Are they Fixing Tier 6? And other Questions – UFT Delegate Assembly Report, 1/17/2024

Summary/Analysis:

• UFT leadership gave two presentations today, one on the state legislative priorities, and one on Tier 6. In both cases, we were told what was going to happen, rather than involved in setting up our priorities and strategies. This is one problem with a Delegate Assembly envisioned as a report, rather than as a place to make decisions together. In case of the legislative priorities, I was disheartened to see we weren’t doing more on Mayoral Control, which Hochul has just announced she plans to re-extend. On Tier 6, I was confused to see Kazansky announce that our first priority should be retirement age. While I agree that a critical goal is allowing us to retire at 55 after 30 years of service, and with fewer early retirement penalties, the biggest issue affecting Tier 6 members as we speak is high contribution rates that don’t go away for our entire career. If this is really going to be a ‘marathon’ that won’t be fixed for decades, it seems to me that the most critical thing to address first is how much Tier 6 members are overpaying. New Action has its own Tier 6 presentation coming up, which is far more detailed. We are demoing with a small group tomorrow and should have the full product ready in no time. I’ll add that, while I remain unconvinced that UFT leadership is actually doing anything meaningful about fixing Tier 6, the presentations do seem to be assuring UFT members that the pensions will be fixed eventually, which seems to be doing the trick temporarily of keeping some members from leaving the profession over pension/retirement concerns. Let’s hope we aren’t being sold false promises.
• New Action wasn’t called in the question period. I was going to ask a question they punted during executive board last week about PSC’s email explaining some of the healthcare givebacks we’re likely to have that Mulgrew didn’t explain in his healthcare presentation. Anyways, Mulgrew didn’t call on me or the other NAC people raising their hands. Oh well.
• Apparently UFT is in the business of environmental justice. That’s why our dues are going to a congestion pricing lawsuit that our membership seems to disagree with. While I am also against congestion pricing, I didn’t buy Mulgrew’s argument for why we are doing the lawsuit. In fact, he even seemed to admit at the end that environmental justice was more a legal strategy than our honest reason for framing the lawsuit that way. No, the lawsuit is more likely to be funded by our dues to support UFT staffers driving into 52 Broadway, and maybe for other political reasons as well.
• We heard two resolutions today. One, which came from Staten Island, sought to end early voting in schools. One, which was passed out by MORE, sought yet another attempt to get a UFT endorsement for a ceasefire. Both resolutions were presented in interesting and arguably similar ways. Mulgrew intentionally called on the Staten Island person raising the ‘stop early voting resolution,’ telling us even before he spoke that the speaker had a great resolution. Because the resolution was listed for this month’s agenda, there was no debate in that period, and so it got onto this month’s agenda. Then, Mulgrew called on the person sitting next to the original speaker, snubbing dozens of people with resos around the room, so that she could motion to make this item first on this week’s agenda. When we heard the resolution, someone immediately got up to call the question before anyone could speak against, with Mulgrew laughing that it would be a bad move to vote against closing debate since we were over time. While I’m not taking a stand on early voting in schools, I do know that many of the people who support ending it come from conservative circles and ultimately want to see early voting ended, period. While there may be plenty of places to do early voting outside of schools in some neighborhoods, in parts of the Bronx and Upper Manhattan, among other places, they’re the only places that work. Not allowing that argument to be heard seems like hearing this resolution in bad faith.
• A ceasefire resolution, supported by MORE, came next. After a long and meandering speech, Mulgrew surprised many when he allowed the motion to be heard despite a Unity delegate’s point of order that the resolved had already been voted down (as an amendment) at a previous DA. Indeed, it took up most of that DA’s motion period and was incredibly divisive to members on different sides of the issue. Perhaps more surprisingly, Mulgrew, put his thumb on the scale again, noting that ‘no one could support what’s going on now,’ implying that he wanted voters to vote yes to debating the resolution. Like the ‘early voting’ resolution, this motion was put forward for ‘this month’s agenda (i.e. 2/3s vote needed after a brief summation with no debate). Moreover, this one was heard with even fewer people having copies of the resolution (I had to share with Ed) or time to read them, because it was passed out at the last minute and only to a fraction of members who were in-person (no one over the phone) . Interestingly, the person who read the resolution read so selectively that most people voting had no idea what they were voting on. The only parts of the resolution that were read were the parts that ‘all sides’ were most likely to agree with, an effect which was amplified by Mulgrew’s thumb on the scale. The motivator left out some of the language that I’m almost certain many UFT members would disagree with, and which I’m frankly surprised Mulgrew implicitly and perhaps unwittingly appeared to support, such as: “whereas, the current attacks are the culmination of Israel’s siege on Gaza since 2007,” along with conflations of Israeli hostages and Palestinian ‘political prisoners,’ as well as mischaracterizations of Randi Weingarten’s recent support for a ceasefire, which was selectively quoted in this resolution to appear one-sided despite actually being a highly conditional proposal that was predicated on hostage release. In the end, even with the limited, somewhat more even-handed language that people heard, only 51% voted in favor of putting the motion on this month’s agenda. That number might sound large, but it was less than the two thirds needed to even have a debate. If actually debated, I suspect the resolution would have failed outright. Too much of the language that had been hidden from view would have caused members to speak out against, leading to probably another divisive debate but not a call for a ceasefire. Whatever your views on the situation in Israel and Gaza (NAC has not taken a position because we view it as counterproductive to our organizing between members with many different takes on the issues), clearly people need to fully know what they’re voting on before they are asked to vote.

Informal Minutes

Mulgrew: Overview of the legislative agenda for Albany. We want everybody understand all the different aspects are working on up in Albany. It’s not just about funding. We have the Governor’s initial budget proposal came out yesterday. The mayor amended the city budget yesterday.

Thanks CLS for 80% filing of consultation notes online.

Bulletin boards are still an issue especially in elementary boards.

National:

Clearly the presidential race has started.  Iowa has kicked it off as usual. And away we go. That’s all I want to say about that. School districts in FL now banning the dictionary because they define the word sex and they’re afraid they’re gonna get charged and arrested. That is not a joke. Think they’re making a point of how ridiculous whole thing is down there.

State: Gov budget: beginning of budget process. Gov. puts out proposed budget, then the houses each but out their proposed budgets, then lobbying and negotiating process and at the end, hope by April 1, all come together and have a budget. From there the City budget.

Increase of state aid to NYC by 2.6%, good starting point and not enough. Foundation aid I still fully funded, but there’s a new formula, which we don’t necessarily like. Already taking apart.

No change in charter cap or per pupil increase. But in NYC every kid has a dollar amount tie dto them, and charter students get a facility funding per child. But also in NYC we have to provide a space for the charter, either for paying the rent or collocating. So there’s a double dipping issue. The amount of money is large and we don’t believe it’s rights.

State now doing science of reading. 10 million bucks to train 22,000 teachers. We will be a part of that.

Mental Health increases: Happy for Gov. putting $45 million additional million dollars in for youth mental health, including school based services, and PNP accounts like that. Bad news is most of that money goes to DOE, meaning few kids will ever get those services. Will disappear in the budget. We will fight for line items to hold funding to the allocations.

State putting additional to 2.4 billion dollars to asylum seekers. They’re putting that in even though at this point they put 1.9 billion in last year and right now there is still 1.5 9 billion sitting there because that’s all the city has basically filed paperwork to get money back. So I think that’s more of a game that’s going on there.

Gov announced she’s removing the hold harmless provision in place for 4 years to receive per pupil allotment from before covid. Gonna be ugliness there, especially with people mentioning funding for asylum seekers.  But sooner or later we have to right size things for what is the best practice is really what we’re always trying to advocate for.

City:

We’re in court right now fighting budget cuts and saying that the mayor is supplanting too much education funding out of our budget and taking it away from kids. That’s a good thing.

We are fighting for the class size law to make sure it becomes real and we’ll be doing a lot of work in Albany this year on that telling people what the city is trying to do by sabotaging

the law. Right. So now we have budget cuts.

Class size. We were taking off a massive fixed year six campaign. Big deal, right everybody knows that we are the first union in the state to officially be over 50% of our members are now in tier six. And then the other one is we just filed a lawsuit on congestion pricing. I’ll get into that a little bit because I want people understand that this is something I’ve been asking in this body before a couple of months and I’ve been  answering the questions about what we were doing. And now we want to explain to everyone what we’re doing and why we’re doing it

Mayor trying to look like he’s doing the right thing on budget cuts. But shouldn’t even be discussing. Put back in 10 million for community schools, but still cutting costs elsewhere. Political games, easy numbers – lowered estimate by asylum inflation. He only filed for about 300 million for an 18 month period, not billions. Plus big surplus – paying billions into future debt service. New highs in terms of reserves.

Legislative agenda: Mostly follows this powerpoint, I’ll just link it (may add other notes later). https://image.uftmail.org/lib/fe3915707564067f7c1478/m/1/93cd3328-8f32-42b9-9b1f-350b4d01697a.pdf?j=1204126&sfmc_sub=33050769&l=222_HTML&u=23429605&mid=100022908&jb=7

Tier 6 presentation (Kazanksky): Mostly follows this powerpoint. I’ll just link it for now (may add notes later) https://image.uftmail.org/lib/fe3915707564067f7c1478/m/1/fc426774-55d9-4bb0-85a9-68708399b054.pdf?j=1204126&sfmc_sub=33050769&l=222_HTML&u=23429604&mid=100022908&jb=7

A few other points from Mulgrew:

Asylum seekers moved to schools for a day, real possibility of flooding, had to move. CUNY would have been better, but don’t have the same relationship.

Thanks all volunteers for special election in recent weeks. Toxic politics in USA.

Congestion pricing: UFT shouldn’t be destroying the environment? It’s not about that – it’s about environmental justice. Congestion was sold as a common good, less pollution and congestion. But we were shocked by the 15 dollar toll. Members were concerned. Tried for carveout, but legislature has MTA raising a billion dollars a year which is why the toll is so high. Part of what concerns us is that there are two types of review – environmental assessment and environmental impact statement, EIS much deeper. EA is what they did to say air quality was fine downtown after 9/11. MTA determined wasn’t a significant impact even before they did the toll. Many criticisms because big impacts in Bronx and Staten Island. They’re still charging school busses! Will cost $4k to members after tax dollars out of your pocket so that midtown and downtown can have a better quality of life. That’s why we filed lawsuit, not just about members in zone – worried about everyone. South Bronx has worst health and has one of the biggest impacts. We want a real EIS done. Some filing, lots of different info.

Was accused because I’m an Staten Islander, but now. We know an environmental injustice has been done. Most other lawsuits were over unfairness of economics, fact is not a strong legal argument if they’re screwing everyone, but environment is another issue – why we did it this way. Fear attaches to the lawsuit (retailiation). We sued everyone!

Ends at 5:22

Sill announcements missed – will fill in later if another person got them.                                                                                                                                        

Question Period:

Author of a resolution on SPED referrals: notes a substitution is circulating that she disagrees with and thinks it’s out of order and disrespectful.

UFT staffer: not out of order.

Name Missed: At what point is data collection excessive. Lists several.

Mulgrew: Do an operational complaint.

Name Missed: How do we get rid of plausible deniability for administrative tricks?

Mulgrew: will reach out to you.

Julia (OT/PT delegate): about 9^th session pay. Waiting for an opportunity to actually utilize that option?

Mulgrew: think they’d want it – gift to us. Asked for it in this contract, not sure why not offering.

Rich Mantell: Seems to be payroll related.

Mulgrew: will bring up in consultation.

Martina Meijer: Almost working a second job to keep a student from losing housing. What is the union doing about the 60 day rule?

Mulgrew: Working with nonprofits. City line isn’t good, using kids as political pawns. Don’t have standing. Luckily, most asylum seekers have found their own housing – story not usually told.

Motion Period

Mulgrew calls on someone in the back and says everyone should applause what he’s about to do.

Name missed (SI Tech HS CL): Motion to end early voting in public schools. Also wants to put on this month’s agenda but ruled out of order.

471-238; 121-48 (67% – just makes it).

Donna Coppola, SI HS DR (directly next to the last person): Motion to make number one on agenda.

Approved by 70%.

Name missed (but MORE delegates pass out the resolution, which was not on the table): The AFT president asked for a ceasefire. Reads selectively from resolution. President Randi Weingarten in calling for a ceasefire to the Israeli Hamas war. resolution in support of an immediate ceasefire in the Israeli Palestine war, WHEREAS over 20,000 Palestinians and over 1000 Israelis had been killed in the Israeli Palestine conflict since October 7 2023. And hundreds of Israelis are currently being held as hostages. And 1000s of Palestinians as political prisoners. And WHEREAS over 7000 700,000 children have been killed and over 200 guards and teachers have been killed. WHEREAS Randi Weingarten AFP President stated on January 8 2024, it is well past time for a ceasefire agreement, an end to the war, robust humanitarian aid must get to the people of Gaza. Be it RESOLVED the US to publicly call for a permanent ceasefire now, not simply a change in tactics, and a release of all political prisoners, both Palestinian and Israeli, and be it further RESOLVED. That the UFT call for an end to the siege of Gaza and lobby for immediate medical and humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza.

Point of order raised that this was already debated, that UFT voted no in a previous DA in form of amendment.

Mulgrew: Ceasefire was debated and shot down, so I have to make a ruling, understand point of order, but no one can say they’re in support of what’s going on now. But also don’t want to use things to divide this union – majority of people who spoke said we cannot allow things that will divide us. Stuck, don’t want things to divide us. Stuck, but won’t deny resolution because no one can support what is going on now.

357-334 online and 80-85 in room; so 51% – not put on agenda.

Motion period then extended, after request from Staten Island Borough Rep.

Motion is heard on ending early voting in schools – claims of safety issues, restrooms used by students, cafeteria meals not able to be served. Question then called before anyone can debate against it, and when motion is called to end debate without anyone speaking against, Mulgrew says press no at your own peril. It passes by about ¾.

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