The late, great James Eterno saw exactly where this was heading and said so in 2009, when it still mattered.
He called it what it was:
A billion-dollar giveaway to save the City money — paid for by future educators.
He was right then. He’s right now.
Tier 6 didn’t come out of nowhere. The runway was built in 2009 by Randi and Unity...Educators of NYC
An LOL comment at the Feb. 5 retiree meeting was a Unityite arguing against restoring the 8
1/4% enjoyed by our supevisors because ending the 7% Randi giveaway would make us look greedy and
besides the city doesn't have the money. The crux of the Unity Caucus positions come down to the purpose of a union is to find ways to save the employer money.
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Unity/UFT Leadership History of Sell-Out argument to save city money while screwing members --- EONYC - Feb 14, 2026 |
Saturday, Feb. 14 - Happy Valentine Day - Taking my woman out to dinner in the city tonight - don't tell my wife. Actually, I have a surprise Neuhaus box of dark chocolates waiting for her in the city- since she would rather sleep on a bed of nails than read my blog, no worries she will won't be surprised.
I'm going to have to do this in two parts because I have to leave soon - tii much time watching olympic snow and ice after doing my daily shovel of snow and ice.
My political life is managed by meetings related to the UFT, most recently the Retired Teacher Meeting on Feb.5, the Feb. 10 Retired Teacher Exec Bd Meeting and the Feb. 11 DA. People complain they are all boring but I am a junky and engaged.
I just can't keep up with the prolific Daniel Alicea, Marianne Pizzitola and Arthur Goldstein - here are his reports of the Feb. 5 RTC and DA. Feb. 5 Unity Says, "No 1096 for You!": We say otherwise, by a huge margin.
I have some different angles and where do I begin? Of course the major news is the David Kazansky run for TRS against Tom Brown and that dominated the DA --- speaker after speaker in favor of Brown while a few tried to get David's name out there as a candidate without opposing the Brown nomination, which I would have done - and I had some reasons which I will share one day -- but I wanted to be a team player. Both meetings sort of have a common theme. Unity totally controls the DA and absolutely don't have control of the RTC. But their goals at both is to degrade the ability of the opposition to influence union policy. There were 2 resos pushed by the non-Unity RTC leadership - support for 1096, calling for the Randi Weingarten giveaway of 8.25% in 2008 to be reversed and two Unity sponsored resos - Keeping retirees Safe from Scams and support for the NY Civil Rights Act. At every meeting they introduce another feel-good distraction -- for this meeting on The Importance of Building and Providing Affordable Workforce Housing for NYC Educators, Healthcare Professionals and Essential Workers. James Eterno used to mock these type of resos as "Mom and Apple Pie" resos. We've also seen similar virtue signaling resos from those opposed to Unity --- when you don't have a clue how to make a dent in the power of Unity, resort to calling for support for issues outside the union. Unity pushed back on the RTC resos on 1096 and 8 1/4% that actually improve our conditions while their own feel good resos, offered as a distraction from addressing their years of failure are difficult to oppose - like who doesn't support protecting retirees from scams or supporting the NY Civil Rights Act? And they are clever resos -- putting the RTC leadership on an impossible position -- though I get what Unity is doing and am willing to do the dirty work of calling them out -- except I get bad looks from my RTC leadership colleagues that standing opposed to a feel-good reso designed to distract from issues that won us the election. Leo Casey came off a sick bed to lose his marbles in a rant against Marianne Pizzitola at the RTC meeting -- so sorry, Leo can't be at the DA because Unity lost the RTC election. The battle between Leo and Marianne is all about healthcare and the
Unity attempt to distract people. Leo will defend any Unity policy, as
do the Unity faithful as we saw at the last RTC meeting when they
opposed the 8.25 reso because it will cost the city money and make us
look greedy. 7% also looked greedy when everyone else was getting 1% so
making that case is anti-union. Getting raises and lower class sizes
costs the city money. But for we retirees the worst was the
attempt to put us in medicare adv -- our victory, due on no small part
to Marianne -- which is why in advance of next year's election which
Unity expects to win - Casey is the designated hit man to degrade
Marianne's influence and bring Unity back to it's 70% majority before
the 2024 election. A lesson on her influence is the low amount of votes
the ARISE Coalition received in the last election while the ABC
supported by Marianne received 3x as many, a lesson Leo Casey clearly
has learned -- beat up Marianne to help Unity win. I will get to part 2 maybe tomorrow but now turn it back to Daniel: |
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