One
of the leaders of the UFT bullying attack mob is District 21 Rep Adam Shapiro.
In addition to his teacher salary which is well over 100k (for teaching one
period a day), he also makes 120K at the UFT. Not a bad haul for a guy
who spends his days designing attack ads on those opposed to Unity. Hell, I do that to Unity for free.
It is particularly ironic for over 200k
Shapiro to attack a 50k para who does not make a living wage because of
Shapiro's inept Unity Caucus' inability to secure paras a living wage 50
years after the founding of the para chapter while we've seen other
urban unions like Los Angeles make large gains for paras in recent
contracts.
Shapiro even let down his own caucus in the recent TRS campaign where Unity went hard at turning out the vote and gave the Dist reps the assignment. Dist 21 had horrendous turnout. Adam was too busy writing attack memes.
While he fawns for LeRoy’s approval, Shapiro would rather
continue to collect two pensions, not Fix Tier 6 and abuse paras working
2 jobs trying to keep up with the out-of-control costs of living in
NYC, without a living wage. Shapiro and his Unity fraternity even
voted against a resolution to come up with a comprehensive, robust
collective bargaining plan to fix para pay in March of 2024.
Just
as egregious is that UFT second in command and the head of Unity
Caucus, LeRoy Barr, liked and shared the Shapiro post. LeRoy wants to look like the
good guy so he lets Shapiro be the hit man. The next time LeRoy claims
he represents the UFT, not Unity Caucus, LOL - Loudly.
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
The thing to know about Unity Caucus is that they don't like even tiny minorities of representation on elected positions in the union. They want the whole enchilada. And as the party in power they use every advantage to suppress critical and alternative voices.
Arthur has been writing about the Unity machine with a focus on Mulgrew as the head, but he fully understands that whoever comes after Mulgrew may have a different less aggrieved style but fundamentally exhibit the same pattern of control. They will stop at nothing to dominate, even personal attacks. In recent posts they focused on the para and the retiree election with attacks on Marianne Pizzitola and para oppo exec bd member Migda Rodriguez. Arthur took issue with both attacks but today I will focus on Migda and deal with the attack on Marianne another time.
Arthur writes:
There is no bottom for these self-serving bastards.... I know of at least two more Unity members
who merit my poison pen this
morning. I’m going to spare them because they are not important. They’re
just cogs in the Unity machine. Mulgrew is the head... When he goes, another will take his place... personal attacks for their own sake aren’t really necessary..... to
point out the hypocrisy of their stooges, most or all of whom are on
salary.... The Unity
machine has to be taken down.... Arthur Goldstein, Mulgrew's Unity Caucus Personally Attacks A Working UFT Paraprofessional Arthur Goldstein, former UFT executive board member and candidate
in the Retiree Advocate slate calls out the savage bullying of rank and
file members, especially women, by Mulgrew and Barr’s Unity caucus
patronage machine — causing some Unity members to question their
allegiance to their union leadership after a barrage of unfounded
attacks and disinformation.....Educators of NYC
I'm not going to spare anyone ... Ed Notes
Ed Notes reported on last year's special para election in which 5 paras had the nerve to run against the Unity machine. Two of them won. One is Migda Rodriguez. On April 15, 2023 I posted:
Which followed up on the April 12, 2023 piece:
In one of his final posts, James Eterno also reported on the election in this April 15, 2023 post where he quotes one of the candidates:
This is from Marie Para (Wausnock) showing Unity cheating at an official UFT event. The video is on Facebook.Spotlight on Truth: You can’t say you didn’t….cause ‘ya did!! Lets look at the video tape!
Let’s
pay attention to the rules of the UFT. Let’s be clear on a few
things….the UFT is our union, Unity is a caucus within the union. Just
as there other caucus’, such as MORE, ICE and SOLIDARITY. Unity has
been the controlling caucus within the union. Whenever there is a
function that the UFT pays for, NO caucus can campaign at these events.
If they did allow this, all candidates should be given the same space,
time, and expense of campaigning on the UFT’s dime…or should that be on
YOUR UNION DUES.
Even when Unity loses, they use their machine to attack and degrade the winners. If Retiree Advocate should actually win the chapter election on June 14, expect the attacks to begin in June 15. Unity would destroy the chapter if needed to take back control. In this year's para election, Unity changed a few rules, requiring at least 7 candidates to be a slate. Fix Para Pay found 9 and then Unity offered their chapter leader candidate a job and got him to quit the slate.
Unity Caucus, after over 6 decades of
control of the UFT, senses danger to their monarchic empire when even a few people stand up and oppose them. They react
like any threatened monarchy - attacks and repression of
democracy.
Let's focus on the para story.
After a barrage of unfounded
Unity Caucus attacks and disinformation, Arthur has focused on Mulgrew in his commentaries while also pointing to the Unity enabling machine that is so reminiscent of the Trump lemming crowd.
Arthur did a great explanatory piece on the attacks on a non-Unity para exec bd member who had beaten a Unity member in last year's special election.
It’s quite another to attack Migda
Rodriguez. Migda simply cannot make a living on a paraprofessional
salary. I’m sure I couldn’t either. So she has a second job to provide
for herself and her family. Thanks to Unity’s long-time failure to
negotiate a living wage for city teachers, I worked two jobs for decades, and I understand the strain of doing so.
Many
paras have to take a second job, the reason Migda could not
attend para exec bd meetings where most of the members are Unity and
have extra jobs at the union. Going back to Arthur who tells the full story:
Migda,
along with some friends, decided to help herself. She decided that
Unity was not making her economic survival a priority. A raise that does
not meet cost of living, like the ones in the most recent contract, is
not a raise at all. In fact, it’s a pay cut. And occasional bonuses do
not obscure the fact that UFT paraprofessionals need a raise, not a tip.
Migda and her friends ran for UFT office. Migda was elected
second vice chair by her fellow paraprofessionals. The last person to
hold that position, a Unity caucus member, was given a full-time union
job to perform his duties. After all, where on earth is someone working
full-time as a paraprofessional, let alone working two jobs, supposed to
find the time to help members? Unlike teachers, paraprofessionals are
programmed all day, with only a break for lunch.
Mulgrew’s Unity Patronage Cult runs the UFT. While the members chose
Migda, Mulgrew chooses only people loyal to him. So there was no job for
Migda. There was no office space. There was no time off. There was no
email list for Migda to contact those who chose her. In fact, Unity did
not even give Migda Rodriguez a stinking UFT email address.
Make
no mistake, just like they did to the non-Unity OT/PT leader, Melissa
Williams, they froze out Migda. They deliberately made it impossible to
do her job. Then, when she chose to continue to support her family
rather than attend meetings, they decided to humiliate her publicly.
I’ve
been to the Unity page. People with Unity jobs are saying Migda should
have stepped down if she couldn’t attend the meetings. In fact, when
Melissa Williams did just that, stepped down, they ridiculed her for doing so. She was useless, a phony, or whatever juvenile nonsense the stilted minds at the patronage mill could muster.
If you’re opposition, Unity will come after you no matter what you
do. They’ll do anything to protect their privileged positions. Unity has no consistency, no integrity, and say whatever they can muster
to suit the moment and protect their privileged status at the patronage
mill....
Since those posts even current and former Unity and union officials have been disturbed. I'm not allowed to post screen shots from the web page so I will paraphrase:
A former Unity/UFT official pointed out to a Bronx district rep who was attacking Migda that the UFT did not give her a job like they did to all previous 2nd vice presidents and would not even giver her an email to do the job and said it was unfair to attack her when she didn't show up at meetings where everyone else was being paid on the UFT dime.
On the Unity FB page, which I can post from, another 200K a year slug arrogantly replied that these jobs are not part of the election process and no one is entitled to a job - except Unity, of course. In case you didn't know, the Fix Para Pay Slate lost its chapter leader candidate after Unity bought him off with a job. Bill Woodruff is fine with that. Fact is these jobs ARE part of the election process and many people run with Unity for those jobs.
In the UFT there are plenty of jobs using our dues available - if you swear allegiance and promise to keep your mouth shut.
Here's one more back and forth with another high salaried Unity Bronx Dist Rep who says he is concerned about someone not attending meetings required for the job, again ignoring the fact that the Unity people get paid -- by the way like they do to attend DAs. He says she should apologize to the members who voted for her when in fact Unity should apologize for denying her voters the services she could have delivered if they treated her like they would a Unity person.
A Migda supporter asks whether high salaried staffers like him who are paid to "do the work" should be asking underpaid paras to apologize for prioritizing their 2nd jobs and therefore not partaking in unpaid work (unlike the Unity paras in the same position).
I will address the equally insane attacks on Marianne in a follow-up.
---
AfterBurn
Call me uncivil. When they go low, we go lower.
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