Cone of Silence Descends on UFT Ex Bd - Maga Mentality Unity Caucus Shuts People out of Ex Bd in Executive Session Using "Leak" Excuse

United for Change Ex Bd Member

Last night Retiree Advocate held a Zoom on the healthcare issue attended by 250 people who stayed on for the entire event. 

• Exposing the Adams/Mulgrew Threat to Our Healthcare: Untangling the Confusion- Retiree Advocate - Sunday Nov. 6 7PM

What does the success of the resistance to Mulgrewcare have to do with closing the Executive Board to non Ex Bd UFT members? 

 

Everything. The more people know, the less they will believe the bullshit.

The cruelest cut of all - No dinner for me at Ex Bd

Before I begin, once I learned of the closed session I decided not to go, though I was going to ask Leroy Barr if I could just eat and run. My wife had to deal with my dinner, unexpectedly --  she had spent the day prepping for tomorrow's Mah Jong game at our house. We had Japanese food takeout with Saki -- and I never get Saki at UFT Ex Bd meetings. So a win win tonight. But tomorrow I have to get out of here or go crazy listening to 5 hours of tiles clacking.

Monday, Nov. 7
Tonight's UFT Executive Board meeting, which constitutionally is supposed to be open to all UFT members, was turned into an Exec Session using the excuse of a leaked audio of a question and answer on the Mulgrewcare fiasco at the Oct. 24 meeting as an excuse. Recordings of meetings are not allowed as per Leroy Barr's instructions at the first ex bd meeting. The problem is that Barr has not made that same announcement at every meeting and there were obviously lots of new people at the last hybrid meeting and someone assumed it was OK to share some of the questions asked about healthcare and the lame responses.

 

Oh, the tragedy. Unity is acting like the NSA -- but why expect a normal reaction from an authoritarian leadership that at the last meeting ended a 60 year tradition and limited the question period. The closer the flames get the more restrictive dictatorships become --- this is a constant historical truth. Expect more restrictions to follow, but at some point these regimes come to an end as more and more people get burned.

 

While I believe all UFT members should have access to Ex Bd meetings - there must be a cast of thousands just pining to hear these stimulating meetings, I can agree that it is wrong to use audio of sensitive issues best left behind closed doors. I have maintained that anyone who speaks and wants to record themselves and share it that should be allowed. I spoke for 3 minutes at the last meeting and probably should have recorded myself because I think I did a good job on exposing the health care issue.

 

But context, context, context. I could understand it we broke the cone of silence on contracts (which I also oppose but go along with to keep Unity slugs happy.)

 

Why they are going ballistic at this leak of a question and answer on healthcare? The leaked recording exposed the lame/lying response by union officials on health care. 

 

Ineptness is the mother of censorship.

Mic drop.

 

 

Eterno goes into more detail:

The last Executive Board meeting audio was released to Marianne Pizzitola, President of the NYC Organization of Public Sector Retirees, who is standing up to Unity arguably better than anyone in the 62-year history of this union. Marianne is not a UFT member, however, she is a union supporter. She is an FDNY-EMS retiree who is part of DC 37, another government employee union in NYC. 

Many of my colleagues in the opposition in the UFT are not happy that Marianne is out there exposing the UFT and Municipal Labor Committee by playing audio of meetings that have been leaked. Under most circumstances, I would agree that she has no business monitoring the UFT but the UFT as one of the biggest MLC unions has a big say on healthcare and our leadership doesn't fight fair as most of you here know full well.

His full piece here: UFT CLOSES EXECUTIVE BOARD IN REACTION TO BEING EXPOSED BY NYC RETIREE ORGANIZATION LEADER

 Ex Bd UFC member, who has not been heard from in hours - in ex bd jail I imagine - reported before he went into the cauldron:

Executive Session Inexplicably Called Tonight with two resos UFC people are bringing up - if they aren't shot first.

https://newaction.org/2022/11/07/executive-session-inexplicably-called-tonight/ 

Published November 7, 2022 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Tonight, 11-7-22, we are being told that it may be an executive session for the UFT executive board meeting. We have not been told why or been given any notice. This means that no observers will be allowed. We will try to present some regular non-session business tonight including the bottom two resos. Otherwise, we will be unable to present minutes tonight.

Resolution on Abusive Administrators

Whereas, hundreds of DOE administrators have been flagged by UFT members as abusive for creating toxic workplaces, taking liberties with the contract, and/or targeting teacher unionists. 

Whereas, abusive principals can destroy the careers of both tenured and probationary teachers, and in the case of probationary teachers, can do so for “any or no reason.”

Whereas, UFT Leadership does not have the power to hire, fire, or discipline administrators, but does have the power to act on our behalf by petitioning the State for increased legal protections, negotiating with the City for increased contractual protections, addressing the Chancellor during consultation on behalf of affected chapters, and, if necessary, by organizing the broader membership in solidarity.

Whereas, for several years, the UFT had a multi-caucus committee dealing with principals in need of improvement (PINI), only to needlessly disband it in 2016 without any ‘successor’ program. 

Whereas, as a result, the UFT has no dedicated formal mechanism for identifying and pressing for the removal, transfer, or remediation of abusive administrators. 

Whereas, a lack of systematic response by UFT to abusive administrators damages member morale, and signals to problematic administrators that they are immune from consequences.

Whereas, in the wake of the Janus decision, failure to address abusive administrators can lead our members to lose faith in the union, putting our local at risk.  

Resolved, that the UFT will work to amend State law to give probationary teachers more protections so that teachers and other staff are not subjected to arbitrary and capricious actions, and be it further

Resolved, that the UFT will work to increase protections and resources against workplace bullying of our members by principals, drawing on recent legislation such as Senate Bill S3395A:  the New York State Healthy Workplace Bill. And be it further

Resolved, that the UFT will work in negotiations to strengthen the UFT contract to afford more protections for both probationary and tenured UFT members, and be it further

Resolved, that the UFT will  highlight the problems of abusive administrators, through membership involvement, various forms of social media, publications, etc., and be it further

Resolved, that the UFT will employ a multifaceted campaign to end the reign of terror of abusive administrators. This campaign will include the many tools and approaches that have previously been passed at Delegate Assemblies including: taking all legal remedies, establishing “swat teams” to go into schools with a history of abuse, assigning key UFT personnel to monitor and regularly visit said schools, organizing campaigns within and outside these schools to modify the behavior of abusive administrators and if necessary to remove them from their schools. And be it further

Resolved, that the UFT will re-establish a multi-caucus Principals in Need of Improvement (PINI) committee to oversee this process. 

Interim Resolution to Address the Rising Cost of Health Care

Whereas health costs have continued to rise, and 

Whereas, the Municipal Labor Committee, including our own United Federation of Teachers (UFT), agreed to find over $600 million in savings to the City in exchange for past salary increases, and

Whereas, the Mayor and the Municipal Labor Committee(of which the United Federation of Teachers is one of the largest parts) proposed a plan to move retirees to a privatized Medicare Advantage plan, and 

Whereas the proposal to move retirees to Medicare Advantage has caused extreme consternation and anxiety for the 250,000 NYC public service retirees (including UFT retirees) potentially affected due to fears that “cost savings” would be accomplished by reducing access to providers and procedures, and overall diminishing the quality and quantity of health care they would receive, and

Whereas 65,000 retirees were so concerned they opted out of the new plan, and

Whereas, Judge Lyle Frank ruled on March 2, 2022 that the plan could not go forward as presented, as it violated the City’s Administrative Code 12-126, and

Whereas the Mayor and the Municipal Labor Committee agreed to lobby the city council to amend the City’s Administrative Code 12-126 to allow their Medicare Advantage plan to go forward, and

Whereas the proposed amendment to the Code would eliminate the current benchmark, opening the door to changes that could hurt both in-service and retired members, and 

Whereas changing the Code would empower the city to push to downgrade healthcare quality and access in future negotiations, potentially increasing the financial burden and health risk for the city’s entire workforce, which is two-thirds people of color and earn incomes on average much lower than most UFT members, and

Whereas the MLC as representative of over 100 municipal unions should advocate for better funding for health care that does not cause union members, including UFT in-service members and retirees, grave concerns, and

Whereas the UFT and New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) have a long track record of supporting budget fairness in New York City and New York State, such as NYSUT’s recent #FundOurFutureNY campaign.

Therefore, be it Resolved, that the UFT now stands in opposition to revising Administrative Code 12-126, and urges the MLC to follow suit, and be it further 

Resolved, that the UFT in collaboration with NYSUT will look for fair funding sources to help the City meet its health care obligations to its employees and retired employees without reducing the quality or quantity of medical service, and 

Be it further resolved that the UFT consider sources including, but not limited to:  a progressive income tax for those with incomes over $5 million; restoration of the Stock Transfer Tax which could gain over to $12 billion of income to the state, or tax on the wealth of billionaires, or closing the carried interest loophole, or a pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes in New York City, or implementing an inheritance tax on the highest 1% of inheritances, or repealing the corporate profit tax breaks implemented by President Trump within New York State and restoring pre-2017 percentages, or eliminating rebates for taxes on stock buybacks, or repealing tax exemptions on luxury goods such as private planes and yachts, or eliminate city property tax breaks for real estate billionaires and 

Be it further resolved that the UFT will take the lead urging the MLC to wage a full-scale campaign to push the City and/or State to institute or restore these revenue sources, which could be used to secure the continued stability of our members’ and retiree’s healthcare.