UFT/Unity Abandons Disabled Paras Over TRS Mistake

The NYC Teachers Retirement System (TRS) contacted over 180 retired paras and advised them they “made a mistake” when their pension was calculated some more that 15 years ago.  Not only are they reducing their pension by half, they are clawing back the alleged overpayment for the last three years. ...the UFT argue that active paraprofessionals are making an unlivable wage and even declare war on the Mayor if he doesn’t sign into law the bill in the City Council to give them a $10,000 ‘respect check’ of Non-Pensionable income. Well a pension that is 2/3 of that salary is unlivable and now take more than half of that away from them when they came to rely on that money is criminal.  The UFT told these paras when they called, that there was nothing they can do.  The UFT has been silent on this issue.  TRS already cut these retirees pensions in half beginning with the July pension check.

Well, look at this one. The UFT, with its 3 TRS pension reps sits silently by and not standing up for the affected disabled paras who are undergoing pension reductions due to a mistake made by TRS in overpaying them. A group of UFT paras and retirees have joined with the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees to stand up for them.

July 31, 2026 

Good Morning,

Attached is a press statement from our three organizations.   Fix Para Pay is a slate of active and retired UFT Paraprofessionals advocating for better wages to be negotiated by their union.   Fix Retiree Benefits is a slate of active and retired UFT members advocating to protect an improve the conditions for UFT retirees.  NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees is an organization of over 200,000 municipal NYC retirees founded to protect retirees healthcare and other benefits from diminishment in retirement. 

Together, we stand with our retired paraprofessionals today.  The NYC Teachers Retirement System (TRS) contacted over 180 retired paras and advised them they “made a mistake” when their pension was calculated some more that 15 years ago.  Not only are they reducing their pension by half, they are clawing back the alleged overpayment for the last three years. 

You have watched the UFT argue that active paraprofessionals are making an unlivable wage and even declare war on the Mayor if he doesn’t sign into law the bill in the City Council to give them a $10,000 ‘respect check’ of Non-Pensionable income. Well a pension that is 2/3 of that salary is unlivable and now take more than half of that away from them when they came to rely on that money is criminal.  The UFT told these paras when they called, that there was nothing they can do.  The UFT has been silent on this issue that needs to end today.  TRS already cut these retirees pensions in half beginning with the July pension check.

We are collectively demanding that they amend the Retirement and Social Security Law they amended in 2002 under then President Randi Weingarten and correct this injustice and TRS must pass a resolution not to claw back any alleged overpayment. 

 

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Arthur Goldstein: 516-661-3221

Marianne Pizzitola: 631-793-9715

 

Public Control or ‘20th-Century Socialism’? The Bruhaha over a few publicly supported super markets p o in NYC by Mamdani

One of the (many) controversial policies of DSA is public ownership of the means of production, which causes outrage. Oh the outrage over the Mamdani plan which the right wing and even some Dems are calling "free food" when in fact it is reduced price food. I find it funny how the anti-Mamdani cabal will hang onto anything they can grab, led by the NY Post.

DSA - NY has called for a takeover of Con Ed and other public utilities. Our water and sewage systems are publicly owned and managed. How would you feel if we sold them off to private equity?

The major public entity in this country over the past 200 years has been the public school system, which of course there has been a major move to privatize, with charter schools being the spearhead, but even that is not good enough - thus vouchers. I'm surprised they haven''t moved to make all learning remote and sell off all the school buildings to turn them into condos. Boy, my old school in Williamsburg built in 1904 has high ceilings and big windows. 

In fact, we have found over the past 50 years that the reduction of public regulation, if not outright ownership, has been a disaster in this country. Think of Chicago selling off its parking meter system.

Chicago's parking meter deal still haunts the city's finances 

Chicago parking meter deal: City's meters sold to another ...

Margaret Thatcher destroyed the public ownership of so many areas of England in the 80s, even weakening the vaunted public health system - yes, in England healthcare was publicly controlled. So here is an article in the July 29 NYT business section, that has not been receiving the outrage from the Wall St Journal - yet. 

Public Control or ‘20th-Century Socialism’? U.K. Debates a Different Way.

The new prime minister, Andy Burnham, faulted Margaret Thatcher’s privatization in the 1980s. He wants an alternative economic model, especially to run utilities.

By Eshe Nelson

Reporting from London

July 28, 2026

Andy Burnham, Britain’s new prime minister, began his leadership with a full-throttled rebuke of the past 40 years of British policymaking. Rejecting the sweep of privatization introduced by Margaret Thatcher, Mr. Burnham said he would bring in a new political and economic model.

A central pillar of that approach will be more government control over utilities and services that were handed over to private companies starting in the late 1980s, like water and energy.

Mr. Burnham was ushered into office extraordinarily quickly. A little over a month ago, he was the mayor of Greater Manchester in the northwest of England, without a seat in Parliament. Now he is vowing to remake Britain, and little is known about the details of his economic agenda.

One result has been the start of a vivid debate about privatization — whether it went too far and how best to fix its failings. Mr. Burnham calls for more “public control” of services, not necessarily government ownership. But the vagueness of the term has left a lot open to interpretation and speculation. It has come to encompass everything from a socialist turn into widespread nationalization to tighter regulation of utilities.

Mr. Burnham said that later this year he would release a 10-year plan to increase public control and reduce the cost of essential services like water, housing, energy and transportation.

Mr. Burnham should create the “feeling that the state is back and it’s on our side,” said Danny Sriskandarajah, the chief executive of the New Economics Foundation, a progressive British research group. “That’s what’s been missing.”

Arguments about ownership frame the debate.

As prime minister in the 1980s, Ms. Thatcher fundamentally reshaped the British economy. Her 11-year tenure increased private homeownership, greatly enhanced the financial services industry and diminished manufacturing. Her government also privatized huge segments of the economy, including energy, telecommunications, airports and water.

The resulting companies were floated on the stock market. The idea was to bring about mass public ownership through these shares, but many companies ended up in private hands and most were delisted from stock exchanges.

The forceful opening of the British economy led to wealth creation and prosperity. It also wrought regional inequality through deindustrialization in the north and accelerated the shift to an economy more dependent on financial and business services, which were clustered in London and the southeast.

“In the 1980s, Britain took some wrong turns,” Mr. Burnham said on July 20, standing in front of No. 10 Downing Street, just moments after he became prime minister. “Political power was centralized, economic power privatized, large parts of the country deindustrialized, and they still haven’t recovered.”

But is ownership really what makes the difference in how well a utility or service, like trains, is run? Economists and policy strategists aren’t decided either way.

Mathew Lawrence, the founder of Common Wealth, a British think tank, who has presented his ideas to Mr. Burnham’s team, is in favor of some public ownership.

“Public ownership and public provision are not panaceas, they are tools,” he said, and shouldn’t been seen as “magic wands that fix everything.”

But previous periods of nationalization, such as after World War II, had notable successes, including the building of more public housing and the transformation of the energy system from an inefficient patchwork of thousands of companies into a few centralized and regional systems.

Ownership is important because it enables profits to be returned to the government, Mr. Lawrence added, and then a choice can be made about how to spend them in the public interest.

Others are less convinced. Diane Coyle, a professor of public policy at the University of Cambridge, said that how services were regulated and the sectors were organized to create competition mattered more than if they were run by private firms or public agencies.

There’s a strong argument, she said, for a system where state-owned companies compete with private enterprises. That way, public ownership can lead to diversity in business models, more competition and more informed oversight.

“People obsess too much about ownership,” said Ms. Coyle, who has influenced policymaking in Manchester and at the national level. “It isn’t the ownership, it’s the structure of the market that makes a difference in the kind of outcomes for consumers and citizens.”

Some government takeover is already happening.

More nationalization is already underway in Britain. On several occasions it has been an act of last resort.

Under the previous prime minister, Keir Starmer, the government had started to bring the railway system under full public ownership and was pulling more than a dozen train operators into one public company, Great British Railways. Several operators were already nationalized by the previous Conservative government for financial or operational failings.

One of Mr. Starmer’s last acts as prime minister was to complete the nationalization of British Steel, which operates the country’s last blast furnaces for making steel. It seized control of the company last year after its Chinese owner, Jingye, appeared to be trying to shut down operations.

Water companies could be next. In the late 1980s, Britain went further than almost anywhere else in the world when it privatized the water authorities of England and Wales, selling off assets such as pipes, land and reservoirs. After decades of private ownership, much of the county is fed up with rising bills, pollution and chronic underinvestment that followed a period when billions of pounds were paid out in dividends. A few years ago, every major water and wastewater company was under investigation for dispensing sewage in rivers and other waterways.

The poster child of the failure is Thames Water, the country’s largest water company. Weighed down by enormous debts, it has been on the brink of financial collapse for years and faces the possibility it will be temporarily nationalized. It currently has only enough cash to last until the end of the year. Last month, the government rejected a rescue plan by Thames Water creditors, which include the large American funds Apollo Global Management and Elliott Management. Mr. Burnham will need to decide what to do about Thames Water.

For some, it could be a test case for the rest of the industry. GMB Union, one of Britain’s largest labor organizations, has called on Mr. Burnham to “take decisive action and nationalize Thames Water.”

Public ownership is about politics, not just economics.

It’s one thing for the government to prop up operators of essential utilities offering substandard services or in financial distress. It’s another entirely to bring companies and services into public ownership on the argument that it’s a superior model.

For some services, the public has taken a side. More than 80 percent of Britons believe water companies should be run in the public sector, and 70 percent say the same for energy, according to recent polling.

Still, widespread nationalization of services is unlikely.

Mr. Burnham said he wanted to be a “business-friendly” leader. His method of public control is likely to be influenced by changes he made to the bus system in Manchester, where a franchise model allows a local authority to set the routes, fares and other conditions, while private companies bid on contracts to operate the service. And so, in his 10-year plan, private companies are expected to play an important role.

“The state has withdrawn too far on the basic essentials,” said Mr. Sriskandarajah of the New Economics Foundation. “But its re-entry doesn’t need to be 20th-century socialism.”

 

Marc Kagan, Mamdani's Favorite HS Teacher Sends a Message Re: Para Bill

Important analysis from Marc Kagan and a message to Mamdani who was one of Marc's HS students. His substack is: The Labor Movement is a Mess... and What We Can Do About It

• What the Politics of “Paras” Tells Us About Mamdani, Menin, and Mulgrew

In fact, Mamdani identifies Marc as his favorite teacher and they still have a good relationship. I was concerned that Marc would treat his former student with kid gloves. This piece belies that, in a very honest assessment as he gives Mamdani performance grades, the most significant being: 

On public sector workforce, a D.

Now, let’s be fair to Mamdani. He has to live within his budget. If he chose to shower public workers with money, then that’s money that can’t be spent on reducing class sizes, or building playgrounds, or subsidizing affordable housing. Even after we have real socialism, those tensions will continue to exist.

But what I hoped Mamdani would do is to quickly fix outstanding inequities. The gross underpay of Paras. The gross underpay of Emergency Medical Techs. I want him to put his thumb on the scale for job security for CUNY Adjuncts.

I wanted – and want – him to tell the Office of Labor Relations (OLR) – where he reappointed the same commissioner who’s been in that office since Bloomberg (ugh) – that her job is to fix problems, not stonewall. I want him to tell agency commissioners that part of “efficiency” is mandatory discussions with workplace-level union reps. That they will be graded and assessed on their ability to reach mutually agreeable solutions to problems – worker problems as well as agency ones.

Instead, the City’s labor relations seem like business as usual. I was not wholly dismayed when he answered my question in April about collaborative bargaining by saying ‘I need to talk to my people about that.’ That’s was not an illegitimate answer, although a socialist should have labor questions at the top of their list of issues to address. But who did he talk to - the same OLR that is the problem? 

 I think contract negotiations, given the budget issues, will be a downfall for Mamdani. A socialist whose main agenda is affordability, money for labor should be a priority but the pressures for him, facing the enormous enmity of so many groups, that will be a hard pull. Mamdani has made a few errors and as time goes back a mayor's popularity fades. 

For Mamdani lovers, beware.

 

And Yes, for Mamdani haters, Julie Menin is running for mayor. And her alliance with Mulgrew has already born fruit for the millionaire.

 

NY Post: 

Will Mamdani have the courage to stare down the teachers union boss?

United Federation of Teachers boss Mike Mulgrew threatens “all-out war” if the mayor vetoes the bill to award the cash, but the mayor owes the UFT nothing — and it’s his duty to the general public to say no.

No city union should ever get a raise outside the collective-bargaining process: Since City Hall can’t cut union pay in other ways, it’s robbing the taxpayers if it doesn’t make labor negotiate for any hike.

Menin, in fact, should feel ashamed of letting the giveaway go ahead — this simply shows that the council’s incapable of being more fiscally responsible than even a declared socialist.

Ha. Just watch the NY Post pump Menin over the next few years. Imagine the Post supporting the collective bargaining agreement. And if Mamdani, as he should, gives the paras a permanent,  pensionable large raise so they can afford to live in the city, the Post will slam him. 

 

The 10K was designed to counter the Fix Para Pay election win and it did in the election last year where we had hoped there would be a big turnout against Unity, as an ABCer one of my expectations that we had a chance to win that election. As the ABC crew has been pointing out, the one time only 10k will fade. What's needed is contract guarantees.

Mayor Mamdani has argued that it is illegal for the Council to allocate money to improve public workers’ wages (or benefits) – that all money issues must be collectively bargained. “The Council’s passage of this legislation is in direct violation of the Taylor Law,” he says. There is some discussion that the City’s lawyers will challenge this legislation in court. 

Now there is some irony in Mamdani reversing himself on the 10k and claiming it violates the Taylor Law, the same excuse Mulgrew has been using to oppose the retiree protection 1096 City Council bill. When the RTC delegates finally got the floor in 1096 at the last DA, Mulgrew ruled it out of order on those ground.

 

While Mulgrew is wrong, Mamdani may prove to be right. In essence he issued a challenge to Mulgrew to solidify the gains for paras in the upcoming contract negotiations. 

As Marc points out,  

Mulgrew is a center/right Democrat, as is Weingarten and the entire UFT/AFT apparatus, despite some progressive rhetoric and Randi's resignation from the DNC - a purely "finger in the air" move. A leader of the DNC lives in my building and rolled his eyes when Randi's move came up and called her a political opportunist - she should wear a sign.

Marc cites Daniel Alicea's EONYC: 

As explained and itemized in this article by Educators of New York City, in the most recent contract round, Mulgrew made various concessions that gave him $450 million to allocate as he saw fit, above and beyond the “pattern” raise that all city workers received. Mulgrew could have allocated it to increase Para salaries. Instead, he used most of that money to give an additional $1000 to each member. I think this EoNYC image really sums up the UFT’s “Teacher’s first” decision: 

 

Daniel has been doing yeoman work on the para issue: 

 July 11, 2026

The Newly Revised UFT Para Bill: The Promise That Kept Shrinking: How the UFT sold a permanent para pay index that would seek to offset pattern bargaining—and ended up with a temporary one-year payment. And only if it passes or survives legal challenges at all.

Educators of NYC

 

Followed on July 19 with:

The Respect Check Passes: A Temporary Victory Built By Pressure - And the Unfinished Fight: How rank-and-file pressure pushed paraprofessional pay from a union fight to a City Hall vote—and why the legislation remains temporary, non-pensionable and legally unsettled.

Educators of NYC

And he followed up with Part 2

For roughly sixteen years under Michael Mulgrew’s leadership, there was no fundamental effort to restructure paraprofessional salaries. Aside from modest improvements to longevity raises in the 2018 contract, paraprofessional pay remained largely governed by the same pattern bargaining that had left many struggling to survive.

Then came the last contract.

The UFT had roughly $450 million in recurring, non-pensionable retention money available.

The Good, Bad and Ugly - The NYC Para Bill: A deep dive into the UFT and City Council's $10k pay plan for paraprofessionals.

Educators of NYC

Jul 21, 2026

 

BTY - listen to Daniel's interview with para Alyson Monzon in his Talk Out of School WBAI program: https://wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=66311

Alyson's substack: 

Why I’m speaking up for us!

Unity Spends over $1.5 million to send over 700 Delegates to Control the AFT Convention -AFT Needs Direct Elections

In 2024, UFT sent an incredible 734 delegates to the national convention in Houston, even though its voting strength is not dependent on how many delegates it sends. UFT delegates to the convention had a voting strength of 16% of all delegates, but sent 27% of all convention delegates. This was an overwhelming show of force. No other AFT local even sent 70 delegates. Meanwhile, the bottom 90% of union locals and state federations represented at the 2024 convention sent less than 10 delegates each.

How much did UFT spend to send 734 delegates from New York City to Houston for 5 days and 5 nights in 2024? A probably too modest $2,000 per delegate would come out to at least $1.5 million. And the bill was likely much higher than that.

Needless to say, most union locals don’t have that kind of money. And even if they did, their leaders would have to justify to their members why they would spend their dues for this kind of expense. If the national AFT election is already locked up, why bother? And so the de-mobilizing, demoralizing cycle of rule by political machine repeats itself every two years.^[i]...  The Future of Our Schools Collective

Late BREAKING - Randi Re-elected 

 

Those who think the UFT/Unity leadership is corrupt, don't know the half of it. Trevor Griffey just published a piece on Jul 15, 2026 on the current AFT convention that reveals a lot of truths.

This is Not What Democracy Looks Like: The AFT Convention and the Future of the US Labor Movement:  Trevor Griffey, a lecturer in Labor Studies at UCLA and US History at UC Irvine who serves as Vice President of Legislation for UC AFT, comments in our newest post about the upcoming AFT convention.

I commented the other day at Ed Notes on the convention:

• 750 Unity Loyalists Junket in Washington for AFT convention

I pointed out that Unity received 54% of the vote in last year's election but gets 100% of the 750 delegates, thus shutting out the points of view of a significant proportion of UFT members from national and state educational policy debates (those 750 are also NYSUT reps).

 

So not only are the almost 20,000 teachers who voted against Unity denied representation, the entire union is snookered over the massive expense. AFT delegates will debate as many as 108 resolutions and constitutional amendments including voting on whether to increase the dues paid by AFT’s 1.8 million members. I can guarantee this dues increase will pass because Randi wants it passed and that means our dues here in NYC will also go up as a major portion of our dues goes to the AFT.

 

You will see headlines today or tomorrow announcing Randi's re-election

I pointed out that Randi Weingarten would be elected with 95% of the vote - if she has any opposition at all - Randi loves it when she has no opposition - see her deal with New Action for the 2004 election:  New Action/Unity in Corrupt Bargain - Why I Left New Action!!! by James Eterno, UFT Executive Board.

 

85% of AFT Locals Do Not Send Delegates to Convention while our dues fuel the UFT spending a million and a half on covering expenses for Unity members.

  

A way toward democracy is to have the entire AFT membership vote instead of the Unity dominated delegates. This major change occurred in the UAW which led to Shawn Fein's election. Chris Bohner recently wrote in Labor Notes, “Direct Elections for Labor Leaders Make for More Militant Unions.”

 

You can see why the threat of losing the NYC local election is such threat to Randi and the AFT/NYSUT/UFT union hierarchy, one reason why ABC's insurgency has made them nervous. Don't think the recent 10k para bonus designed to weaken para anger at their situation is not connected to the threat. ABC had over 100 paras run with them and the para functional chapter is the second largest with 27k members to the 70k retiree chapter, which Unity lost. If the insurgency in these two groups aligned with the growing dissatisfaction among working members, there would be a massive shift in educational unions, especially with both Chicago and LA being progressive unions. Why haven't the revolted after a decade or more in power? Randi has the power of the purse to support them - or not - in their local struggles.

 

Trevor:

......leaders of AFT locals, including mine, would be more open to subsidizing convention delegate travel if they thought convention business was directly tied their union members’ needs, and if they thought their delegates’ participation would make any difference whatsoever on decisions made at the convention.

The fact is, once delegates elected by their locals arrive at an AFT convention, they find themselves operating within a one-party state run by the Progressive Caucus, which in turn is run by the Unity Caucus of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT)— the largest AFT local in the US.

UFT delegates have dominated AFT conventions through slate elections at the local and national level for over half a century. Every AFT President for the last 62 years emerged out of UFT leadership, except for four years from 2004-8 when Edward McElroy served two terms as a “transitional president” following Sandra Feldman’s diagnosis with breast cancer..

The AFT has been controlled for over 50 years by one caucus - a national version of Unity called The Progressive Caucus. Of course our beloved 750 local Unityites are the main instrument of control. They also control the NY State Unity.

 

Lois explains:

The Unbeatable Slate: Progressive Caucus Dominates AFT for More than 50 Years

The issue that shapes union leaders’ decisions to effectively boycott the convention is the perception of a lack of democracy within AFT.

Financial barriers to sending delegates thousands of miles away for five days of convention deliberations are significant, and union leaders who express concerns about the costs of convention attendance shouldn’t be dismissed as simply lacking solidarity.

But leaders of AFT locals, including mine, would be more open to subsidizing convention delegate travel if they thought convention business was directly tied their union members’ needs, and if they thought their delegates’ participation would make any difference whatsoever on decisions made at the convention.

The fact is, once delegates elected by their locals arrive at an AFT convention, they find themselves operating within a one-party state run by the Progressive Caucus, which in turn is run by the Unity Caucus of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT)— the largest AFT local in the US.

UFT delegates have dominated AFT conventions through slate elections at the local and national level for over half a century. Every AFT President for the last 62 years emerged out of UFT leadership, except for four years from 2004-8 when Edward McElroy served two terms as a “transitional president” following Sandra Feldman’s diagnosis with breast cancer.

Today, the three top officers of AFT and every one of the 43 national Vice Presidents are all members of the Progressive Caucus. They run as a single slate that depends upon bloc voting. The leader of the caucus is the President of the union, who is also at the top of the slate. A recent google form to join the Progressive Caucus even called its slate “Randi Weingarten’s slate.”

One can’t simply declare one’s intention to join the caucus as a candidate for elected office, as candidates for elected office do in the US. You have to be invited. And most of the people invited are representatives of the largest labor unions in the federation. Inclusion on the slate provides direct personal access to the President, who can provide favors in the form of spending and staff support for causes that officers care about. But inclusion also requires supporting every candidate on the slate. Failure to do so will get you kicked off the slate and effectively lock your union local out of national power.

Once most of the leaders of large unions pledge to turn out their delegates to support the union President, the election is all-but-over. Support has been traded for access before the votes have even been cast. Slate voting— which allows a delegate to simply check one box for an entire slate instead of voting separately for 46 different officers— tilts the scales even more by creating a disincentive for even thinking about the merits of individual officers.

Anyone in AFT who dares even exercise their right to participate in union elections outside the Progressive Caucus has to position themselves against the entire power structure of the union— including the President— whether they want to or not. Unless the Caucus splits, which so far it never has, such challenges (recently by small groups like By Any Means Necessary, or BAMN) are dead on arrival. 

 Since so many locals can't afford to send delegates to the AFT conventions, not only 46% of NYC teachers are left out, but the small locals all over the country too.

 

 Read the entire article on the substack: https://futureschools.substack.com/p/this-is-not-what-democracy-looks and note the disparity in delegates attending - ie Chicago only 68.

Top 20 largest union locals that sent delegates to AFT 2024 Convention.

 

For Immediate Release July 19, 2026

Contact: Alexis Lopez 305-878-9836 alopez@aft.org

AFT Re-elects Officers, Hears from Union and Political Leaders, Passes Suite of Resolutions at 2026 Convention   National Teachers Union, at Highest-Ever Membership, Caps Four-Day Confab that Drew 3,000 Delegates to DC

WASHINGTON—The 1.88 million-member AFT wrapped its 89th biennial convention today, with union delegates voting overwhelmingly to re-elect President Randi Weingarten, Secretary-Treasurer Fedrick Ingram and Executive Vice President Evelyn DeJesus to new two-year terms.   In six packed sessions over four days, more than 3,000 delegates debated and passed resolutions on a range of pressing issues—from reclaiming the promise of public education, to protecting immigrant communities, to rebuilding public health, to preparing for the age of artificial intelligence, to tackling the affordability and student debt crises. Dozens of breakout meetings and receptions covered rural issues, faith and religion, international solidarity and more.   AFT President Randi Weingarten said: “Our convention theme was ‘fighting for a better life for all.’ That’s not a mere slogan—it’s the promise and potential to be together, to work together, to bargain together, to protest together, to vote together, to act together to bring about change—real, lasting, life-improving change for every person in America.”   The union heard from a bevy of high-profile guests and speakers, including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, U.S. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, former Georgia state Rep. Stacey Abrams, Democratic nominee for D.C. mayor Janeese Lewis George, Pennsylvania state Rep. Jen Mazzocco, former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, IAM Union International President Brian Bryant, and IAM Texas State Council President and Texas state Sen. Taylor Rehmet.   Outgoing American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees President Lee Saunders, the first African American to lead the union, received the AFT’s Bayard Rustin Human Rights Award, and labor leader Dolores Huerta was honored with the AFT’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her decades of work with the United Farm Workers. And after a rousing Saturday address from Association of Flight Attendants-CWA President Sara Nelson, delegates unanimously passed a motion from the floor pledging support for the campaign to unionize Delta flight attendants.   At the onsite Activist Hub, delegates signed more than 1,000 “Free D.C.” postcards addressed to state governors to demand they recall their states’ National Guard from their deployment in the District of Columbia.   Weingarten, who taught social studies and civics at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn, N.Y., was re-elected to a 10th term Saturday night, while Ingram, a high school band director in Miami, and DeJesus, an early childhood educator and reading specialist in New York City, were elected to sixth terms. The union also elected 43 vice presidents from around the country.   AFT Secretary-Treasurer Fedrick Ingram said: “There is only one way we all win and that is working together to push back against the forces that are so eager to tear us apart. That is why I have made union work my life’s work and why I remain committed and ready to serve this union as an officer. It is a distinct honor to work with the best this country has to offer, in order to ensure everyone has a real shot at success, happiness and security.”   AFT Executive Vice President Evelyn DeJesus said: “As the onslaught of ICE attacks against Latino communities continues, today I stand prouder than ever to be the first Latina officer elected and re-elected six times to serve the 1.88 million members of this powerful union. We must look out for, show up and protect one another, because only together can we make a better life for all. Sigamos luchando por la democracia, la libertad y una vida mejor para todos.”   “Our delegates and committees tackled the issues keeping families up at night, from the affordability crisis, to defending immigrant communities, to the reassurance that AI won’t take our members’ jobs, to the protection of democracy as a whole,” Weingarten added. “To create an America where everyone has the education, economy and opportunity to build a good life; an America where everyone’s dignity and rights are respected; an America whose democracy not only endures but finally lives up to its noble ideals, will take all of us—standing together.”   Click HERE for more convention highlights. All passed resolutions can be found HERE.

Para Pay on Agenda, 750 Unity Loyalists Junket in Washington for AFT convention, American History - Always Oligarchy

I have a few brief items for you today. Celebrate my rare briefness. 

Monday, July 13, 2026

Council Sets Vote on $10K Perk for Paraprofessionals

Para Pay Raise bill at City Council, Mamdani switcheroo - really, if he wants to talk affordability, para pay should be a prime factor. But there is also the factor of bonus vs pensionable salary and we are in contract negotiation territory with a cast of thousands negotiating committee. 

Leah Linn infographic on history of para bill:

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DawC3M3Ry_g/ 

One comment:  

 

Nothing like an ad for your caucus:

A UFT Leaflet for labor day

 

 This City Reporter article mentions Fix Para Pay.

Some paraprofessionals, though, feel the payment isn’t enough and doesn’t address longstanding issues that they say have been ignored by the union.

Marie Wausnock is a paraprofessional on Staten Island who also co-founded Fix Para Pay, a union caucus slate that opposes Mulgrew.  Some paras leave for other city jobs that require less training and have better pay, she said.

“How do you give respectable pensions and dignity to paras when you want to give them non-pensionable money?” she said. “Paras are so underpaid. We get crumbs every time.”

 750 Unity Loyalists Junket in Washington for AFT convention: They got 54% but get 100% of delegates - ABC and ARISE should have 46%

In last year's UFT election we voted for 750 AFT/NYSUT convention delegates. And I bet a batch of non-delegate Unity staffers added - call it over 800 and maybe 900. 

Unity received 54% of the vote but in a winner take all system they get 100% of the delegates as 46% of UFT voters are shut out of both the AFT and NYSUT. And of course, all 750 will vote as told on every reso - all dictated by what Randi wants.

This perversion of democracy will enforce the alliance between the UFT leadership and the Dem Party corporate center. Note the speaker list below. I see one progressive - the next Mayor of Washington who is a social-democrat. You won't see many SDs at this convention. 

Watching Hakim Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and the awful Neera Tanden disparage the SD movement is getting to be LOL - how close are they to Trump reactions. They are threatened and rather then lose control of the bailiwick they'd rather see Republicans - and billionaires - win.  

The rise of SD as a challenger to the Dem Party - see the drama being played out in Maine  is also a threat to Unity hegemony. Too bad the SDs in the UFT have had a decade long failure to show any similar organizing chops that SD has had. Ironically, the closest I've seen to an SD organizing model has been ABC and hopefully the Fixed Retiree Benefits group can also show some organizing chops. Both are a work in progress. 

 From AFT PR:

Thousands of Educators, Elected Leaders and Advocates to Gather in D.C. for AFT National Convention   Delegates Will Hear from Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, US House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Labor Leader Dolores Huerta, Former US Attorney General Eric Holder, Former Georgia State Rep. Stacey Abrams, Democratic Nominee for D.C. Mayor Janeese Lewis George and more to be announced

WASHINGTON—The 1.8 million-member AFT—representing teachers, school staff, higher education workers, nurses and healthcare professionals, and public employees—will host its 89th national convention July 16-19, bringing together over 3,500 delegates from across the country. Note that almost one third of the 1.8 million are from NY State delegation controlled by Unity Caucus, which at the national level is called the (once in a blue moon) Progressive Caucus. Oh, and let me announce that Randi will win re-election either unopposed or by 95% if there is an opposing candidate.

Nepotism and Cronyism: Mulgrew Undermined UFT Pension Dept., Broken Promises Over TRS Election

 My most recent blog exposing the Mulgrew machine has been getting some notice.

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The Blind Spot: How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracy

What exactly has changed all that much in 250 years?

I'm a big fan and paid subscriber to Sam Seder's The Majority Report where I get great interviews and commentary and a lot of fun every weekday at noon-2:30. 

For history buffs, this interview, especially for a history major like me who took courses in the American Revolution, this interview with Jeffrey Winters was fascinating. The theme is that the founding fathers were fundamentally oligarchs who believe in small d democracy - very small d. That the constitution was designed to protect their wealth. And in this interview he goes into detail. They had a problem in their new system which had a level of democracy never seen before. How to control that democracy so their wealth would never be threatened. 

We are taught about checks and balances as one branch of government checking the other branches. In this interpretation, C&B were designed by the oligarchs leading the revolution to check the rabble who might get too much democracy and take away some of their wealth -- in case they want to tax the rich. So what else is new? 

https://www.youtube.com/live/3j7Y-w-XhVk?si=GzVwfqgVfXjlakkE&t=1863 

Here's an article about Jeffrey Winters (Author)

An urgent and shocking examination of how the ultra-rich dominate democracies, hoard political power, and maintain inequality—and how we might chart another path.

The wealthy and powerful few have dominated the many throughout most of human history. This is now more starkly visible than ever—a time when, with politicians bought and paid for across the political spectrum, the gulf between oligarchs and average citizens is larger than any gap that existed during European feudalism or the slave society of Imperial Rome. One thing is clear: the world is heading into an even deeper state of inequality, one that oligarchs of past eras could only have dreamed of. The strange thing is, for the first time in history, this domination is accomplished through democracy. Yet we aren’t in open revolt against the system. In fact, we seemingly keep voting to prop it up. Why?

In The Blind Spot, political scientist Jeffrey Winters delivers a timely, incisive account of how we reached this era of in-your-face oligarchy. Tracing the evolution of wealth power through the modern democratic era, he demonstrates how domination by oligarchs isn’t just a flaw in our democracy, but a foundational feature—allowing the wealthy to limit the agenda, control the marketplace of ideas, and rewire the law to defend, hide, and increase their money and power. Now, in an extraordinary paradox, we exist in a state of “participatory inequality,” a world in which the 99.99 percent of us participate openly, freely, and democratically in our own ongoing exclusion and exploitation.

But The Blind Spot ultimately sounds a clarion call for change, arming us not only with a vital lens through which we can understand just how bad our political reality has become, but also with bold ideas for how we might shift the balance of power. While powerful oligarchs do not cede power willingly, this period of shocking inequality is nevertheless an opportunity for change.

The Winters interview on you tube:

Nepotism and Cronyism: Mulgrew Undermined UFT Pension Dept., Broken Promises Over TRS Election

I chronicled Mulgrew's move to make every aspect of the UFT based on loyalty in Part 1: https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2026/07/how-mulgrew-undermined-uft-pension-dept.html 

The point of my recent articles is that something is going on inside the tent that is getting some people to give up the money. And while the number is low, there is a lot of people seething but not willing - yet. I do know that a number of Unity people voted for ABC in the election. Will we see more breaks in the next few years? My contention has been that Unity can be beaten when there are enough defectors with school-level networks that ally with the opposition to break the Unity monopoly at the school level. There were signs in last year's election.

Part 2 focuses on the TRS elections as a function of the pension department and how Mulgrew installed his operatives who put political loyalty over competence in a crucial area of the UFT where every member ends up using on the way to retirement. I include the story of one of the UFT's top pension consultants who was in much demand until he was sent back to teaching at the end of August 2025, seemingly a threat due to his attempts to run for TRS rep in the 2026 election. He ran anyway.

Wednesday, July 8, 2026 

The recent Teachers Retirement System election put a focus on former Unity loyalists who have been cast out of the cult.

 

Frank Panebianco and David Kazansky ran against Unity's Tom Brown. Both had been fired from the UFT.

TRS elections have been neglected by the forces aligned against Unity for way too long, thus allowing Unity to control all 3 pension reps who are elected to 3 year staggered terms. For years I've been urging people to not let Unity escape any election without being challenged and to use elections as an outreach and organizing tool as prep for the big enchilada - the general union election. 

 

In March 2024 Mulgrew dumped David Kazansky, who had served for 9 years as TRS rep because David was known to be independent and willing to ask questions at TRS meetings and not subject to automatic loyalty to Mulgrew. 

 

David was given a job as an AFT pension rep, with Randi Weingarten having the AFT pick up his salary. That led to the first TRS election in decades with Brooklyn Tech math teacher Ben Morgenroth running against the unknown Christina McGrath, David's replacement, an election that shocked Unity and the DOE which had to run the election. Frank Panebianco, the UFT's leading pension consultant, was also shocked as he had been waiting for almost a decade to run for TRS and was denied once again.

 

Since the DOE never had to run a real election, there were many screwups that led to both the union and the opposition raising legal objections. 

 

In June 2025, Kazansky was fired from the AFT job and had his UFT leave rescinded and went back to teaching in an elementary school in the Bronx that September. He announced sometime in February 2026 a run for TRS rep.

 

Frank Panebianco was also shocked when he was notified by UFT HR department in late August 2025, just a day before school began, that his leave was not being renewed and had to hustle to get back to his old school from 13 years before. 

 

Everyone I spoke to, including people in the opposition, have good things to say about Frank as one of, if not the, top pension person at the UFT, someone that even the top officials at the UFT have used for their final pension consultations. Frank also has a background in finance, qualifing him to be an effective TRS rep.

 

A time-line of recent TRS elections and changes in the pension department at 52 Broadway

• 2013: Frank Panebianco is promoted from an after school Bronx pension rep to full-time at 52.
•  
• 2014: Tom Brown becomes TRS rep when Mona Romain retires. Frank is alternate.
•   
• 2015: Long-time pension expert Mel Aaronson, who fundamentally had free reign to train and promote pension reps, retires from TRS and tells Frank that he deserves the job but there is worry at the top the opposition would complain and they are going with David Kazansky instead. Why the oppo would complain about Frank given the oppo never had comments on TRS elections, is a mystery. Frank is alternate.

• 2016: Sandy March retires and tells Frank he would be best for the job but they can't have 3 white men. Debra Penny, UFT Staten Island Borough Rep replaces her. 

With strong pension figures like Aaronson and March out of the way, the 2016 TRS election is Mulgrew's move to take control and politicize the pension/TRS process.  Frank is alternate. Debra Penny immediately takes over as the boss of the pension department as Mulgrew's agent.

• 2017: Tom Brown runs for second term. Frank is alternate. Frank is asked to recruit a minority woman for a full-time pension position. Only Victoria Lee from Queens pension is available. She moves to full-time at 52. Some in Queens question the decision. 

• 2018: David runs again, Frank is alternate.
• 2019: Penny runs again, Frank is alternate
• 2020: Tom Brown runs again, Frank is alternate

• 2021: David runs again. Mulgrew supposedly tries to replace him but RandyWeingarten and Mel Aaronson intervene. Frank is alternate.

• 2022: Penny runs for second term but it is known she will resign before her term is up. Victoria Lee is her chosen successor and is the alternate, the only time Frank has not been the alternate. 

As expected, Penny resigns mid-term and Victoria Lee is chosen to replace her. Some in the pension department are not happy with the choice.

• 2023: Tom Brown starts another 3-year term and Frank is once again the alternate.

To this point there has not been an opponent, so no TRS elections. 

• 2024: Mulgrew removes Kazansky as TRS rep who is offered a special pension job paid for by Randi at the AFT but leaving him working out of 52. David did not want to leave the TRS job and word leaks he was afoul of Mulgrew and possibly Lee and Brown because he asked too many questions at TRS meetings of pension consultants, questions that should have been asked.   
•  

See: TRS Passport Funds Underperform Over Last 10 Years: TDA investment options cost members hundreds of thousands in lost returns

Pensions with Ben Morgenrath

Jun 10, 2026

Frank is passed over again

There is shock that newcomer Christina McGrath, an ally of Victoria Lee, is brought in to run in 2024. Ben Morgenroth declares his candidacy, forcing the first TRS election in decades. The election, run by the DOE through school principals is a total mess. Unity leadership is forced to engage in a campaign for the first time. Ben gets about a third of the vote in very low turnout. 

 

Frank is once again the alternate, and is now pissed off after being passed over for so many years. The "3 white men" argument no longer works since McGrath would be the second woman. UFT people were asking Frank, "How could Mulgrew pass over you for Christina?" 

 

March, 2024: Frank asks to Meet with Mulgrew after McGrath is endorsed by Unity 

 

Frank tells Mulgrew he wants out - "send me back to the Bronx." 

 

Mulgrew wants him to stay and apologized for playing politics. Frank asks Mulgrew to agree to a raise, allowing him to work two days remote and to run for TRS in 2026 when Tom Brown retires. They shake on it: 

 

Mulgrew: "You have my word and my word means everything. He praises Frank - "You never asked for anything. I didn't know you wanted the job. I want to make it up to you."

Weeks later Mulgrew asks Frank:
“How is that raise I gave you?" 
Frank: I never got it or the remote days either.

Going into summer '24 - still no raise.
 

Oct, 2024  

2 days remote finally comes through for Frank but no raise. 

Mulgrew tells Frank is was a tough battle to get him the remote and it took 7 months of battling. 

Frank asks "Why? Aren't you the president?" 

Mulgrew shrugs.

Victoria Lee who is also UFT Treasurer, and most likely had to approve the raise, tells Frank: "There's no way you will ever make more money than me."

Frank never gets the raise.

 

Jan 2025 - Frank and Victoria Lee air things out. She says "You need to be by my side - people see you with me - that's the way to get promoted."

She brings in Jeff Novzen to 52 Broadway full-time, a friend of her husband, who is a school principal, as a pension rep trainee despite Frank's objections that Novzen didn't have the knowledge or experience. 

 

Frank is shocked and tells Lee: “All the senior consultants that have years of experience and Jeff Novzen has not even done a final consultation. You picked a trainee over all the experienced special reps?"

 

Over the past few years Frank has been impressed with the work of some borough pension reps and recommends a few for promotion to central but is blocked by Penny and Lee. Leah Linn out of the Queens office is one of those reps. A prolific social media presence, she signs up to run with ABC in the 2025 election and is fired by Mulgrew in June 2025.

 

Word spreads in the pension dept that Novzen is being groomed to run for TRS in 2026 when Tom Brown is supposedly retiring.  

 

May 2025 - Victoria Lee runs for re-election and Ben Morgenroth runs against her. Lee challenges his petitions and Ben is disqualified due to a minor technicality.   

 

June 2025 -UFT pension retreat - Lee celebrates her victory at the June 2025 UFT pension rep meeting bragging how she got Ben Morgenroth disqualified. "I won, I won. It doesn't matter how you win as long as you win."

 

She knew she wasn't well-liked inside the caucus and among the pension consultants and was nervous about her getting the kind of support Tom Brown ends up getting a year later, so disqualifying Ben on a technicality  avoids an election. Her next election, due in 2028 at the same time as the next general UFT election may not be so easy.

 

At the same meeting she publicly castigates and humiliates Tom Brown telling him he should retire. She wanted him gone so she could put her husband's friend Jeff Novzin to replace him at TRS a year later. 

June/July 2025 - Tom Brown to Frank: "My dream is to retire and you to replace me." Apologizes for not standing up and allowing "them" to politicize the pension and TRS department and says he will retiree. Frank is the most qualified to be on TRS and should run because no one thinks Jeff Novzen is competent to be a TRS rep and Frank would win easily. Says Frank is the best choice and should run for TRS as he is knowledgeable, popular and has a lot of contacts. Frank decides he will run and starts touching base with people. 

 
July/August 2025 - Frank begins a behind the scenes campaign for the 2026 TRS election by contacting his network. 

August 2025: A day before school began, Frank received a notice from UFT HR that his leave was being revoked and if he wasn't back in a school the next day he would not have a job. This was a major shock and he called Asst. Secty Mike Sill to find out what was going on. Sill told him he had no idea and knew nothing about it. When Frank reached Mulgrew he was told that Mulgrew would look into it. 

 

Sept. 2025: A few days later, Frank was back in his old school, where he hadn't been for 13 years, teaching science in kindergarten.  HR tells Frank, "We were just told to do this by your supervisor, Vicky."  

 

Nov. 2025: Mulgrew spends about 2 months looking into what is going on in the pension department and after doing his own inquiry he has a meeting with Frank and tells Frank: “I asked people all over and found out that they said, When it comes to pension we only go to Frank, we don’t even waste our time with anyone else because Frank is the most knowledgeable and he gets back to us.

Mulgrew also says he found out Frank is doing all the work (an indication that the HR rationale for terminating his leave was bogus), everyone loves him and he has a big tier 6 push and that he needs him back because he needs his best pension person there for that.

Frank agrees to return but tells Mulgrew only if he holds to his word about the trustee position and the raise. 

 

Jan. 2026

Mulgrew offers Frank his job back, agreeing to a raise and two days remote but  Mulgrew says he cannot agree on the TRS election, despite his previous handshake.  (Victoria Lee pal Jeff Novzen is being groomed for the TRS rep). Frank walks despite suffering a 50K pay cut.

 

More details of that meeting:

 

Frank reiterates his requests that Mulgrew shook his hand on: two days of remote, a raise and running for TRS. 

 

Mulgrew says “he can’t" and Frank says, "you gave me your word" and Mulgrew repeats, "Well I can't."

Frank responds, "I am not coming back to do all the work and be the one who runs all the projects and be the most qualified but instead in the spring I’m supposed to sit there at the DA again and watch you endorse someone else for trustee that has no experience. I’m sorry I’m not doing that again." 

Mulgrew says 
"I can’t believe you made me do all that work finding out everything for nothing."

Frank:  "You did all that work and found out the truth that I have been the one who keeps getting screwed because of politics."

Tom brown calks Frank begging him to come back, promising him if he came back he would talk to Mulgrew and tell him to endorse Frank. 

 

Frank tells him,  "Absolutely not Tom. There is no way I’m coming back because you have never stood up for me before and I don’t trust that you would now. Besides you are afraid of Victoria and she will boss you around pushing her guy Jeff and you will let that happen so I will not come back."  

 

Feb 2026: David Kazansky announces he is running for TRS. Mulgew, nervous he'd beat a newcomer like Victoria Lee pal Jeff Novzen, gets Tom Brown to run again. 

 

Tom Brown: Mulgrew is telling him he has to run.

 

Frank, feeling he has been slighted over a decade in his quest to run for TRS also announces he is running, with a number of people telling him they are secretly voting for him. David Kazansky reaches out to discuss the problems of two people running. Nothing gets settled even if it clear that neither of them could win. 

 

A massive Unity campaign for Brown is organized like a military operation with lots of pressure on the Unity faithful to get out the vote. They get 30k petition signatures when they only need 1k. Frank thinks he can carve out a piece of the Unity votes for Tom plus his own contacts.

 

May/June 2026: TRS Campaign Results:
A smashing victory for Tom Brown with 35k votes. 66%. The Unity campaign has won big, a model for future campaigns.

David gets over 15K with the support of the ABC network plus his own. If the legacy caucuses like RA, MORE and NAC hadn't sat this out (though a few individuals backed them) the vote would have been higher. 

 

Frank gets almost 4k votes, pretty good since he had his own personal network with no institutional support. 

 

Combined, they hit about 19k, about 34%, which would probably be a bit higher with the legacy groups involved, a rising proportion of anti-Unity people in any UFT election at this point. Let's put it at the high 30s. Their shortsightedness in not seeing TRS elections as a building block for the oppo is endemic to the legacy groups, some of whom are more focused about fighting for BDS on Israeli bonds than actually getting Unity out of power.

 

I will effort to get spreadsheets with election outcomes school by school. 

 

Will there be repercussions for Unity people in areas where David or Frank had more votes than Tom Brown? 

 

2027 TRS Election

Christina McGrath should be running for re-election but she began to rebel over Lee's bossing her around and they end up in screaming matches and are no longer speaking. Debra Penny is also upset with Victoria Lee and tells her that she is one of 3 trustees that are equal and she is not Christina’s boss. Victoria snapped back, “Yes I am!” 

 

Inside betting is that McGrath won't be the Unity candidate in 2027 if Lee gets her way. There is also the specter that Tom Brown, at age 75, decides to retire this year, thus adding a second election. 

 

Either way, expect there to be an opposition candidate, in both 2027 and 2028 when Lee runs again, hopefully one united campaign. David, Frank and Ben, all very capable, in the mix.

 

And that the legacy caucuses will get the message that TRS elections are a building block to defeat Unity and support any campaign against Unity.

 

Afterburn - 

 

After speaking with my resources and learning about what had gone on over the years I was able to have someone connect me with Frank to hear what he thought about the results of the election and this is what he wrote:

I wish Tom the best of luck, he was like a big brother to me and I hope he stays the 3 years for the term, because that is what people expect from him when they voted. It’s too bad he was ‘forced’ to run. There are people who actually cared about the position and wanted to be able to use their knowledge and experience to help members and not make this political.

 

 ====

 

The mess at UFT HQ is not all that new.

  

Some background on politicizing at the UFT: 

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Mulgrew Removes Brooklyn Borough Rep Debbie Poulos - Was She too aggressive on certain abusive principals?

UFT Update: Internal Wars - Engler and Schoor

Engler is still employed and makes $215,447 a year... NY Post - UFT director sends scathing emails with typo to secretary

Engler is the power behind the throne at UFT & Mulgrew defers to her .... anonymous

The NY Post has a story about emails from a year ago from Ellie Engler complaining about Howie Schoor's comments to Bronx staffers.

“I had a disturbing meeting with the Bronx folks about what you said to them,” Engler wrote last August in an e-mail to Schoor that was copied to UFT boss Michael Mulgrew and other top personnel. “They reported that you said, everyone hates Ellie and I am getting in your way to do the work you want to do.”