Working for Mike Mulgrew and Unity

How on earth do so many union employees support such poor deals?

I support union. Absolutely.

It’s tough, though, when we have leadership that does not support us. Our leadership battles to demean our health care, makes deals behind our backs, and sneaks things into contracts without alerting us. Our leadership tells us that neither salary nor health care are things we can negotiate. Then, they make a big show of a 500-member contract committee to pretend we have input.

Who the hell do we have working for us?

Well, we still have Mike Mulgrew. He got up and claimed, finally, to oppose dumping retirees into an inferior Medicare Advantage plan. That in itself, though, means very little. Last week, I wrote him a letter explaining what he needed to do if he wanted to actually make a difference. So far, he has not seen fit to answer. Frankly, I’d be surprised if he ever did. So that’s who works for us, ostensibly at least. Who doesn’t work for us?

Well, as far as I can tell, I don’t. I was just elected Vice Chair of the Retired Teacher Chapter, and thus far, my only responsibilities entail going to meetings. I’m fortunate enough not to depend on UFT for income, so it doesn’t fundamentally affect my life style. Quite frankly, I think my best current contribution to our union is this, the column you’re reading right now.

I’ve worked for UFT a few hours here and there. On multiple occasions, I’ve donated time to support the newcomers I teach. As for paid work, I think one summer I called new members and made sure they enrolled in the union. One year I was assigned to make sure a new school hired teachers according to an agreement we had with the city. So I’ve made a few hundred bucks at some time or other.

The best work I’ve done for union was as chapter leader of Francis Lewis High School. With the prodding of Amy Arundell, and the support of a great AP, I was able to get our school to hire a great ATR teacher. For reasons I won’t go into, it was very difficult for this teacher to score a placement. I was able to help a whole lot of other people in different ways. It was very gratifying, and I’m proud of my work.

Of course I wasn’t paid for this work. In fact, I gave up a paying job at Queens College as an adjunct to make time for it. Maybe I’m crazy. But I loved that job. While I was doing it, I couldn’t have imagined being without it.

I was never going to get a union job, though I’d have liked one. I wasn’t the right kind of person. I was not too keen on oh, bad contracts, exploding co-pays, a vindictive evaluation system that empowered nitwit admistrators, Common Core, and other things our leadership adored. Despite that, I’d have been happy to spend time serving members. I was all about that. Even Unity seemed to know it. After I did well in my first term, they could never muster anyone to oppose me in chapter elections.

Unity does hire some good people. Amy Arundell, to name one, was great at helping members, and was a great resource for me as chapter leader. Of course, they dumped her. Clearly, they don’t value her service at all. Our current RTC Chapter Leader, Bennett Fischer was dumped as well, for the unforgiveable offense of writing a critical email to Dear Leader Mulgrew.

So who’s left? Here’s one example—When I was on Executive Board, I recall they’d made some deal with a retirement package for ATRs. It was terrible, and it really only made sense if you happened to be preparing to retire anyway. I was in touch with a lot of ATR teachers. They hated it, one and all.

Some guy on Exec. Board, a guy who was chapter leader of a very small school, got up and claimed two ATR teachers in his school just adored the deal. They were crazy about it. To be charitable, this was extremely unlikely. Of course, the thing about Unity is every deal they make is excellent, no matter what. Even if it clearly isn’t, a good loyal Unity member has to say otherwise.

It certainly paid off for this guy. Shortly thereafter he was working full time for UFT. If I had a problem, this is the last guy I’d go to.

Twice a month, I sat at Executive Board, and when Unity needed arguments, I’d watch as an army of people would get up to support Whatever. Sometimes they didn’t even bother to make an argument. They just got up, vomited some variety of word salad, and sat down.

I’d wonder how the hell some of these people ran a classroom. If I were to get up in front of 34 kids and just make stuff up, my job would have become unbearable. There are an awful lot of smart kids out there, and they can see right through BS. I can talk pretty fast, and I can improvise when necessary, but I can’t fool everyone.

I certainly couldn’t do it with any consistency. Of course, I don’t have to. I think Mark Twain said something like if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything. I had an honest relationship with my students. I was there to trick them into speaking English any way I possibly could. They seemed to understand that, and we got along fine.

There were difficult moments as chapter leader. I let every department have a member on our consultation committee. Once, I learned that a particularly awful AP was campaigning for a particular member to be on our committee. That was unacceptable. The APs interests did not align with ours—protecting members. It was very unpleasant, but we dealt with it. We could not have people representing administration rather than members. We stopped it.

Alas, we have similarly poor representation within our union, and no one’s stopping it. At least not yet.

Unity insists its members sign a loyalty oath. They promise:

• To express criticism of caucus policies within the Caucus;

• To support the decisions of Caucus / Union leadership in public or Union forums;

• To support in Union elections only those individuals who are endorsed by the Caucus, and to actively campaign for his / her election;

• To run for Union office only with the support of the caucus;

• To serve, if elected to Union office, in a manner consistent with Union / Caucus policies and to give full and faithful service in that office;

There’s nothing there about doing what’s best for the membership. There’s nothing there about going the extra mile for members who have problems. That’s why, when Mulgrew (or whoever replaces him) does some counter-intutive thing like giving a billion dollars of our 1.8 billion health stabilization fund back to the city, they don’t raise a squawk.

Just a few short months ago, when Unity was running against Retiree Advocate, they declared their candidate was a “champion for civility.” They are so hopelessly out of touch that they think we want leaders who say please and thank you.

Yes sir. No sir. Please let me go sir. Thank you sir. May I have another?

Actually, what we want and need is a union who will fight for us. Hey it’s nice that Mulgrew says he opposes MA. It’s nice he says he opposes premiums for health care. However, it would be a whole lot nicer if he did something. It would be even nicer had not explicitly approved all of it in agreements with the city.

52 Broadway is full of people who are paid to support Michael Mulgrew and his Unity Caucus. That is not the role of union. Anyone who agrees to serve nominal leaders rather than membership should be fired for cause. And just about everyone at 52 Broadway has agreed in writing to do just that.

That’s not what members want. That’s not what members need. Next year, we will fix that once and for all.