them on a better course for the future.

It’s important to know that our ostensible leadership values loyalty above all else. I’ve had my share of dealing with Mulgrew sycophants who were totally inept and unhelpful. Every time I advised a member to call UFT, I also told them if the person doesn’t help, to get back to me and I’d find one who would.

When that happened, I’d go to Amy Arundell, she’d give me a name, and I’d never get a complaint back. Service is not important to Unity. Only preserving their stranglehold on power matters to them. It’s pretty sad.

Meanwhile, they’re out doing “silent protests” that the para bill hasn’t reached a vote. The para bill, of course, was Unity’s transparent attempt to buy off a group that overwhelmingly voted against them during an election. When Unity had the chance, and the money, to give paras a pensionable raise that not only equalled the 10K in the bill, but one that would also be permanent, they did nothing whatsoever.

This, along with the eyeglass enhancement, the dental expansion, and the various other things Unity trotted out over the last few months, led an acquaintance of mine to remark, “We should have an election every year.” I guess it’s true.

Meanwhile, Unity’s still lobbying against 1096, the bill that would actually protect retiree health care. Surely they think we should settle for the lip service of Eric Adams and Michael Mulgrew, neither of whom merits our trust.

What will Unity stalwarts have to say about this? It will be one or another variation of the only message they have that remains constant—Sit down and shut up.

But that’s not what real unionists do. I will never do that. We will never do that.