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UFT Tentative Agreement Online (Mostly) – Not as Rosy as Mulgrew’s Presentations

Published June 14, 2023 Contract 6 Comments
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This morning, I published a piece analyzing the tentative agreement based solely on the promotional materials put out by Michael Mulgrew. This afternoon, the MOA itself was posted, along with some appendices. At one point there was a message that appendices were still being added. It’s unclear if more is still to come.

I’ve taken a first read of the MOA, and appreciate that text that was added/subtracted from the previous agreement is clearly shown. And already, I see some problems – details that were not highlighted in the ‘yes vote’ literature we were subjected to yesterday (in my case, 3 times). I’ll focus on one glaring issue that is distinctly NOT highlighted in any of the promotional materials but appears clearly in the MOA itself.

Parent Engagement and Micromanagement: Revocation of Remote Privileges

Here is what Mulgrew presented:

Here is what he left out:

See the difference? And this language is odd. We already have mechanisms for when teachers allegedly don’t fulfill contractual responsibilities (counseling memos, letters in the file, 3020a hearings). The language here bypasses the usual system and goes straight to revocation of the right to work from home. To make matters worse, it’s unclear what standards will be used to make this decision. Can you imagine how different principals will define the word “satisfactory?” Might some definitions exceed what is possible in 55 minutes? In a school system as large as ours, we know the answer is yes. We can all imagine the administrative abuses of power and incidents of micromanagement that are going to occur over parent engagement in some schools. It is absolutely an issue that we have contractual language that principals can seemingly “revoke” our remote privileges seemingly at will.

This line clearly matters. It should have been in the UFT PowerPoint. It should have been in the presentation. It should have been in the contract at a glance. But, because it’s not something teachers will want to read, it’s left out. We get the rosy picture that makes us more likely to vote yes, just as we did with the misleading presentation in 2018. This is why we can’t vote based off of presentations – we need to read the full text.

A reminder that this is just one line of many. Make sure that you and your chapters read through the entire MOA and appendixes. Because, as this one example makes crystal clear, we CANNOT trust the neutrality/accuracy of the promotional materials.

Examining the 2023 UFT contract draft – a ‘tentative’ analysis

Published June 14, 2023 Contract 14 Comments
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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 wary 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, the workday, and remote work. Our supposed game of chicken, if it wasn’t actually just a yes-vote tactic all along, is now over. 37.5 days of tutoring is now out, and we have a reconfigured version of the pilot workday, which will need to be reapproved each calendar year (or default back to 37.5). In most (single-session) schools, this will look like 60 minutes of PD on Mondays (down from 80), 40 minutes of OPW (up from 35), and 55 minutes of parent engagement time (up from 40). However, while we were promised teacher autonomy and less micromanagement, I’m not sure this new plan delivers.

  • That PD is now 20 minutes shorter each week is a welcome surprise for many of us, including myself, but we need to pause around the provision that “[t]he DOE and the UFT Teacher Center will create a catalog of professional learning options aligned with DOE initiatives that will confer CTLE hours and other required PD credits, such as CEUs. These options may be used in PD time during the workday at the school’s discretion.” The word ‘may’ is far from ‘must,’ and we should expect that many schools will see absolutely ‘0’ CTLE credits conferred for any PDs at all.
  • Moreover, 15 of the 20 converted PD minutes go to parent outreach time, not self-directed OPW. Now, the parent outreach can now occur on our own time at home, and that’s a good thing. But, we should not take lightly that part of the remote PE will entail that “the employee will regularly record and submit documentation identifying the remote time and activities on a paper form unless the activity occurs on a school-approved digital system that tracks the time.” I expect that in some schools we will see a big shift to micromanagement of that time, something that a lot of hybrid workers have reported on time they work remotely.
  • There are pre-approved SBOs available on the pitch page, but the decision to force this vote to happen at the last possible second and make SBOs ‘conditional on ratification’ means a lot of chapters will be scrambling right now to put together a vote in time for the deadline.
  • 5 minutes of added OPW time is, to be frank, not much of a win, especially since that’s the only extra time that’s been granted to teachers to do things on their own time and at their own discretion. As a special education teacher, I’m particularly disappointed that I’ll only see a maximum of five extra minutes added to work on IEPs each week. On that note, it’s good that the DOE will issue “guidance that schools with professional-activity periods should, to the extent possible, prioritize assigning special education teachers to the following professional activity assignments: 1) performing student-assessment activities (including portfolios, IEPs, performance tests) and 2) common planning time.” But the language here sounds awfully tentative and easy to get around. We may still see schools where special education teachers are not given their much needed IEP time. In general, we need to be careful about words like “guidance,” “should,” and “extent possible,” especially when used in the same sentence. And I do worry that much of the new contract may be written in such a fashion.

Respect: In addition to time and money, respect was the big theme of our ‘fair contract’ campaign this year. There isn’t a dedicated section for that on the contract at a glance, but we can try to infer from the other things that are up there.

  • The improvement to bereavement time is welcome. I lost two grandparents this year and the memorial was outside of the previous timeframe I was allowed to take off that way. We need to be able to use that time more flexibly, and the new language is an improvement.
  • It’s a welcome improvement that two UFT members can now take 12 weeks of combined parental leave (up from 6). But, this does not change the extremely flawed cost structure of our parental leave program, which UFT members overpay into significantly. Moreover, we still don’t get 12 weeks of parental leave individually, whereas most NY workers do.
  • There are some improvements to the process/result when staff are injured in the line of duty.
  • Teachers now need to be given a reason if they are extended for probation, although I’m not convinced this will make a big difference. I’m sure there are a host of ready-available reasons the DOE will have. And this does nothing to change the onerous and broken tenure process – which leaves teachers without due process for far too long relative to other unionized municipal professions.
  • There is no language here on improvement to the evaluation process.
  • There is no language to reduce class sizes, which experts believe will remain unaffected by the new state law due to DOE non-compliance. There is also no language to reduce caseloads for related service providers.
  • Most oversight for issues like special education and assessments are going to come down to committees which may not have much teeth. The new school-based special education committees, for instance, will not have the express power to escalate issues through any dedicated process. While it’s good that meetings about compliance will be taking place, we need to ask whether committees without power will have much of an effect.

Therefore, in the final ‘tentative’ analysis, this potential contract, while possibly an improvement on that of 2018, fails to meet the 5 primary contract demands of United for Change. We can see that based purely on the materials the UFT has released with the intention of persuading us to vote yes. Imagine how much worse the deal will stack up once we see the fine print.

DA Votes yes to Send out Contract without a Copy: UFT Delegate Assembly – 6-13-2023

Published June 13, 2023 Contract , UFT 7 Comments
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Summary/ Analysis: Today, UFT leadership put delegates in a position where they had ‘no choice’ but to vote without seeing a tentative agreement. Otherwise, Mulgrew said, we wouldn’t be able to vote on a contract before September. The PowerPoint had a lot of things that could be good, but we’ve seen PowerPoints miss the fine print before. The DA voted to accept sending out the contract to members for ratification, and I understand why. But, make no mistake: this has put us in a dangerous moment. In 2018, healthcare givebacks were signed into the appendix of a contract (in the form of economic concessions) because of missed ‘fine print.’ It became harder to get a +30 for newer teachers, because fine print was not understood. The list goes on. What won’t we know before we vote this time? And when will the MOA even be on the website? I ended up being the only person allowed to speak against, though many other hands were up, and that paragraph is towards the bottom.

Mulgrew: Welcome to the final DA. You all do so much work. Appreciate the patience with constant changes. We understood going into this that we wanted to get a contract done by the end of the school year, to use the ability to do something significant – remote learning – but only way to do that was to get it done before September. Today is the last day that this decision could be made. If you don’t understand, we ratify our contracts in the schools. Majority of the membership, some exceptions in functionals who have it sent to their houses, who vote in schools. This is what the City was told. Timeline is real – not a tactic/pressure issue. If we wanna ratify, we have to ratify now. If we want the ballots back, they have to go to AAA – not the union. We were working on that  – at 4:00 or 5:00 I didn’t think we’d be having this conversation. I thought we’d be preparing for actions in September and preparing this summer. Twists and turns in negotiations. Didn’t expect phone call at 10:45 PM last night. We worked through the night and the next morning – finished the last piece at 11:00 AM this morning. That last thing that Chancellors Day is permanently remote. So now, exec board and contract committee have voted to send this out to the general membership. What we’re going to do today.

The MOA is done but it hasn’t been signed by the City or us. But as soon as it’s done, it will be made available to the membership. If you don’t believe me – you think I’m a liar, I don’t know what to tell you. We have more agreements than we have ever had in a contract. There’s stuff in here for every title. Almost all our titles have time to do virtual work. There are recognitions that you should have control of what you do with your time. A reconfiguration of the 155 minutes. I received some very interesting questions – if we do not have a work day agreement, there is an agreement that says every non-multi-session school goes to 37.5 minutes of small group instruction after school. That was something we did years – the reason the DOE came to us to come to a workday agreement, let’s just say – schools end up with 12 bus runs instead of 6. Do you understand what that causes for the school system? More than a billion a year. Technically the City can send out the calendar without us, but we tie this to the calendar. So when the DOE sent out the calendar on that Friday afternoon, we made the correct decision to inform you all that we’re going back to 37.5. And I informed the Mayor in person that night. It took them a little while – they thought it sounded nice, until they called the bus people. At the same time, we have a pattern that we’re not crazy about, so how do you get creative? Our members rightfully said to us that they wanted to stop being disrespected. And time. That’s it. So today, I want to lay this out.

LeRoy Barr brings out resolution for tonight to change the DA – 3 resolutions: resolution to send ratification vote to members, second for a summer contingency plan for endorsing candidates, and to extend the virtual DA resolution – the total agenda for today.

Rashad brown rises in support. Members wanna go away knowing things are OK.

Passes.

Mulgrew: look at the clock, and we might have to extend if that’s OK with you, our fault – we started late.

This here is the powerpoint – not going to get through all of it, half a phone book. Wanna be clear, there is not a single concession in it. 80% was done in committee. These are things, that individual titles, it is very important to them. This is really important work. Our goal was to get every title in front of the City. There was training/demands. That led to massive changes in our contract – all positive towards what we believe we need. Mostly about stop the disrespect. Also about doing some work virtually. If you’re a classroom teacher, it’s harder to do if you’re in person. It was very clear when I was in the committee, it was clear. Every single one of you got changes in your time.

As soon as it’s signed, it will be online and you can read the entire thing. I’m sure you will be fascinated by everything we were able to get for all the titles. Money is 3, 3, 3, 3.25, and 3.25 ( per year), so that’s above the other union. The other piece is the retention bonus piece. Ranges from 400 to 1,035 depending on the year. You will receive that as long as you work for DOE – FOREVER. It does not go away. This check will be the same for every title.

Alicea: Pensionable?

Mulgrew: No. It will not be pensionable. If we put pension costs in that, we don’t get the thousand dollars. The rest goes right where it needs to go. But this one was specific. If put in pension, that thousand dollar check would go down to 600.

With the increases, what we go to now is the teacher salary schedule. All of the teachers will now reach 100,000 by 8B after five years. And everyone who worked this year will get a retro. *Shows slide with some specifics for financials.

New pilot workday: 60 min PD on Mondays; 40 mins for OPW; 55 for PE. PE can be done from wherever you want. Right now, if you do a log, that’s fine. Parent engagement will also be added to C6 menu. Parent engagement time can be done when you want.

Other-school-based titles make own schedules, get time to complete administrative tasks, remote.

*Mulgrew realizes powerpoint hasn’t been sent out to people at home, so starts reading out loud on section about non-school-based titles who can now work up to 2 days remotely in some circumstances.

DOE wanted no-pre approved SBOs. Don’t know what that was about. We were like no, we’re not doing this. 60 means we have multiple options now, e.g. to put PD in the morning. For instance, if you start at 9:00, may want to do PD in morning. Also some multi-session versions pre approved for faculty conferences and grade/department meetings.

Parent Teacher Conferences – DOE wanted to leave it to principals for whether to be in person or remote. But we know it’s successful. We see 3x as many parents as we used to. So we’ve locked that down. Parent teacher conferences can take place in school if parent requests at mutual time.

Expanded professional activity menu.

Bereavement changes – can use at any point within 3 months if funeral scheduled later.

Parental Leave – if both parents are UFT members and you’re having a child, you both now get paid family leave.

DOE has agreed that we should have access to clean drinking water and air.

A lot of stuff in contract is when people are in difficult situations – e.g. Injury in the Line of Duty. Medical arbitration.

UFT center to help make CTLE-aligned options, which can be used in PD time during the workday at the school’s per session. We have to build this—most will be based off of new literacy programs—so that up two PD credits can confer CTLE credit.

DOE agrees we need a committee on over-assessment of children.

Now have to give a reason why probation extended. Can no longer give no clue to why. Opens up some of our legal options.

Biggest skillset missing is programming – some work on that.

H-Bank – we now have read only access, so we can help solve things for them.

All the paperwork standards have more rigor than we had before.

Creation of an electronic per session time form.

Due Process and investigations. Things that we asked for – if you have any doubts about my integrity, please.

I give this chancellor credit. There will be two virtual systems. Citywide system – classes will be jointly created. Can enter, after the school day, if get demand during we’ll do it though wouldn’t work. Could be in morning, evening, Saturday, Sunday. No teacher can be forced to do this work. A lot of good stuff here. We see this as a catch up possibility for students who might not graduate. Then there are other students who want to graduate early, so what’s the problem, let them graduate early. Equity portion – a lot of classes that we don’t have teachers doing. Problem is teacher often doesn’t have full schedule this way. All voluntary, posted. We’ll have full time teachers, hybrid teachers working 3, maybe you want to work 1-7. This all has to be worked out, but we’re trying to be as creative as possible. Starts with 25% of high schools next year, then phasing in other schools. We know with elementary it’s more of a challenge because you usually need an adult on the other side. All our work is protected, everything is there. This is very, very interesting. Always love doing something creative in a contract. If we get this right – there’s no major school district in the country doing this. If you’re district 79, you might have 18 sites. So how do you do math in 18 sites?

Student pathways – students do better when tying to their future.

PSAL: Increased number of sessions.

SPED: There will be specific meetings now where you must discuss the school’s compliance. Training session so that principals and teachers do that training together. SEISIS, we’ve been told 2 years from now there will be a new one, they will continue to work with us on this.

SPED professional activities: must prioritize student assessments and co-planning time.

Elementary Schools: Elementary teachers pee too! Same language for middle/high school now, now have same language on 3 in a row. Also, elementary day will end after kids are on the bus. We’re gonna have fun enforcing this one – it will blow minds.

We still have 20 pages to go through, but these are very specific things to titles themselves. There are no givebacks here.

I’ll say this to you today. We’ve had our disagreements with the mayor. But when he realized what we were trying to do, but this morning he was truly happy with the things we got to announce today. He’s happy about every one of our members getting a thousand dollar check. And the chancellor’s vision. So, going to do a question period, then we will do a vote.

Question Period:

George Geiss: Proud member of this negotiating committee. My first question a joke – how do I run to be a CL in a virtual school. For SBO configuration, is it still a 6:20 option?

Carl Cambria: Yes, there are some options that talk about other options, but that’s what you’d be voting for.

George Geiss: Joined negotiating committee – it didn’t make this. But you better bet, I’m voting yes, because no matter what you think – this is a very powerful contract, no matter what caucus you’re in.

Mulgrew: Just reminding everyone it’s the question period.

Zeke Plotkin: just wondering about logistics of SBOs.

Mulgrew: I shut down all SBOs and PROSE votes. If we were going to war, we weren’t going light. A lot of my members were like huh? What we’ll do is this: we will send out the ratification right away, printing right now. Then I will do an online to the chapter leaders. You can proceed with your PROSE and SBO votes, but it’s contingent on ratification of the contract. Don’t want to hold them and make you do in September.

Name missed: Wondering about virtual schooling, how will it be assigned?

Mulgrew: All of it will be done through posting. Schools themselves will have to submit a plan on what they want to do. No crazy stuff happening this year with virtual. We have to guard this program. Virtual learning was done during the pandemic. There was good and bad VL. Public will probably give us a shot on the good learning. We have to guard the integrity of the virtual learning program.

Name Missed: What if a teacher applies for a virtual learning program and it doesn’t work out because it doesn’t work? Do they still have old job?

Mulgrew: Still working that out…at least a year. But have to work out. Think it will be extremely popular.

Steve S (Lehman): Talking to some of my members, and after negotiating committee, was talking to some folks who were skeptical of presentation. We will we get to see MOA? Including appendixes? When?

Mulgrew: Yes…pauses on appendixes….yes….Then on time, says we are still working on some stuff that’s contingent. Right now, I’ve been told that the MOA is done. IT has been sent to the office of labor relations. They will read it, have 3 people reading simultaneously. If choose to, they will sign it, then they’ll send it back to us, and up on the web it goes. Assume that would be done in next 24 hours, but is still OLR.

Beth P: Question is about the calendar and on remote snow days.

Mulgrew: Officially in this contract, will not go into effect unless have calendar agreement. Have informed City about large issue with Jewish, Christian, and Muslim friends—so I think I’m telling you where we are going on this. In emergency shut down, we go to remote. Had 2 last week – not just snow days. This year, wasn’t a lot, but we didn’t expect to see so many days for next year. And remember, we may also have another day – Diwali – we support it.

Question missed.

Kate Konnors: You said MOA would be up in 24 hours?

Mulgrew: hold up – we’d like to have it up – if OLR does, then it will be up. Just got a nod from attorney dealing with them.

Kate Connors: You’re asking us to vote on it before we read it?

Heckling of Kate from UFT staffers.

Mulgrew: We vote to send to members. Last day we can do this. If people don’t want to have the choice because they don’t have an MOA, then vote no. But I’m so proud of this contract.

Kate: Have concerns from last contract – going to Medicare Advantage. Appendix B, do some research.

Mulgrew: will say what I said to someone else, it was all in there, know people like to misrepresent, but everything in MOA. If you feel uncomfortable, just tell them you voted no on their ability to vote on the MOA.

Vote to extend DA another 15 minutes.

Passes with 81%.

Alicea tries to amend but denied.

Carl Cambria (UFT Staffer): Know a lot of you were on the 500 member committee. Has members of that committee stand up – most stand. About a year ago, we started this – for a fair contract now. We have that fair contract, that fair tentative agreement right now. It’s beyond. Each and every committee. One missing piece to this – the word on the button bottom – NOW. We need to do this now. We owe it to our members to get them a fair contract now.

Rashad Brown (UFT Staffer): Michael, I don’t know how the UFT leadership pulls it off again. Thanks many. We see benefits. Number one thing is money? 1k  a year? Never heard of that.

Point of information: what’s the amendment?

Mulgrew: Can’t just yell out motion to amend. Anyone want to speak against?

Danny Rodriguez: Bronx DR (UFT staffer). Don’t normally speak, but feel compelled to say this – we are here because of the negotiating committee and all the actions we have done. We’ve had contract action teams working with our members. Important to share our work. Proud we were part of that. Show our members. Patient.Hope all yes.

Daniel Alicea: first point of order, typically motions we don’t motivate unless sending to next assembly. Clarify rules? We had a motion here, folks started speaking towards it. If there is a motion, there should be for and against. I would like motion to amend.

Mulgrew: there is nothing that says not necessarily for or against. Something we’ve adopted.

Barr: In terms of question about an amendment – that would be out of order, you’re giving leeway to take someone to speak against. We don’t have to acknowledge.

Nick Bacon: Sorry to even be in a position where I have to speak against this, but I’m on the negotiating committee, the executive board, and the DA and have not seen this MOA. We don’t even know when it will be on the website for our members to see. You don’t buy a house based on a PowerPoint the realtor showed you, or a used car based on the PowerPoint your used car salesman showed you. You look at the contract. There were issues with the last PowerPoint – not because anyone was trying to lie, but because it’s hard to see fine print in a PowerPoint. We need to see the fine print before we tell our members this is a deal worth voting yes on. *Around now, being heckled by UFT staffers* It’s OK, I’ve been being heckled all day, mostly by UFT staffers. We’ve also mostly heard from UFT staffers about why we should vote for this contract. They haven’t read the MOA either, and they also don’t have to live with the consequences. Working teachers – and other titles – will have to live with the consequences. We need to know what’s in this contract before we vote on it.

Name missed: will MOA be on the website before vote?

Aqeel Williams (UFT Staffer): Dues paying member (and staffer) – glad to see the stuff on elementary. Trust my leadership. Also as a member of this negotiating committee, we should be proud that we’re doing – and I trust my leadership that I don’t have to see the whole MOA right in front of me.

P. Johnson: Membership is highest governing body. Members will have a chance to vote later. Call to question.

Mulgrew: says can’t motivate and can’t call question.

Geoff Sorkin (UFT Staffer): Proud executive board member and director of the welfare fund and proud to call the question.

Unity members celebrate no debate, clapping.

Yeses: 1,287; nos 285 – online. (Miss room count). Mulgrew: Passes overwhelmingly.

Motion to extend. Yes, press 1;

Hybrid DA:

Name Missed: For this motion. If have to commute, can miss half the DA – worry about parking etc.

Name Missed: as someone coming from Staten Island, thank g-d. First time I could do DAs without having to sacrifice time with my children. Remember us poor forgotten Staten Islanders! Takes forever to get here.

Name missed: speaks for, great way to be a mother and part of this union.

J. Morris: I’m for – misdial.

M. Joyce: Call the question.

Passes.

Summer endorsement process also passes.

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