New Action – UFT

At the 3-27-23 executive board meeting, we heard from two working UFT mothers – Ibeth Mejia and Luli Rodriguez, who sought to put some teeth into a mostly symbolic resolution written by members of Unity Caucus. That resolution was about recognizing disproportionate maternal mortality rates. Ibeth and Luli’s amendment would have asked the UFT to do something to actually help reduce maternal mortality for women in our own union by fighting for living wages and keeping healthcare viable/affordable, among other things.

Immediately, Luli and Ibeth were attacked for (a) being political; (b) not being collaborative; and (c) raising an amendment that had nothing to do with the resolution at hand. So just a few thoughts.

•  Political. The word that is always thrown at opposition. I wrote a detailed piece on this a few months back. And in this instance, I want to seriously ask – what political gain could Ibeth and Luli possibly have had by raising a resolution at executive board? This isn’t like the DA, where independents potentially hear from people with different viewpoints. At executive board, Unity cut off access for regular rank-and-file members to view our proceedings months ago, so it’s not like there was an audience. Other than the 7 members and a handful of colleagues who came to support us, there was no one there who wasn’t already tied to the Unity machine. Unlike Unity Caucus members, there’s also no financial political gain that Luli and Ibeth could have from raising the resolution either. No one from opposition is ever going to be hired for a job with the UFT. When I left Unity, for instance, I was actually reducing my political standing in that sense of the word – ensuring that I’d never get a cushy union job. Luli and Ibeth, similarly, were de-politicizing themselves in order to fight for the general good of members. This irony shouldn’t be lost here, because most of the people I see attacking opposition for being political do have union jobs that they got in part from being loyal to the Unity machine.
• Attacking opposition for not being collaborative is disingenuous. For one thing, we reached out to Unity with two resolutions for this executive board meeting. Both passed. For another, Unity never returns the favor. Unity never reached out to us about the amended resolution. They never sought our input. We only knew about it because it was in the adcom minutes. Yet, when Ibeth and Luli raised an amendment to a resolution that Unity wrote without collaborating with us, they were vilified, along with the rest of opposition, for not working with Unity. Unity can write their own resos, but it is a cardinal crime for anyone from opposition to do anything on their own.
• The final complaint is that Luli and Ibeth’s amendment about healthcare/wages for working mothers had nothing to do with maternal mortality. But that’s patently absurd. For that, I can simply go to Michael Mulgrew. For the last few weeks, he’s been using the idea of a ‘committee with real teeth—arbitration/penalty power’ to help keep Aetna honest (as he pushes retirees off of traditional Medicare, where that sort of ‘teeth’ wouldn’t be needed).  Unity here put forward a symbolic resolution without teeth. Yes, maternal mortality is terrible.  Luli and Ibeth found a way that we can do something about that as a teachers union – by fighting to make sure that mothers in our union have medical benefits and living wages. That’s at least something our union can do to help working mothers. The argument from Unity that maternal mortality doesn’t have anything to do with mothers having good healthcare/wages is completely ridiculous. I suspect even they know that. And of course, they voted it down, and have been blowing up their social media with political attacks against two working mothers who tried to fight for more than symbolic help for our members.

This Monday morning, as we rush into our schools and get our first lessons set up for the week, we also have the pleasure of pondering what the heck Mulgrew is talking about in a bizarre non-update on in-service healthcare, sent out when I assume he and the rest of UFT leadership were still sleeping soundly. (It reached me at 6:12 AM).

Titled “An in-service healthcare update,” he begins by reminding us that “All of our members have and will continue to have access to premium-free health care,” failing to mention that this is actually already guaranteed by City Administrative Code 12-126, which he used UFT resources to try and get scrapped – and without a membership vote.

He then reminds us how good we have it, noting that “UFT is one of the few teachers’ unions in the country that still offers premium-free health care coverage for members…” However, he fails to note that other unionized cities that have it, such as LA, are not working to weaken it or trade it away for minor wage increases, but are instead effectively organizing to keep their healthcare and increase their wages above the inflation rate.

Next, Mulgrew hints that we might not be renewing GHI-CBP – an insurance plan that most of our workers have been using for decades, and then vaguely mentions that four providers responded to an RFP, but didn’t say who. In fact, when we asked at executive board last week, Joe Usatch, the Assistant Director of the UFT Welfare Fund, told us that he didn’t even know who responded. Mulgrew also fails to tell us that the RFP to replace GHI sought 10% in cost savings – an amount that would be impossible to save without somehow increasing member costs or reducing member care. There are only so many savings, after all, that Mulgrew can make by weakening GHI itself, such as by inserting massive copays for urgent care visits.

Then, he mentions switching retired members off of traditional Medicare and onto an Aetna Medicare Advantage plan as a win, and not as the failed plan to reach cost-savings at our expense that it actually is. To read this paragraph and not squirm, you have to be massively in the dark about what is going on, as the retiree healthcare battle has been front page news now for years. If he’s using what he’s done to retirees as an example of what he plans to do to in-service workers, however, we should definitely listen.

There are no new updates in this email. In fact, there is less information here than we’ve gotten at executive board meetings, DAs, and even other email updates. No, this isn’t an update. It’s a limp response to a petition organized by opposition to give us a say on healthcare changes before they happen. Sign that petition today.