Ed Notes Online: City Hall Rally for City Council Bill, today 12:30, OT/PT Turns down contract - story in Chalkbeat, Plus 2018 contract voting data

Thursday, July 13, 2023

City Hall Rally for City Council Bill, today 12:30, OT/PT Turns down contract - story in Chalkbeat, Plus 2018 contract voting data

About 40% of the 3,000 members of the Occupational and Physical Therapists UFT Chapter voted no, according to Melissa Williams, the chapter’s leader.
Pay disparities anger occupational and physical therapists
Williams and her colleagues feel that they’re being paid less over time than teachers despite their roles requiring similar education. At the top of the pay scale, she and her colleagues make considerably less than comparably educated teachers, she said. For example, by January a therapist with 10 years of experience and a master’s degree would earn $86,131, according to UFT documents, while a teacher with the same years and degree would earn $103,594.
According to a survey completed by Williams’ chapter, nearly three-quarters of therapists work second or third jobs after school.

“To look around the table and see that those of us doing similar work are getting paid differently isn’t fair,” she said. “I’m concerned not only for my financial future and my son’s financial future. I’m also concerned for the financial viability for people joining this career.”
Another sticking point for the therapists was a last-minute addition during contract negotiations of a ninth session to their working day, Williams said. Therapists see two to three students per session. “We barely have time to do eight sessions,” Williams said.....
......Chalkbeat article.

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Lots to cover today. I had lunch with chapter leader Melissa Williams yesterday to try to understand the details of why the chapter turned down the contract, as they did in 2018. Unity is not happy that she's the chapter leader and I'd bet they will try to return the chapter to Unity hands in next year's election. One way is to attack her and her supporters and blame them, not a lousy contract, for the NO vote, which was pretty substantial - see my recent article - OT/PT, nurses, audiologists vote NO. More info with full Chalkbeat article below.

The news for retirees - show up at city hall today -- numbers count

Rally today - 9/11 PARENTS & FAMILIES OF FIREFIGHTERS AND WTC VICTIMS CALL ON CITY HALL TO STOP DISCRIMINATING AGAINST NYC SENIOR CITIZEN RETIREES!
WHAT: Rally/Press Conference at City Hall, NYC
WHEN: Thursday, July 13, 2023
TIME: 12:30 PM
WHY: Rally against Mayor Eric Adams’ forcing NYC senior citizen retirees into an unwanted and substandard “Medicare Advantage Program.”
911 Parents & Families of Firefighters and WTC Victims announces our categorical opposition to Mayor Eric Adams’ efforts to remove traditional Medicare, plus the NYC supplemental coverage, from 250,000 retired NYC public servants-against their wishes! This includes NYPD, FDNY, EMS, and numerous other official NYC Agencies and Departments.
Many of these uniformed and civilian retirees have devoted their entire working lives to The City of New York! Many of these retirees lost their own uniformed and civilian children and loved ones on 911! Why are our rights being robbed from us upon retirement?
This Mayor cannot be permitted to unilaterally revoke a 57-year precedent that was guaranteed to all New York City’s Medicare eligible employees upon retirement!
We fully endorse the leader- ship of Ms. Marianne Pizzitola, President of the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees. Her organization is championing The fight to restore the rights of New York City senior citizen employees to retain traditional Medicare and NYC supplementary coverage. Stop this discrimination against NYC senior citizen retirees!
A rally led by Ms. Pizzitola will be held by The New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees on Thursday, July 13, 12:30PM, at City Hall, NYC. All concerned citizens are urged to attend and speak out for the rights of senior citizens in this City!
911 Parents and Families of Firefighters and WTC Victims asks every member of the City Council to stand up and be counted and sign on to the bill that will support our efforts for justice! You are either with us or against us!
We ask Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand as well as every member of Congress who is supposed to represent the senior citizens of New York, to stand with us in this effort for equal treatment for NYC retirees!
Marianne Pizzitola
President
NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees
And
FDNY EMS Retirees Association

We still need to see a city council bill passed to protect us and there is a rally today for that purpose.We can expect a few working UFT members to be there in support.

We added a City Council rep - Eric Bottcher who was at Leonie's Skinny Award for Jamaal Bowman, along with Keith Powers, my city council rep in the city who has not signed on -- I called his office for a meeting and still waiting for a return call.

It is not just the city Medicare for retirees at risk -- but all of Medicare which is under assault from both parties -- remember, the UFT/Unity is aligned with the corp Dems who want to privatize. Thus, I also signed up for a July 25th Medicare rally in Washington at the White House.

If you are committed to going to Washington DC for the day, Tuesday, July 25th, please sign up to Amtrack there with us. NO CANCELLING! You must sign up by WEDNESDAY JULY 12th! Close of business.
We meet at Penn Station at 645 am and return at 10 pm that night.
We are also looking for a few people with Medicare Advantage horror stories to join us, if that is you, please send us an email.
REMEMBER, WE ARE GOING WITH BE A HERO FOUNDATION IN THIS JOINT EFFORT.
https://act.beaherofund.com/.../medicare_birthday.../
CLICK ABOVE LINK TO REGISTER
https://youtu.be/9fMWk805ZEg

Deadline to sign up has passed. But hear this:

"Hospitals and insurance companies have also bought out many independent physicians’ practices. Optum, an arm of the publicly traded UnitedHealth Group, which also owns one of the nation’s largest insurers, employs roughly 70,000 physicians. Studies have shown that these types of concentrated ownership of doctors in a given market are also associated with higher prices."

The trend is for total corp control of our healthcare and how pissed do we need to be that our own union is a handmaiden?

I will be at the rally at City Hall today. But if we fall into thinking that this is the definition of activism we are making a mistake. The motto of Ed Notes for 25 years has been Educate, Organize, Mobilize -- in that order. In order to do each step, the preceding step is important.

Thus calling your city council on our issue is helped by infusing the kind of info below. Costs are rising and we are not at fault. Yet our own union falls into that propaganda mode. Yesterday I saw what seemed like a Unity hack on FB defending the non-pension aspect of the new contract because the city won't be able to pay because we live longer, etc etc. I surmised that the plan to move us to MedAdv may be their solution to cutting pensions -- death panels.

We all need to equip ourselves with the ammunition even to convince our own colleagues. My liberal friends often say we can't afford a single payer system because they have been propagandized. The high costs are no accident. And I have seen a whole batch of physicians retire this year. One said I love my patients and hate my job.

We need to share info that points to the real threat to everyone's healthcare. Profit making companies only see the short time view --- increase profits. They see Medicare and the healthcare system as a bottomless pit.

We need laws to counter the ability of private equity and hospitals to create monopolies - we ultimately pay. And how sad that we have to start with our union leadership and the members who only get their take.

Share this one from Forbes: Medicare Advantage Retiree Plans Save Employers Money But Create Issues For Retirees

On contract news --

Details have been short. Look at the charts below and the current math needs work. There are about 60K teachers and over 90k voted - the difference is the functionals. So if 75% voted yes that would be 45K yes and 15K NO? Check my math and I'd bet a lot of people who voted YES did so because they didn't believe in the NO option. For giggles, say another 5K might have voted NO if they had full info on the contract. My guess is that in schools where there were strong voices opposed, the school as a whole went NO. Where Unity had someone to sell the contract they probably won that school.

There's a lot of stuff we don't know yet. Did every school vote? I asked for that info at the count and didn't get an answer - I should have.
Here is some data from the 2018 election. When (if) we get it from the UFT we can do some comparisons. You'll not a drop in YES votes -- and my math may be bad on the NO votes since only

OT/PT, nurses, audiologists vote NO - in the meantime, the OT/PT chapter voted the contract down by a significant margin. I published the insulting letter UFT Middle School VP Rich Mantel sent to the chapter whose leader is Melissa Williams.

the Chalkbeat article.

NYC teachers get raises. Physical and occupational therapists still wait.

By Eliana Perozo
Jul 12, 2023, 8:43pm EDT

Starting salaries for New York City teachers will increase to $72,350 by 2026 under the United Teachers Federation’s newly ratified contract.
That’s 18.5% more than the current starting salary of $61,070.
But while teachers and other members of their union approved the contract this week, school-based occupational and physical therapists are holding out for their own deal.
Because the therapists voted against the contract, they will not receive pay increases, signing bonuses, or other increased benefits. Instead, they will continue working under the terms of the 2018 contract until their bargaining unit can reach a new deal with the city.

UFT officials said they planned to discuss next steps with the chapter’s members.
The teachers’ five-year contract, which is retroactive to 2022, includes 3% wage increases for the first three years, followed by a 3.25% increase in the fourth year, and 3.5% in the fifth year. In addition, teachers will get one-time signing bonuses of $3,000 each and annual bonuses of $400 in 2024, $700 in 2025, and $1,000 in 2026.
The union represents 115,000 full-time and 5,000 part-time education department employees, including paraprofessionals, school secretaries, and social workers. Three-quarters of them voted on the new contract, according to the union.
Of the union members who voted this week, 75% approved the contract, according to the American Arbitration Association, but many educators expressed concern that the increases don’t keep pace with the rising cost of living. This approval rate was lower than the 87% yes vote for the last contract in 2018.
About 40% of the 3,000 members of the Occupational and Physical Therapists UFT Chapter voted no, according to Melissa Williams, the chapter’s leader.
Pay disparities anger occupational and physical therapists
Williams and her colleagues feel that they’re being paid less over time than teachers despite their roles requiring similar education. At the top of the pay scale, she and her colleagues make considerably less than comparably educated teachers, she said. For example, by January a therapist with 10 years of experience and a master’s degree would earn $86,131, according to UFT documents, while a teacher with the same years and degree would earn $103,594.
According to a survey completed by Williams’ chapter, nearly three-quarters of therapists work second or third jobs after school.

“To look around the table and see that those of us doing similar work are getting paid differently isn’t fair,” she said. “I’m concerned not only for my financial future and my son’s financial future. I’m also concerned for the financial viability for people joining this career.”
Another sticking point for the therapists was a last-minute addition during contract negotiations of a ninth session to their working day, Williams said. Therapists see two to three students per session. “We barely have time to do eight sessions,” Williams said.
Teachers also have contract concerns
Many members of the Movement of Rank and File Educators, a social justice caucus within UFT known as MORE, also voiced disappointment with the contract.
“I think people voted yes because we’re in really dire financial times, and they were afraid this administration, similar to [former Mayor Michael] Bloomberg, would make us wait another nine years to bargain again,” said Brooklyn middle school teacher and MORE member Olivia Swisher.
Under Bloomberg, teachers worked four years under an expired contract until winning a settlement in 2013. Earlier, principals and supervisors also worked for nearly four years under an expired contract until 2003.
With nine days to vote, Swisher felt that the contract was rushed. UFT required bargaining committee leaders to sign a non-disclosure agreement barring them from discussing bargaining conversations, she said.
Under the new contract, the maximum salary for teachers will rise to $151,271 by 2026. That means it will take teachers eight years to make over $100,000, instead of the current 15 years.

The national average teacher salary for the 2022-23 school year was $68,469 — a 2.6% increase from the previous year, according to the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union. Adjusted for inflation, however, teachers, on average, earned $3,644 less than they did a decade ago, the national union said.
The UFT deal also creates a virtual learning program. According to the contract, schools interested in participating in the virtual program must submit a proposal. A quarter of high schools will be allowed to participate in the first year, phasing in all schools after four years.
Mayor Eric Adams and Chancellor David Banks said the goal is to offer evening and weekend classes to help students who cannot attend regular school hours because of full-time jobs.
Some teachers, however, expressed reservations.
“It’s a de-professionalization of our work,” Swisher said. “We are divesting from systems that have been shown to work, like teachers in schools, and investing in something we already know doesn’t work, virtual learning. It’s not helping our students, it’s hurting them.”
The contract is retroactive to Sept. 14, 2022, and runs through Nov. 28, 2027, city officials said. The wage increases follow a February agreement with District Council 37, which provided raises for other school employees such as cafeteria workers, parent coordinators, and crossing guards.
“The new agreement addresses the major changes sought by the union’s 500-member negotiating team. The contract increases pay, increases educators’ control over their workday, and decreases the noneducational, irrelevant paperwork demands,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew wrote in a statement.
Eliana Perozo is a reporting intern at Chalkbeat New York. You can reach her at eperozo@chalkbeat.org.

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Thursday, July 13, 2023

City Hall Rally for City Council Bill, today 12:30, OT/PT Turns down contract - story in Chalkbeat, Plus 2018 contract voting data

Pay disparities anger occupational and physical therapists

On contract news --

OT/PT, nurses, audiologists vote NO - in the meantime, the OT/PT chapter voted the contract down by a significant margin. I published the insulting letter UFT Middle School VP Rich Mantel sent to the chapter whose leader is Melissa Williams.

NYC teachers get raises. Physical and occupational therapists still wait.

Pay disparities anger occupational and physical therapists

Teachers also have contract concerns

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