I have a few brief items for you today. Celebrate my rare briefness.
Monday, July 13, 2026
Council Sets Vote on $10K Perk for Paraprofessionals
Para Pay Raise bill at City Council, Mamdani switcheroo - really, if he wants to talk affordability, para pay should be a prime factor. But there is also the factor of bonus vs pensionable salary and we are in contract negotiation territory with a cast of thousands negotiating committee.
Leah Linn infographic on history of para bill:
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DawC3M3Ry_g/
One comment:
 |
Nothing like an ad for your caucus: A UFT Leaflet for labor day |
This City Reporter article mentions Fix Para Pay.
Some paraprofessionals, though, feel the payment isn’t enough and doesn’t address longstanding issues that they say have been ignored by the union.
Marie Wausnock is a paraprofessional on Staten Island who also co-founded Fix Para Pay, a union caucus slate that opposes Mulgrew. Some paras leave for other city jobs that require less training and have better pay, she said.
“How do you give respectable pensions and dignity to paras when you want to give them non-pensionable money?” she said. “Paras are so underpaid. We get crumbs every time.”
750 Unity Loyalists Junket in Washington for AFT convention: They got 54% but get 100% of delegates - ABC and ARISE should have 46%
In last year's UFT election we voted for 750 AFT/NYSUT convention delegates. And I bet a batch of non-delegate Unity staffers added - call it over 800 and maybe 900.
Unity received 54% of the vote but in a winner take all system they get 100% of the delegates as 46% of UFT voters are shut out of both the AFT and NYSUT. And of course, all 750 will vote as told on every reso - all dictated by what Randi wants.
This perversion of democracy will enforce the alliance between the UFT leadership and the Dem Party corporate center. Note the speaker list below. I see one progressive - the next Mayor of Washington who is a social-democrat. You won't see many SDs at this convention.
Watching Hakim Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and the awful Neera Tanden disparage the SD movement is getting to be LOL - how close are they to Trump reactions. They are threatened and rather then lose control of the bailiwick they'd rather see Republicans - and billionaires - win.
The rise of SD as a challenger to the Dem Party - see the drama being played out in Maine is also a threat to Unity hegemony. Too bad the SDs in the UFT have had a decade long failure to show any similar organizing chops that SD has had. Ironically, the closest I've seen to an SD organizing model has been ABC and hopefully the Fixed Retiree Benefits group can also show some organizing chops. Both are a work in progress.
From AFT PR:
Thousands of Educators, Elected Leaders and Advocates to Gather in D.C. for AFT National Convention
Delegates
Will Hear from Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, US House Democratic Leader
Hakeem Jeffries, Labor Leader Dolores Huerta, Former US Attorney General
Eric Holder, Former Georgia State Rep. Stacey Abrams, Democratic
Nominee for D.C. Mayor Janeese Lewis George and more to be announced
|
WASHINGTON—The 1.8 million-member AFT—representing teachers, school staff, higher education workers, nurses and healthcare professionals, and public employees—will host its 89th national convention July 16-19, bringing together over 3,500 delegates from across the country. Note that almost one third of the 1.8 million are from NY State delegation controlled by Unity Caucus, which at the national level is called the (once in a blue moon) Progressive Caucus. Oh, and let me announce that Randi will win re-election either unopposed or by 95% if there is an opposing candidate. |
Nepotism and Cronyism: Mulgrew Undermined UFT Pension Dept., Broken Promises Over TRS Election
My most recent blog exposing the Mulgrew machine has been getting some notice.
---
The Blind Spot: How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracy
What exactly has changed all that much in 250 years?
I'm a big fan and paid subscriber to Sam Seder's The Majority Report where I get great interviews and commentary and a lot of fun every weekday at noon-2:30.
For history buffs, this interview, especially for a history major like me who took courses in the American Revolution, this interview with was fascinating. The theme is that the founding fathers were fundamentally oligarchs who
believe in small d democracy - very small d. That the constitution was
designed to protect their wealth. And in this interview he goes into
detail. They had a problem in their new system which had a level of
democracy never seen before. How to control that democracy so their
wealth would never be threatened.
We are taught about checks and balances as one branch of government checking the other branches. In this interpretation, C&B were designed by the oligarchs leading the revolution to check the rabble who might get too much democracy and take away some of their wealth -- in case they want to tax the rich. So what else is new?
https://www.youtube.com/live/3j7Y-w-XhVk?si=GzVwfqgVfXjlakkE&t=1863
An urgent and shocking examination of how the ultra-rich dominate democracies, hoard political power, and maintain inequality—and how we might chart another path.
The wealthy and powerful few have dominated the many throughout most of human history. This is now more starkly visible than ever—a time when, with politicians bought and paid for across the political spectrum, the gulf between oligarchs and average citizens is larger than any gap that existed during European feudalism or the slave society of Imperial Rome. One thing is clear: the world is heading into an even deeper state of inequality, one that oligarchs of past eras could only have dreamed of. The strange thing is, for the first time in history, this domination is accomplished through democracy. Yet we aren’t in open revolt against the system. In fact, we seemingly keep voting to prop it up. Why?
In The Blind Spot, political scientist Jeffrey Winters delivers a timely, incisive account of how we reached this era of in-your-face oligarchy. Tracing the evolution of wealth power through the modern democratic era, he demonstrates how domination by oligarchs isn’t just a flaw in our democracy, but a foundational feature—allowing the wealthy to limit the agenda, control the marketplace of ideas, and rewire the law to defend, hide, and increase their money and power. Now, in an extraordinary paradox, we exist in a state of “participatory inequality,” a world in which the 99.99 percent of us participate openly, freely, and democratically in our own ongoing exclusion and exploitation.
But The Blind Spot ultimately sounds a clarion call for change, arming us not only with a vital lens through which we can understand just how bad our political reality has become, but also with bold ideas for how we might shift the balance of power. While powerful oligarchs do not cede power willingly, this period of shocking inequality is nevertheless an opportunity for change.
The Winters interview on you tube:
.jpg)
