Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!
Pay disparities anger occupational and physical therapists
Williams
and her colleagues feel that they’re being paid less over time than
teachers despite their roles requiring similar education. At the top of
the pay scale, she and her colleagues make considerably less than
comparably educated teachers, she said. For example, by January a
therapist with 10 years of experience and a master’s degree would earn
$86,131, according to UFT documents, while a teacher with the same years
and degree would earn $103,594.
According to a survey completed
by Williams’ chapter, nearly three-quarters of therapists work second or
third jobs after school.
“To look around the table and see that those of us doing similar work
are getting paid differently isn’t fair,” she said. “I’m concerned not
only for my financial future and my son’s financial future. I’m also
concerned for the financial viability for people joining this career.”
Another
sticking point for the therapists was a last-minute addition during
contract negotiations of a ninth session to their working day, Williams
said. Therapists see two to three students per session. “We barely have
time to do eight sessions,” Williams said..... ......Chalkbeat article.
Thursday, July 13, 2023
Lots to cover today. I had lunch with chapter leader Melissa Williams yesterday to try to understand the details of why the chapter turned down the contract, as they did in 2018. Unity is not happy that she's the chapter leader and I'd bet they will try to return the chapter to Unity hands in next year's election. One way is to attack her and her supporters and blame them, not a lousy contract, for the NO vote, which was pretty substantial - see my recent article - OT/PT, nurses, audiologists vote NO. More info with full Chalkbeat article below.
The news for retirees - show up at city hall today -- numbers count
Rally today - 9/11
PARENTS & FAMILIES OF FIREFIGHTERS AND WTC VICTIMS CALL ON CITY
HALL TO STOP DISCRIMINATING AGAINST NYC SENIOR CITIZEN RETIREES!
WHAT: Rally/Press Conference at City Hall, NYC
WHEN: Thursday, July 13, 2023
TIME: 12:30 PM
WHY:
Rally against Mayor Eric Adams’ forcing NYC senior citizen retirees
into an unwanted and substandard “Medicare Advantage Program.”
911
Parents & Families of Firefighters and WTC Victims announces our
categorical opposition to Mayor Eric Adams’ efforts to remove
traditional Medicare, plus the NYC supplemental coverage, from 250,000
retired NYC public servants-against their wishes! This includes NYPD,
FDNY, EMS, and numerous other official NYC Agencies and Departments.
Many
of these uniformed and civilian retirees have devoted their entire
working lives to The City of New York! Many of these retirees lost their
own uniformed and civilian children and loved ones on 911! Why are our
rights being robbed from us upon retirement?
This
Mayor cannot be permitted to unilaterally revoke a 57-year precedent
that was guaranteed to all New York City’s Medicare eligible employees
upon retirement!
We
fully endorse the leader- ship of Ms. Marianne Pizzitola, President of
the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees. Her organization is
championing The fight to restore the rights of New York City senior
citizen employees to retain traditional Medicare and NYC supplementary
coverage. Stop this discrimination against NYC senior citizen retirees!
A
rally led by Ms. Pizzitola will be held by The New York City
Organization of Public Service Retirees on Thursday, July 13, 12:30PM,
at City Hall, NYC. All concerned citizens are urged to attend and speak
out for the rights of senior citizens in this City!
911
Parents and Families of Firefighters and WTC Victims asks every member
of the City Council to stand up and be counted and sign on to the bill
that will support our efforts for justice! You are either with us or
against us!
We
ask Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand as well as
every member of Congress who is supposed to represent the senior
citizens of New York, to stand with us in this effort for equal
treatment for NYC retirees!
Marianne Pizzitola
President
NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees
And
FDNY EMS Retirees Association
We still need to see a city council bill passed to protect us and there is a rally today for that purpose.We can expect a few working UFT members to be there in support.
We added a City Council rep - Eric Bottcher who was at Leonie's Skinny Award for Jamaal Bowman, along with Keith Powers, my city council rep in the city who has not signed on -- I called his office for a meeting and still waiting for a return call.
It is not just the city Medicare for retirees at risk -- but all of Medicare which is under assault from both parties -- remember, the UFT/Unity is aligned with the corp Dems who want to privatize. Thus, I also signed up for a July 25th Medicare rally in Washington at the White House.
If you are committed to going to Washington DC for the day, Tuesday, July 25th, please sign up to Amtrack there with us. NO CANCELLING! You must sign up by WEDNESDAY JULY 12th! Close of business.
We meet at Penn Station at 645 am and return at 10 pm that night.
We are also looking for a few people with Medicare Advantage horror stories to join us, if that is you, please send us an email.
REMEMBER, WE ARE GOING WITH BE A HERO FOUNDATION IN THIS JOINT EFFORT.
"Hospitals and insurance companies
have also bought out many independent physicians’ practices. Optum, an
arm of the publicly traded UnitedHealth Group, which also owns one of
the nation’s largest insurers, employs roughly 70,000 physicians.
Studies have shown that these types of concentrated ownership of doctors
in a given market are also associated with higher prices."
The trend is for total corp control of our healthcare and how pissed do we need to be that our own union is a handmaiden?
I
will be at the rally at City Hall today. But if we fall into
thinking that this is the definition of activism we are making a
mistake. The motto of Ed Notes for 25 years has been Educate, Organize,
Mobilize -- in that order. In order to do each step, the preceding step
is important.
Thus calling your city council on our issue
is helped by infusing the kind of info below. Costs are rising and we
are not at fault. Yet our own union falls into that propaganda mode.
Yesterday I saw what seemed like a Unity hack on FB defending the
non-pension aspect of the new contract because the city won't be able to
pay because we live longer, etc etc. I surmised that the plan to move
us to MedAdv may be their solution to cutting pensions -- death panels.
We
all need to equip ourselves with the ammunition even to convince our
own colleagues. My liberal friends often say we can't afford a single
payer system because they have been propagandized. The high costs are no
accident. And I have seen a whole batch of physicians retire this year.
One said I love my patients and hate my job.
We
need to share info that points to the real threat to
everyone's healthcare. Profit making companies only see the short time
view --- increase profits. They see Medicare and the healthcare system
as a bottomless pit.
We need laws to counter the ability of
private equity and hospitals to create monopolies - we ultimately pay. And how sad that we have to start with our union leadership and the members who only get their take.
Details have been short. Look at the charts below and the current math needs work. There are about 60K teachers and over 90k voted - the difference is the functionals. So if 75% voted yes that would be 45K yes and 15K NO? Check my math and I'd bet a lot of people who voted YES did so because they didn't believe in the NO option. For giggles, say another 5K might have voted NO if they had full info on the contract. My guess is that in schools where there were strong voices opposed, the school as a whole went NO. Where Unity had someone to sell the contract they probably won that school.
There's a lot of stuff we don't know yet. Did every school vote? I asked for that info at the count and didn't get an answer - I should have. Here is some data from the 2018 election. When (if) we get it from the UFT we can do some comparisons. You'll not a drop in YES votes -- and my math may be bad on the NO votes since only
NYC teachers get raises. Physical and occupational therapists still wait.
By Eliana Perozo
Jul 12, 2023, 8:43pm EDT
Starting salaries for New York City teachers will increase to $72,350
by 2026 under the United Teachers Federation’s newly ratified contract.
That’s 18.5% more than the current starting salary of $61,070.
But
while teachers and other members of their union approved the contract
this week, school-based occupational and physical therapists are holding
out for their own deal.
Because the therapists voted against the
contract, they will not receive pay increases, signing bonuses, or
other increased benefits. Instead, they will continue working under the
terms of the 2018 contract until their bargaining unit can reach a new
deal with the city.
UFT officials said they planned to discuss next steps with the chapter’s members.
The teachers’ five-year contract,
which is retroactive to 2022, includes 3% wage increases for the first
three years, followed by a 3.25% increase in the fourth year, and 3.5%
in the fifth year. In addition, teachers will get one-time signing
bonuses of $3,000 each and annual bonuses of $400 in 2024, $700 in 2025,
and $1,000 in 2026.
The union represents 115,000 full-time and
5,000 part-time education department employees, including
paraprofessionals, school secretaries, and social workers.
Three-quarters of them voted on the new contract, according to the
union.
Pay disparities anger occupational and physical therapists
Williams
and her colleagues feel that they’re being paid less over time than
teachers despite their roles requiring similar education. At the top of
the pay scale, she and her colleagues make considerably less than
comparably educated teachers, she said. For example, by January a
therapist with 10 years of experience and a master’s degree would earn
$86,131, according to UFT documents, while a teacher with the same years
and degree would earn $103,594.
According to a survey completed
by Williams’ chapter, nearly three-quarters of therapists work second or
third jobs after school.
“To look around the table and see that those of us doing similar work
are getting paid differently isn’t fair,” she said. “I’m concerned not
only for my financial future and my son’s financial future. I’m also
concerned for the financial viability for people joining this career.”
Another
sticking point for the therapists was a last-minute addition during
contract negotiations of a ninth session to their working day, Williams
said. Therapists see two to three students per session. “We barely have
time to do eight sessions,” Williams said.
Teachers also have contract concerns
Many
members of the Movement of Rank and File Educators, a social justice
caucus within UFT known as MORE, also voiced disappointment with the
contract.
“I think people voted yes because we’re in really dire
financial times, and they were afraid this administration, similar to
[former Mayor Michael] Bloomberg, would make us wait another nine years
to bargain again,” said Brooklyn middle school teacher and MORE member
Olivia Swisher.
With
nine days to vote, Swisher felt that the contract was rushed. UFT
required bargaining committee leaders to sign a non-disclosure agreement
barring them from discussing bargaining conversations, she said.
Under
the new contract, the maximum salary for teachers will rise to $151,271
by 2026. That means it will take teachers eight years to make over
$100,000, instead of the current 15 years.
The national average teacher salary for the 2022-23 school year was
$68,469 — a 2.6% increase from the previous year, according to the
National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union.
Adjusted for inflation, however, teachers, on average, earned $3,644
less than they did a decade ago, the national union said.
The UFT
deal also creates a virtual learning program. According to the
contract, schools interested in participating in the virtual program
must submit a proposal. A quarter of high schools will be allowed to
participate in the first year, phasing in all schools after four years.
Mayor Eric Adams and Chancellor David Banks said the goal is to offer evening and weekend classes to help students who cannot attend regular school hours because of full-time jobs.
Some teachers, however, expressed reservations.
“It’s
a de-professionalization of our work,” Swisher said. “We are divesting
from systems that have been shown to work, like teachers in schools, and
investing in something we already know doesn’t work, virtual learning.
It’s not helping our students, it’s hurting them.”
The contract is
retroactive to Sept. 14, 2022, and runs through Nov. 28, 2027, city
officials said. The wage increases follow a February agreement with District Council 37, which provided raises for other school employees such as cafeteria workers, parent coordinators, and crossing guards.
“The
new agreement addresses the major changes sought by the union’s
500-member negotiating team. The contract increases pay, increases
educators’ control over their workday, and decreases the noneducational,
irrelevant paperwork demands,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew wrote in a
statement.
Eliana Perozo is a reporting intern at Chalkbeat New York. You can reach her at eperozo@chalkbeat.org.
More from Marianne:
New York City Retirees Rally Outside City Hall for Intro 1099 by CM Barron
&
Celebrate the Court Granting an Injunction
New York, NY, July 13, 2023 —Last week the New York County Supreme Court issued a preliminary injunction stopping the City from forcing
a quarter-million elderly and disabled retirees off of their
longstanding Medicare insurance and onto an inferior type of insurance
called “Medicare Advantage.” This is temporary.
Councilman
Barron knew retirees needed protection as well, and introduced a bill,
Intro 1099, that would require the City to offer a Medigap plan – the
same kind of policy they have had for almost 60 years. The City by law,
is required to pay for health coverage to a specific level, and since
Medigap plans only cover 20% of bills, the cost is minimal to the City
and that cost is codified in statute.
Marianne Pizzitola,
President of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees,
states, “The Unions are sending emails to the Council telling them not
to sign Intro 1099, after threatening them with pulling back
endorsements and donations if they do. The Municipal Labor Committee
refuses to admit they misused the Health Insurance Stabilization Fund
that pays the premium for THEM. (it does not pay for Medicare Retirees’
health premiums). This is why they are selling Retirees off like cattle,
gaslighting everyone that they are giving us a better plan, when it is
inferior, solely to enrich themselves. They have lost their moral
compass and forever damaging the labor movement.”
The
Unions repeatedly tell the Council Intro 1099 is illegal and violates
their collective bargaining. Marianne further stated, “The Council
legislated Admin Code 12-126 after the Taylor and NYC Collective
Bargaining became law, and it was amended dozens of times by the
council. If it was illegal at any time, they never, in almost 60 years
challenged it in court. Pass Intro 1099, and let them take it to a
Judge. But if you want to hear the Municipal Labor Committee and Labor
Chair of the Tri-Partite Committee, Alan Klinger say the Intro is not
illegal by itself but would create ‘financial pressure’ on the City not
to give the active workers money if they have to pay for retirees, just
listen to our video.” “Stop the lies, protect retired labor, and tell
the unions to use the one power they have, collective bargaining, to
negotiate their way out of the hole THEY created,” she said. (see the
4:30 mark) https://youtu.be/TqIH7YZIdtA?t=270
And then abstains from voting to come out against Intro 1099 based on the misguided interpretation.
The
Retirees plan to Rally outside City Hall at 12:30 pm on Broadway by
Park Place, across from the Woolworth Bldg. CM Barron will be there,
and a few CM who recently signed onto the legislation.
Wednesday, June 21 -- summer solstice - the longest day- and I'm off to Times square for a yoga class. And don't forget to check in on the UFC HS Ex Bd crew on the No Vote zoom tonight at 7:30 -
And see some very cute NO vote videos on Tiktok: here,
here,
here,
and here.
Good Morning UFTers,
You are going to read lots of analysis on the contract from the VOTE NO crowd and I'm linking to resources below. Share these with your colleagues so at least they get the full view instead of just hearing from the Unity propaganda machine. My argument, as one who has voted NO for every contract since 1970, is just do it as a demonstration of unhappiness because even Unity (other than the hardest hacks) won't argue this is one of the greatest contracts ever. I will leave it for others to get into the contract nitty gritties. I urged a NO vote a year ago - VOTE NO on Whatever Contract Unity Negotiates/ Res...
I received some grief on twitter from a Unity apologist for calling for a NO vote a year before being able to read a contract. Hey, Unity is calling for a YES vote before giving people a chance to read the contract, so why not calling for a NO vote on principle alone?
I know unity leadership for 50 years. They have been incapable of delivering a decent contract since early 70s that I could vote YES. It's just not in their DNA to fight hard enough. That would take even the hint of a possible strike but they trash any talk of that as scare mongering. Just the class size issue alone plus grievance process, real protection against abusive administration, etc for non-monetary issues as we've seen an erosion of teacher autonomy and increasing micromanagement. So as long as unity is in power my vote would be NO on non-monetary stuff alone since I had a 2 income home without children, salary never my issue.
An overwhelming YES vote will send an awful message of "we will accept anything, so keep shitting on us." So I start with the idea that the contract will probably pass. But it 's a real difference if 40% vs 10% vote against. So go and vote NO and assume you will still get a few below inflation bucks anyway and get another shot in 4 years.
In fact, the greater the NO vote, the better the next contract.
But what if a miracle occurs like it did in 1995 when we rejected the contract and sent them back to the bargaining table? The biggest giveback in that contract was bumping the number of years to reach top pay from 20 to 25. Six months later they came back with 22 to top salary. So that NO vote has saved generations of teachers a lot of money by not accepting that 25 year max. Imagine retirement where you average your pension over 3 years with a 25 year top? No full pensions for a lot of people who took 55-25 option.
Another NO vote occurred in essence on the retiree health care plan, as the UFT leadership led by Mulgrew and Retired Teacher chapter leader Tom Murphy, tried to sell retirees a worn down model of the Emblem MedAdv plan in the spring of 2021 - according the Mulgrew, the greatest MedAdv plan in the world - and then it was in essence voted down by the court case in the fall of 2021, which led to Emblem dropping out and Mulgrew going to Aetna for what he's admitting and selling as a much new and improved MedAdv plan over what he tried to sell us originally.
So we have samples of forcing them back to the table and seeing a better deal.
Thus the essence of my argument comes down to:
VOTE NO even if you think the contract will pass and even if you think it is not terrible to put pressure on the union leadership and the city for the future and hope that the union does some strike prep for next time, at least to present a credible threat - but that is still wishful thinking as a strike threatens Unity jobs and even their precious teacher center jobs through the loss of dues checkoff. The biggest fear Unity has is going back to teach in the dreadful conditions they've allowed to occur in so many schools
And expect that if the NO vote actually wins out, you will end up with something better, even if a slight adjustment of making more money pensionable.
You might want to read the analysis of a math teacher at Stuyvesant HS who crunched the numbers:
Jeremy
Shahom, Mathematics Teacher at Stuyvesant High School breaks down the
newly proposed UFT contract. The math ain't mathing!
The other day I chronicled how Unity tried to shut down debate and harass even those who called for reading the MOU - and we heard how LeRoy Barr and Mulgrew openly lied to the DA when they insisted the MOU was up on the web and how Unity thugs almost physically attacked Nick Bacon for calling them out on it.
To show you how much more repressive Unity Caucus has become, the 1967 contract was debated for 4 hours at DA (I had just started teaching) and the 1995 contract had a long debate at the DA - I was there as a CL - and Pres. Sandy Feldman even allowed Bruce Markens, the only non-Unity elected District Rep (Yes, Virginia, we used to elect DRs), a long speech in opposition and they even provided the video of the debates to the schools. Many of us who were around then have come to see Sandy as being considerably better than her successors.
But despite all the evidence piling up to vote NO and despite the lame Unity arguments for YES - (we go to the back of the line, the best we can do in bad times, city money is going to dry up --It's been drying up since I joined the UFT in "67), you won't see money for a while, $bonuses, $bonuses, $bonuses (non-pensionable), don't worry about bad para pay -- just think of yourselves, etc.), their funniest argument was that the future estimate of social security inflation bonus (this year over 8%) will be 2.9% in 2024 --- so see, we got you .1 over next year's inflation even it that turns out to be true - it won't and watch Saudi Arabia jump gas prices just in time to try to make Biden lose to Trump.
Mulgrew on Brian Lehrer yesterday -- first question from retiree - let us vote on healthcare. 75% would say no. Mulgrew who me? MLC handles that. Brian could have pointed out that he has 35% of the MLC vote so why doesn't he vote the way retirees would tell him to?
The first call was a retiree asking why he doesn't let retirees vote on healthcare changes and he was like, Who Me? It's the MLC. To listen to Mulgrew, one could get the impression that he doesn't
control the MLC, that the MLC and the UFT are entirely two separate
entities. Brian either didn't know or care to challenge him on the fact that if he listened to UFT members he could have voted NO.
Here are some more sources.
NICK AT NAC
New Action Caucus has gone over thegood, bad, and middlingparts of the 2022-2027 tentative UFT agreement. Ultimately, we agreed that this is a contract members would be better off voting ‘no’ on.
Largely, our decision came down tosub-inflation wage ‘increases,’ including a disappointing new precedent of converting a percentage of our pay into unpensionable bonuses, as well big unanswered questions onhealthcare.But we also agreed that this contract draft is disappointing in other ways that could be corrected by going back to the negotiating table. It’s not just that we didn’t meet a single of the5 demandsreleased by New Action in collaboration with the rest of the United for Change coalition, not to mention thedemands of our larger caucus-specific list.It’s that we don’t see improvements even in places that we expected – such asspecial education, where we had implicit leverage but inexplicitly failed to make any major gains. It’s that one of our only workplace wins–the ability for teachers/paraprofessionals to work from home for parent engagement time–is conditionalon new micromanagement and the ability for principals to take that ‘privilege’ away at a moment’s notice, without due process (a troubling new precedent).
Multiple articles explaining why to vote no, including from
current executive board member NickBacon, current executive board member Ronnie
Almonte, and former executive board member Arthur
Goldstein.
A series of short explainer videos from MORE on Tiktok: here,
here,
here,
and here.
======
Excellent article by Wendell Potter for The Lever on the current (grim) status of health care
Inbox
Nick Bacon came under vicious heckling and attack Monday and Tuesday from the Unity Caucus slugs for daring to ask to read details on the contract aside from the Unity propaganda of selling a used car with a bad engine. When he emerged from the DA, a crowd of opposition gave him a standing ovation - OK -we were already standing. I gave him a few boos to remind him of the scum he just left. Unity is fast helping turn Nick, who was in Unity as recently as a year and a half ago, a folk hero.
And note -- they are hiding the health care givebacks - as usual - Norm.
There’s a tentative contractual agreement between the UFT and the DOE that will soon be sent out for ratification. Before I give my complete take on it, I’ll need to actually see it.
I can’t yet of course. Even though I’m on the much touted ‘500-member
negotiating committee,’ the executive board, and the delegate assembly,
neither I nor the other members of those bodies have been afforded a
copy. All we’ve seen are the contract at a glance and a PowerPoint,
and only the latter was ready in time to actually be read before those
aforementioned votes. Both documents have a purpose – they’re part of a
pitch to convince members that the contract would be a good deal if we
approved it. To that end, we should read them, but read them critically
and with more than a grain of salt. Because there’s no actual tentative
agreement yet to which we can compare the presentations, we must be
particularly weary about omissions. Indeed, the sales pitch in 2018 left out some serious givebacks on healthcare and salary. There’s precedent to be worried here.
Still, not everything is omitted from these presentations. Some of
the potential contractual changes are reported. So, salt in hand, let’s
look at some of what UFT leadership and staff have told us so far, and think about some possible ways that fine print could matter.
Money: Here is the pitch on money, and the new predicted salary schedules. Yes, as expected, it’s the same bad pattern as DC-37. That matters, because when adjusted for inflation, 3-ish percent annual increases solidify a pay cut. The
‘raises’ are below what workers on average are getting in the U.S. –
and most workers are not unionized. Indeed, our raises pale in
comparison to what was achieved by unions like UTLA, who used their strike-readiness to their advantage and got more than double the wage increases that we’re getting. If we look at the details of how we’ll get the economics of our pattern into our pocket should we accept this deal, we see some further annoyances.
There are ‘bonuses’ that call out as deal sweeteners, but which are
in actual truth carved out of the same pattern. In other words, that
money could just as easily have been a part of our raises. Instead, in
perpetuity, a portion of our income will be in the form of these
bonuses, and therefore will not be pensionable. Let’s be clear – that makes the so-called ‘bonuses’ a giveback.
We won’t get any of this money until September, so despite this
contract being thrown at us at the last possible minute so that we
‘won’t have to wait til after summer,’ we won’t see any money until
Fall, anyways.
Some raises are delayed. For instance, we don’t get the 3% raise for
2023-2024 until January of 2024, meaning we actually get less than a 3%
raise for next school year. That’s somewhat buried in fine print,
making the UFT’s take on the pattern look better than it actually is.
There is nothing mentioned about healthcare here. That’s big,
because the worst giveback in the last contract was our commitment to
finding hundreds of millions of dollars in healthcare savings. That ‘backroom deal’
has led us to Medicare Advantage for retirees (and future retirees) and
a mysterious in service plan for which RFPs sought 10% in savings. What
little we got in raises this year could easily be eaten up by new
member-facing healthcare costs of which we won’t be notified until after
this deal goes through.
There is nothing on joint lobbying for Tier 6
pension reform. Tier 6ers like myself will still be stuck contributing
large percentages of our salary for life, despite getting much fewer
benefits than our peers in Tier 4 and below.
Time: Here is the pitch on time, -- continue reading -
There was a closed to non Ex Bd people meeting last night where there was not contract. The contract committee met at 4. Now there is a contract.
What changed during the night? Probably nothing.
The Passover last 2 days are restored and a day off the day after Easter from reports and some deal on remote learning. 5 years, includes last year. Raises are 3, 3, 3.25, 3.25. A 1k per year bonus.
UFT called an ex bd meeting for 3PM - since so much of the board are UFT staffers, there should be no problem in getting a quorum. DA is to follow. Contract committee meets at 2.
This just popped up with more details:
I'm going to try to meet up with some UFC folks to hand out a leaflet. I'm also going to be pushing the vote on health care petitions. See ya later. I will update this post tonight.
If Mulgrew is serious about class size implementation and
enforcement, he’d support a class size guarantee in our next contract.
The United For Change coalition is calling for one as part of their BIG 5
contract demands. -- Educators of NYC
Sunday, May 21, 2023
United for Change (UFC) is pointing to 5 big must haves in the upcoming contract: Fair pay, Healthcare, Class size, Working conditions, and a host of other issues.
The UFT leadership is anxious to wrap up the contract by hook or crook before the end of the school year - so they can focus on screwing retirees on healthcare when their move to Aetna takes effect on Sept. 1.
But rest assured, changes are coming to working teachers on healthcare AFTER they vote on the contract. Unity is selling the idea we can't negotiate on healthcare but Mulgrew can through the MLC. The UFT constitution calls for a vote on all contracts but Unity has been violating this constantly.
There is another big rally on healthcare at city hall this Wednesday at noon. I will be there.
That is why we need to keep circulating our petition calling for a vote on healthcare.
I will have a follow-up piece on the gaslighting from the faux 500 Unity Caucus dominated negotiating committees (bet on their voting to ratify even if there's dog shit on the contract) and the upcoming "let's call an emergency DA, give people 10 minutes to read the contract and vote, then a big push to threaten the rank and file with dire consequences if they vote no" campaign.
We have already seen Unity attacks and scare tactics about a NO vote. Remember the NO vote in the 1995 contract which originally raised max years from 20 to 25 years, the main reason people voted it down? Sandra Feldman said we must be smoking something if we think we will get something better. Yet we did -- knocked down the max to 22 years, still a loss and a giveback but not as much. Even in the 1975 strike which Shanker lost for us, he still claimed that by striking instead of losing 15k jobs we only lost 13k. Wowser! The OT/PT unit turned down the last UFT contract and won some improvement in the follow-up. So there is a history of winning a better deal by turning down the first one.
In 2005 ICE and TJC (New Action was then aligned with Unity) led a NO vote and almost pulled it off with 40%. That contract still haunts us today as it killed a lot of seniority protections and opened the doors for Bloomberg to closed schools and created the ATR situation with no guaranteed regular jobs. The rank and file were aware and rose up to a great extent but just not enough. If they could have re-voted two years late that contract would have lost.
Now for the last 50-something years until I retired and could not vote, I always voted NO because there was no improvement in class size. The union would not even negotiate it. But the UFT claimed the big lobbying "victory" on a recent law on class size and I was yelling at my colleagues on the negotiating committee to demand class size be included because the contract protects us against fudging with the law and even reversals when there is a budget crunch.
So lo and behold I wasn't surprised to see this from our esteemed mis-leader:
"Meeting
the new class size standards is going to require a real plan -- and so
far, the DOE hasn't managed to create one. This document is missing a
strategy for
implementation and a targeted proposal for where and when new seats
should be built. The state passed the small class size law and increased
funding to New York City public schools to pay for it. We will work
with the state to make sure the New York City Department
of Education fulfills its obligations and complies with this law" -
Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers
Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters eviscerated the Adams/Banks administration, which opposed the class size law and is working actively to gut it.
On Friday, DOE posted what is purported to be their draft five- year
class size reduction plan, in accordance with the new state law. As I
was quoted in the Daily News, “It’s a big nothing burger. There is no plan. They’re hoping
just to coast on enrollment decline until it’s too late to do anything
real.”
There is nothing in the plan about providing more space
or staffing to lower class size, or capping enrollment at very
overcrowded schools. There is nothing about creating space by using
more creative strategies, e.g. by possibly moving more PreK seats out of
elementary schools to CBOs which have thousands of empty seats. There
is nothing at all about how the benchmarks will be achieved in the out
years, especially given how DOE intends to continue cutting school
budgets and has proposed to slash the capital plan by $2.3 billion and
22,000 seats. In fact, there is not a single mention in the proposed
Feb. amendment to the capital plan, released six months after the
Governor signed the class size bill into law, that even mentions the
mandate to lower class size.
I will keep saying this - Class size has not been lowered in the contract for over 50 years -- codify the state law.
Now the UFT is calling for rallies this week on Thursday and UFC is supporting these rallies even though some of us see them as staged to give the impression that they can influence the contract -- like Adams will be influenced. OK. I'll go along. Some cynics think there is already an agreement and the UFT is staging events and holding off to squeeze the issue into the final two weeks of June to try to circumvent a No vote campaign. I'm shocked, just shocked -- (Yes I watched Casablanca again last night for the 100th time.).
The United for Change coalition (New Action, Retiree Advocate, MORE, Solidarity, ICE, EONYC) began meeting again with the pressure of the new contract and has produced a fabulous leaflet which we handed out at the DA last Wednesday.
While the UFT leaders "sell" the 3% pattern --- I even heard at a recent ex bd meeting the chief negotiator say we need to keep fighting for that pattern since we haven't attained it yet. As a social security recipient I'm getting 8%. It pays to be old. Did you notice the wins of other teacher unions? How about Oakland? Sam Seder interviewsVilma Serrano of the Oakland Education Association (OEA). The contract includes a historic raise for all full-time teachers and stipends for specialty educators and staff.
Daniel Alicea of Educators of NYC has been the architect of the campaign, showing his many talents.
And HS Ex Bd member Nick Bacon has been on the case. Let me point out that two years ago Nick was in Unity and Daniel was looking to work with Unity (both voted for Unity in 2019). These are not the usual oppo suspects (like me). It says something about the waning of internal power and influence of Unity. Daniel and Nick make a dynamic duo.
UFT: Let’s Fight for the Contract We Deserve
With the first tentative agreement likely to be presented within the next few weeks, every last action matters. Reposted from the New Action blog at https://newaction.org
On Wednesday, May 24th, our union will hold what islikely to bethe UFT’s final organizing action for the 2023 contract. Members will assemble at five sites (one in each borough) to rally for a fair agreement. I am hopeful that attendance will be good – not just by staffers, but by regular rank-and-file teachers, paras, and related professionals. And yes, I plan to attend, and have encouraged members of my chapter to attend. I encourage you to attend too.
Sure, I have some reservations about whether the specifics of this event are good enough to get us the contract we deserve. I think it’s a mistake that our union’s leadership is so committed tokeeping working teachers from having the right to strike. I think that their over-reliance on bureaucratic ‘Taylor Law’ tactics underminesthe potency of our organizing. And, I worry that if UFT leadership is relying on the threat ofPERBrather than the culmination of good organizing (i.e. the viable ‘strike’ threat), the City has little reason to react to the limited organizing it does see.
But strike threat or not, the more of us that show up to contract actions, the more of a reason the City has to listen to us. So, I’m showing up. I’m showing up, because, like it or not, this is the official organizing we have. It’s what we’ve put our entire union’s dues, staff efforts, and volunteer work into producing.
Here is a copy and paste for those wanting to share with their staffs.
OUR BIG 5 UFT CONTRACT DEMANDS – OR WE MUST VOTE ‘NO’! We need a truly fair contract that we, our families and school communities can live and thrive on. Anything less - means we must vote ‘NO”! Take the BIG 5 pledge: http://big5.unitedforchange.vote
DEMANDS WHY? 1 FAIR PAY WITH RAISES WE DESERVE AND PAY PARITY - We demand raises for all UFT members that match or outpace the skyrocketing cost of living in the NYC area. Paraprofessionals should be paid a living wage. Occupational therapists and physical therapists, with entry level masters or doctoral requirements, should have pay parity with other educator titles. We should be close to top pay much earlier in our careers. We live in one of the most expensive cities in the world and inflation has hit us hard here. With numbers at 6% and cost of living at 9%, none of us can afford 3 or 3.5% raises. Some of our titles are being hit particularly hard. Paraprofessionals, for instance, form the backbone of our schools. They have some of the most physically demanding jobs, but are not paid a living wage. They deserve pay that reflects the reality of their hard work. There are also some titles that make less than UFT-represented positions with comparable labor/education requirements. Occupational therapists’ and physical therapists’ salaries top out at $81K while other titles with similar degree requirements top out near $120K. They deserve to be fairly compensated for their work. We all do!
2 PREMIUM-FREE, QUALITY HEALTHCARE - We demand that our choice and quality of existing healthcare plans be expanded and improved - not diminished or replaced with inferior options. If significant changes are proposed, they must be fully disclosed to us and put to a vote by members. Voting on such collective bargaining items is our right. (See healthcare referendum petition: http://hcpetition.educators.nyc) Our healthcare, and the healthcare for our families, should not be leveraged in salary negotiations. Healthcare is a mandatory subject of collective bargaining that to our detriment has been greatly diminished, especially in the last 2 contracts - 2014 & 2018. In 2018, the City and Mulgrew agreed to “cost savings" of $600 million dollars every year, in perpetuity. Since then, retirees have been forced into an inferior privatized Medicare Advantage plan. In-service members have seen increases in co-pays, dental, eye and mental health care deteriorate, and our entire plans are about to be changed. This was done without member consent. Changes were not fully disclosed at the time of contract votes. Let us have informed votes on significant changes.
3 SMALLER CLASS SIZE GUARANTEE - We demand that new NYS class size caps for grades K-12 be contractually guaranteed. We need enforceable mechanisms to ensure that the City follows the new law. The newly passed state law that sets lower class size caps must be fully implemented by 2028. However, the City is already balking at implementing the law and not fully funding schools or capital building investments to this end. Also, there are at least four existing loopholes in the law that will result in the lack of enforcement of the new caps. Our existing contractual class size caps are over 50 years old. We have a golden opportunity to codify the new law contractually. Putting the new class size limits into our contract adds needed teeth to a law that otherwise might go unenforced. Give us the ability to grieve oversized classes, so that our students get the small class sizes they deserve.
4 REAL TEACHER AUTONOMY, ALONG WITH REDUCED CASELOADS We demand an end to micromanaged professional periods and unproductive PDs. Teachers are the best judge of how to use our non-teaching time. Let us decide how to use it. The caseloads of IEP teachers, related service and guidance counselors must be contractually capped. Day after day, teachers are pulled to work meaningless C6 assignments that have nothing to do with their instruction. What could be an extra period to plan, assess, and collaborate, becomes yet another moment of meetings and paperwork. Every Monday, this is compounded in long ‘professional development’ periods that take over an hour of our time for meetings no one needs. As a result, teachers end up doing much of their work at home, which eats into their personal and family lives. The same can be said for IEP teachers, counselors, and related service providers, whose uncapped caseloads force them to bring their work home. Give us our time back. Cap caseloads and eliminate unnecessary meetings/C6 assignments.
5 IMPROVEMENTS TO TENURE, EVALUATIONS, PAID FAMILY LEAVE AND TIER 6 PENSIONS - Tenure and pensions are under attack. Evaluations are out of control. Paid family leave is insufficient. The City must agree contractually to lobby the State for reforms and changes. We’ve made agreements like this in the past, and they’ve worked. It’s due time we do so again. The Danielson rubric has been weaponized against us, instead of being supportive. Tenure is being denied for 8 or 9 years, leaving new teachers without due process and forcing them to leave the system. Under Tier 6, teachers will need to be teaching nearly 40 years to retire! We should have 25/55 offered to this tier. Paid family leave for most New Yorkers is 12 weeks. Educators deserve the same. Union leadership has chosen to tell us a half truth when it comes to these issues. We’ve been told that we can’t negotiate these issues because they are linked to state laws and other regulations. Nonetheless, they fail to tell us that we can, indeed, get the City to commit to lobbying the state to make or approve needed changes. In some cases, the City itself can make the changes. We’ve successfully done so in previous contracts.
Watch the interview Sam did with Vilma Serrano, the Oakland Teacher.
