Amy-Gate - Mejia Speech, Winners (Ibeth Mejia) and Losers (Mulgrew and Unity hacks) at UFT Oct. 23 Ex bd

We must stick to the union principles of solidarity, honesty, open democratic discussion, and service to the students of this city. Let our union lead in embracing differences of opinion and mending relationships among our members and the communities we serve. ... Amy Arundell was instrumental in helping us with trying to resolve the issue of micromanagement in our school (Aviation HS). Unfortunately, she is no longer working with us which has left us members feeling; as if we are being let down by our Union. As a result, I am here to remind the Union leadership that the fight for respect, trust, professionalism, and teacher autonomy is raging on, therefore, it is up to the UFT’s leadership to help the members of the rank and file who are feeling the brunt of the abuse in our school, to get the support their need from the UFT... Ibeth Mejia, CL Aviation HS, UFT Ex Bd member at Oct. 23 UFT Ex bd

Mulgrew responded in his president’s report with a monologue I would frankly characterize as despicable. While customarily vague, the president specified in no uncertain terms that he thought supporters of Amy Arundell’s reinstatement were actually doing the work of those who want to destroy the union – a claim so ridiculous and divisive that it led to audible gasps... Nick's Notes

Aviation HS teachers organize:

 

Thursday, October 26, 2023

I'm heading down to DC tomorrow for the NPE conference where we will see heavyweights in the battle for public ed like Ravitch, Bowman, and even Randi. And today is the first retiree chapter meeting at 52 at 1PM. Retiree Advocate will be there. And then I hear Mulgrew will be at a district meeting in Brooklyn where he can freely attack his critics as being terrorists. Some protesters may even show up. Not me - I'm going to stay in Manhattan and eat me some rice pudding.

If you missed my previous story on AmyGate: 

• Unity Caucus and Amy-Gate -Reasons for Arundell removal as UFT Queens Borough Rep

There was much ado about something at Monday's Executive Board UFT meeting, loaded with issues that bear further examination, which I will attempt in upcoming blog posts. Highlights were the Mulgrew speech accusing internal critics of practically being anti-union right wing terrorists and LeRoy Barr's attempt to cool the waters with a heartfelt speech. But I would ask LeRoy if he wants more unity (we know he wants more UNITY) give the other views in the UFT some space at the Delegate Assembly as a start. Ironically, it is Unity and the other views who show the most consistent interest in the union and we have that in common. Give them some space.

Nick has the NAC on the meeting with detailed notes and analysis, a must read.

• Why Don’t UFT Staffers Have Due Process? – UFT Executive Board Meeting,10-23-2023

Aviation HS CL and UFC Ex Bd member Ibeth Mejia was a star at with a dynamic speech she gave under the district reports section of the meeting. After Mulgrew's diatribe, she gently asked him to stay for the district reports but he said he had another meeting, only to be seen scurrying out of the alley next to 52 by Arthur and Jonathan. I was joking about what Randi would have done in the same situation. She would have stopped to chat for 20 minutes and maybe take them to coffee. That's her political skills. Looking forward to seeing her this weekend.

Ibeth had a lot to say and the ten minute opening period she knew would be broken up by numerous speakers and the question period time did not fit, so she chose the district report time to make her speech. We handed out hard copies as she spoke in defense of Amy Arundell but she took things beyond Amy's situation.

Ibeth has worked over the years with James and Camille Eterno (the king and queen of UFT dissidents, both having run against Mulgrew) for a long time before she became CL of Aviation HS. When the UFT wouldn't or couldn't help out with issues that arose in previous schools, James came to the rescue.

I know that James' incapacitation has hurt Ibeth deeply and she visits James once a week. Soon after becoming CL she filed a major grievance over 6th period pay where the DOE has been getting away with underpaying teachers for decades, while the UFT did nothing about it. James helped out. Ibeth won the grievance. James and I reported the story.

Big Win for NYC High School Teachers with 6th period exposes 25 year Unity Caucus failure to act - 25 years of malpractice by nature of union bureaucrats/

The DOE claimed the UFT was basically permitting the DOE to ignore the Contract for over 20 years which made the grievance completely untimely now since the UFT never challenged the Department of Education's policy of improperly paying coverage pay rather than the higher sixth-period rate. The DOE reasoned that the they had established a policy that the Union had accepted..

The UFT/Unity leadership in a nutshell.

 

Ibeth led the school recently into a rally/protest with tee-shirts supporting each other (see above). The UFT barely reported the story. 

 

At first I was surprised Ibeth was speaking up for Amy as their relationship had not always been great -- I even noticed a heated exchange after an Ex Bd meeting early this year, but they smoothed things out.

Ibeth had asked for Amy to be allowed to work with Aviation on these important issues even while she was in limbo and was turned down by UFT leaders.

 
Here is Ibeth's entire speech - interrupted by LeRoy Barr at one point - Nick has the entire exchange in his notes.

I rise as chapter leader at Aviation High School and as an elected representative of the high school teachers in New York City on the UFT Executive Committee. 

 

As you know, this union has often been at the center of this country’s political controversies. We can take pride in the fact that all the great issues of the day come right into our classrooms and our job is to deal with them with our humanism and compassion. We should also not forget a dark period in our union's history of blacklists and loyalty oaths. 

 

Therefore, let us not govern ourselves by the passions of today but with our wisdom and integrity. 

 

We do not ignore, nor do we exclude. We teach. 

 

Therefore, we must stick to the union principles of solidarity, honesty, open democratic discussion, and service to the students of this city. Let our union lead in embracing differences of opinion and mending relationships among our members and the communities we serve. 

 

As President of this union, I think you will be supported in that endeavor. I also want to say that we are one UFT; and what affects our members at Aviation H.S. affects us across the NYC public schools. 

 

Amy Arundell was instrumental in helping us with trying to resolve the issue of micromanagement in our school. Unfortunately, she is no longer working with us which has left us members feeling; as if we are being let down by our Union. As a result, I am here to remind the Union leadership that the fight for respect, trust, professionalism, and teacher autonomy is raging on, therefore, it is up to the UFT’s leadership to help the members of the rank and file who are feeling the brunt of the abuse in our school, to get the support their need from the UFT. 

 

Over the past few weeks there has been much discussion among UFT members as to how to respond to these events. Therefore we have decided to present the matter to this body . 

 

Let me state that this issue goes beyond Amy. There are 3 big issues that need to be addressed. 

 

The first is freedom of speech within our union. I have spoken to high school history teachers who have expressed the worry that if minority views are suppressed within the teachers’ union, where does the classroom teacher stand when discussing controversial topics. 

 

The second is union democracy. Although procedurally, the UFT President may re-assign an appointed official, it shouldn’t happen without consultation of this body, nor without the consultation of the elected chapter leaders with whom the borough president works. 

 

The third issue is the changes that we are trying to initiate on the related problems of micromanagement, supervisory intimidation, workload, teacher evaluation and student assessment systems that work for neither teacher nor student. These are not caucus issues. It is something we all have a stake in. 

 

At Aviation, we were hoping, with our chapter solidarity, and working with the district rep and the borough president, that on the issue of micromanagement, we could set in motion a process that would improve teaching and learning. We would like to know what happens with that important struggle after this reassignment

 

Look for some live blogging from the NPE conference over the weekend.

Big Win for NYC High School Teachers with 6th period exposes 25 year Unity Caucus failure to act - 25 years of malpractice by nature of union bureaucrats/

The DOE claimed the UFT was basically permitting the DOE to ignore the Contract for over 20 years which made the grievance completely untimely now since the UFT never challenged the Department of Education's policy of improperly paying coverage pay rather than the higher sixth-period rate. The DOE reasoned that the they had established a policy that the Union had accepted.

Jeff said...

So the uft should be applauded? The teachers should've had this in the first place. Why the big fight? Why the years of not complying? This is the definition of "It's better than nothng."

James has a great story on the ICE blog about a big win for teachers. But looking into it makes your head spin. I'm sure the UFT will blast this a big win - actually the entire story makes the leadership look pathetic - 

UFT WINS ARBITRATION AFFIRMING RIGHT OF NON-SHORTAGE AREA TEACHERS TO GET SIXTH PERIOD PAY INSTEAD OF LOWER COVERAGE PAY FOR TEACHING A SIXTH CLASS

Aviation High School shop teachers standing up for special per session sixth-period pay of $7,278 per semester  for teaching an extra class each day instead of settling for cut-rate coverage pay of $45.38 per class multiplied by 85 days for a semester which comes to $3,857.30. The math clearly shows that many teachers have been getting cheated out of over $3,400 per semester because principals refuse to follow the contractual rules and pay teachers what they are entitled to for teaching a sixth class in secondary schools. We believed it was a no-brainer grievance as the right to receive sixth-period teaching pay for agreeing to teach a sixth class in secondary schools has been in the Contract since 1998, whether it was for a shortage area or non-shortage area class.

http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2022/07/uft-wins-arbitration-affirming-right-of.html 

Yankee fan Ibeth

Mets fan James - enjoy your (temp) wins

There's a lot of back story on this, some of which I can't talk about. If I did your head would explode. We are giving UFT/Unity HSVP credit for testifying on behalf of the teachers. There's irony in that her testimony helped seal the case because the DOE argued that they should win because the UFT leadership. let this violation go on for so long. OK, let's call it a win for all.

My guess is the arbitrator probably knew the Union was aware of what was up but the DOE was so blatantly wrong in cheating teachers out of their proper pay that she was willing to suspend disbelief a bit.

But let's give UFT VP Janella Hinds some credit:

The arbitrator may have been persuaded the UFT was right because of the testimony of UFT Academic High School Vice President Janella Hinds. Janella's involvement hinted to the arbitrator that this was an important case for the Union. Janella testified to Arbitrator Biren on what the difference is between Article 7N (Coverages) and 7O (teaching a sixth class for a special higher per session rate). She gave details on how coverages are for an emergency absence but the sixth class provision is for the entire semester so the teacher becomes the teacher of record for the class and so he/she plans the lessons, teaches the classes, and assesses the pupils while in a coverage the teacher only teaches a lesson left to them by the regular teacher for an emergency for the day.

Janella has struck many in the oppo as someone who can be worked with.

The story starts many years ago when a new teacher, Ibeth Mejia, taught at Jamaica HS with an awesome chapter leader named James Eterno. 

Principals, however, have wrongfully used the coverage provision to cheat teachers by paying the coverage rate instead of the higher special per session rate. At Aviation High School, principals were shortchanging teachers in shop for over 20 years.

The situation changed this year because of the election of my former Jamaica High School and Middle College High School colleague Ibeth Mejia as Chapter Leader at Aviation. Ibeth knew we didn't stand for anything like ripping off teachers at Jamaica. She asked me to help with this and we did research that the UFT had been ignoring for years. We also publicized this issue in several of our blog postings to highlight how teachers were being cheated out of money when they took on an extra class in a non-shortage area. Ibeth was persistent in pressuring the UFT Grievance Department on this case and encouraging others similarly situated to file grievances.

As Jamaica was being closed down, their teachers were cast asunder all over the city, Ibeth included. When it came turn for James to be put in the ATR pool, he landed at Ibeth's new school and became a rock for the teachers there as the old principal left and abuses began. Ibeth left to go to Aviation, an old Unity dominated trade school. Ibeth ran and won for chapter leader and immediately show she wouldn't take crap from the admin. 

Now the UFT leadership will claim they will fight for people when they take the lead. But do you wonder why Unity couldn't get even one of their chapter leaders to do what Ibeth did over a 25 year period? Sorry, but my judgement is that they were in cahoots with the DOE to save money on the backs of the teachers and there even may be a smoking gun out there to prove that. Call it malpractice by nature of union bureaucrats.

Now here's the best part: Ibeth Mejia was just elected on the United for Change slate to the UFT HS ex bd.

I had a batch of tickets to an upcoming Yankee game and I was able to pass a few to Ibeth for her family to go. It's minimal, but she is the spirit of unionism we need. She's a rabid Yankee fan as I am while James is a Mets fan. No one is perfect.