Tuesday, July 22, 2025 - Queens UFT - 118-35 Queens Boulevard 7th Floor Forest Hills, NY 11375
I'm heading out soon to the Queens UFT office for the 6 PM rally - they say get there at 5:30 to defend fired District rep Ashley Rzonca, sponsored by the District 30 Community Education Council, a parent group, not an insignificant factor. And as I pointed out in my post yesterday _ UFT DA Tidbits - Endorsing Mamdani, ABC and ARISE/... she is also getting support from a number of D. 30 CL and UFT members. Firing her over perceived disloyalty and friendship with the fired Amy Arundell, her former boss at the Queens office.
- I'm taking a new route as I hate to drive more and more despite my new
car. I will drive to Howard Beach station to get the Airtrain to JFK
and then transfer to the one to Jamaica where I will pick up the E to
the UFT.
Click on the link to Talk out of School to hear interviews.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-out-of-school/id1490313171?i=1000718209710 The D. 30 CL and Delegate protest at the July 9th DA Mamdani endorsement was not insignificant.
Ashley Rzonca speech at CEC 30 meeting.
Everyone knows Amy revitalized that office when Mulgrew moved her out of 52 almost 10 years ago. At that time I saw that as indicating some differences between them - even though it came with a big raise, getting her out of the center of action. She built a loyal following until she was removed in late 2023, but those relationships came home to roost in helping build the A Better Contract (ABC) and its subsequent relative election success.
I had heard from a Unity source months before the firing that Ashley was in trouble due to connections to some of the CLs in D 30 who ran with or supported ABC, which was due to the Amy connection.
Yet Ashley was appointed to the recent UFT election committee as one of the "thousands" of Unity reps on that committee, ran, and was elected, on the Unity slate for the UFT Exec Bd and as an AFT/NYSUT delegate for the next 3 years.
It will certainly be interesting to see what Ashley does - will she take on the role of the missing opposition, along with fired para Hector Ruiz, Jr. who was also elected to the Exec Bd and AFT/NYSUT? A third fired official (who has asked to remain nameless) was also elected to AFT/NYSUT. (Para Migda Rodriguez, who ran with ABC and is an elected Para officer, was also fired -- I will address the fired paras in a separate post.)
What does it mean that 3 of the 6 fired were chosen to run with Unity back in February yet fired in June? Did they not hand out Unity flyers with enough vigor? Or did vote totals in District 30 have anything to do with it? The big jump in elementary school votes for ABC might have been a factor since many probably came from D. 30. I asked for school vote totals when I was on the election committee but Unity rejected that request, opting for district reports. The president of GES told me he had that data -- did Unity get that data but deny the rest of us - and examined it and found something in the D. 30 results?
Even though I was on the election committee with Ashley, I had my first conversation with her on July 9th after the DA and was impressed by her passion and smarts. I have to be honest - I used to view District reps, and indeed, the general Unity crowd as being sycophants and some real slugs. Having contact with a bunch of Unity disaffected has opened my eyes to see Unity people in a new light. I bet there are plenty more of them - some have even been in contact sub rosa. (Let Mulgrew start looking under the hood with a flashlight.)
There's a petition campaign: http/bit.ly/reinstateashleyrzonca
I'd call for them to have an election.
There
are DR slugs of course, but Rzonca has an
impeccable reputation and if an election were held would win hands down.
I don't envy her successor. In fact, if she goes over to ABC, I'd bet a
bunch of CLs and members in Dist. 30 would come along with her. I know
of some who did not run with ABC but were a big help with
petitioning - dynamos that will be a force if active in ABC.
Amongst Amy's and Ashley's admirers is CL Leah Linn, who Amy had hired as a PM staffer. Leah ran with ABC as an officer and was fired soon after the election was over. Leah has helped lead the resistance. I never met Leah until this past February and became increasingly impressed with her leadership skills and her smarts.
Leah as a CL in Ashley's D. 30 and her defection to ABC is probably one
reason Rzonca was fired. Did she fail to use the Unity Caucus whip and threaten Leah for running?
Summary:
The
Friday June 27th purge was a cleansing by Unity Caucus of its
perceived dis-loyalists. Mulgrew and crew, when faced with waning
popularity, instead of trying to fix it, they resorted to fear tactics to try to cow potential internal opposition into silence and obedience, but has resulted in lots of loathing.
Fear tactics might work for some but over time these tactics alienate people in
the club, even if they remain on the job. From all reports, Mulgrew has created a toxic environment inside the union and this only exasperates that toxicity. The attacks on Amy, going back years, brought enough people
into ABC to make it a viable opposition.
If
anyone in Unity didn't notice the drop to 53% and the energized ABC
campaign infused with Unity refugees, that are fooling themselves.
Repression and fear-mongering engenders resistance or a cleansing-- I won't use a banned word for cleansing in Arabic.
While
in the long run, union staffers having a union and due process rights
seems like a good idea, there are also complications in that idea.
Shouldn't the party in power be able to hire the people they want? That
was the argument made by Unity when they killed district rep elections
in 2002. But that's the argument principals make, so no dice. District reps are a special kettle of fish. They used to
be elected by chapter leaders for decades before the change and the
union was better off for it. If ABC had won we would have moved immediately to hold DR elections.
So the firing of district 30 rep Ashley
Rzonca, who ran and won election to the Exec Bd and AFT/NYSUT rep on the
Unity slate, is unfair - based on "perceived"
disloyalty and not cancelling Amy, her former mentor and boss -- this is where Unity crossed the line. Did Rzonca fail to
stuff enough mailboxes with Unity glossy election leaflets? Were the
vote totals for D. 30 too low? Were the ABC elementary totals too high?
====
Comment from a D 30 CL
Being
a union member, and in my case a Chapter Leader, we are taught how to
navigate the inner workings of toxic administration. We are told to
document, to stand our ground and when the time comes, we are taught to
come together and make our voices heard. We are told to have union
representation when we are called into meetings with administration in
order to protect ourselves. Our District 30 Representative, Ashley
Rzonca helped us to build these tools to ensure that we maintain a safe work environment where we are free of bullying and harassment.
We’ve
trusted our union to stand by the values that give our collective its
strength and purpose, but it’s become painfully clear that the UFT has
abandoned those values.
Ashley
Rzonca was called into a meeting where she was told she would meet with
UFT leadership. Instead, she was met by Human Resources. She was lied
to.
Ashley
Rzonca asked if she needed to bring anything or anyone to the meeting
with her and she was told it wasn’t necessary. She was deceived.
Ashley
Rzonca was asked not to return to her position at the UFT. When she
asked why this was happening or if it had to do with her job
performance, she was told they were “unprepared” to answer those
questions. This is unacceptable.
Ashley
Rzonca reached out to report harassment in her workplace and instead of
being supported, she was terminated. This is retaliation.
If
this exact scenario were happening in a school building with a UFT
member and a principal, we would immediately call it what it is:
retaliation and an abuse of power. If a member met with administration
to ask why they were being discontinued and the answer was “we are
unprepared”, we would be up in arms about ineffective administration. We
would be advocating for this member to remain in their role and demand
accountability. Why should this be any different?
The
UFT can not give us the tools to push back against ineffective
leadership and expect us to stay silent as it unjustly terminates a
dedicated unionist who has served with integrity and excellence in her
leadership role. Ashley Rzonca’s termination is not only unwarranted, it
is a betrayal of the values we hold dear in our union.
I am demanding that Ashley Rzonca be reinstated to her position as District 30 Representative.
I
will not stand by. I will not be silent. I will speak out and demand
immediate action. Our union is only as strong as our willingness to
defend what’s right.
