New Action – UFT

6:02 PM, Mulgrew starts (on way to another meeting): Over the weekend had a phenomenal high school ceremony, thanks Janella Hinds, talks of all the fun. Said lots of fun at middle school event, thanks Rich. Had a whole bunch of friends at Black and Puerto Rican caucus, says to make sure to get tested. This Thursday will be the ‘listen up’ – great group of teachers talking to people in power over education. Last night before the break, want to end it working as much as we can.

Budget: Thanks everyone for efforts. We did really well, because of the lobbying of this union. We’ve gotten creative due to the pandemic. 475 million dollar increase, CFE is fully funded. It’s done, never thought we’d get there. Mental health, 100 million dollars for schools – community, etc. Teacher center up to 20+ million. United Community Schools, not DOE, 450,000 from NYS. Well done to Karen. Childcare, big boost: from 200 to 300%. Got market rate moved positively, thanks Tammy.

Tier 6: Thanks Debra Penny. Asked them to do a Tier 4 analysis, a long fight. In 1983, Tier 4 was passed, no one happy. First year of reform was 1998, 15 years after initial passing to start undoing that damage. 2012, Tier 6 on a Thursday night at 11:45 PM, had a bad phone call. 2022, and we have started the reform of Tier 6. Major piece driving Mulgrew crazy, we’ve had 11,000 members leave under Tier 6. When they see they’re working til 63, that’s not going to work. Forget the contributions they have to pay that other tiers don’t have to. The entire AFL-CIO, our trustees, were all working on this, a collaboration across the state. Vesting is now 5 years instead of 10. None of our members will ever know this. There is a 2 year lag. For this year, your contributions will be based off of what you made in 2020. Last year, we had all sorts of extra money paid to different titles. On top, we won thousands of operational complaints that led to multi-thousand dollar checks, and this won’t count toward pension contributions. Big deal. We’re saying as a union that we have just started the journey to fix this. We’ve never had 11,000 people leave in the first ten years of a tier. Thanks everyone again for doing that lobbying. Thanks everyone for getting to this point.

Down 2,000 safety agents, so we can’t do a safe corridors program. Need to be able to get students away from schools safely. Tragic events.

LeRoy Barr: Moves to accept all minutes; they pass unanimously.

Ballots are out. People are holding them up on the screen. Please spread the word, they should have come in a golden envelope. Tell people to look for the envelope, fill it out, and send it back. We want a high voter turnout. Don’t wait for after the vacation. Due back by May 9th, but we’re not waiting until May 9th. Vote right away.

Next DA is Wednesday, 4/13. New May date is 5/25.

Report from Districts:

Rich Mantell: Middle school conference, big success. Shout out to Jamie Polzin for her class. May 14th, 5K in Coney Island. Raising money for schools in Ukraine.

Anthony Harmon: Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, acknowledges Janella Hinds who was given an award at the labor luncheon. Thanks United Community Schools people.

Janella Hinds: Acknowledges Anthony Harmon for chairing the labor luncheon. Friday, academic high school awards were held in Shanker Hall. Was amazing to have people there again. Celebrated 2022 and 2021 award winners. Thanks everyone who was able to join as Shanker Hall was transferred into a lovely cocktail space to celebrate the award winners.

(Name missed): College scholarships going out a week from today. Issue with web portal, figuring it out. Acknowledges Liz Perez, newest trustee. Thanks for income threshold increase. More can apply now.

Special Order of Business: In Support of Starbucks and Amazon Unions:

Arthur Goldstein speaks to resolution: Starbucks and Amazon run by billionaires who don’t want unions, which is a disgrace. Some really bad conditions in the US for a number of decades now. The cure to many of those conditions is unions. The resolution says the union is the creation of middle class, that stands against bigotry, racism, and discrimination. MLK was a big proponent of unions. We need to support these people. It’s important that we do everything we can do spread unionism.

Janella: Asks for support on the resolution. 62nd anniversary for our union. Young people are out here doing it, and it’s on us to support those who want to organize.

Amy Arundell: Chris Smalls, Amazon union leader spoke at the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus event. A lot for us to learn in closed shops from young people organizing who can lose their jobs. This brings us back to our roots.

Resolution passes unanimously.

Special Order of Business, Election Complaints:

LeRoy Barr: This time I’ll read it slowly so everyone can understand. This challenge alleges improper use of union and employer resources as well as text violations.

Elections held this year. 2022 election committee has reps from each of the two caucuses running slates, Unity and United for Change. I recommend that the complaint be upheld and that United for Change be directed to cease all campaign activity on employer-paid time and cease all use of employer/union resources. United for Change should also remove identified members and end texting to people who don’t have consent.

1. UFC sent campaign materials to people who did not subscribe to mailing list. UFC explains that their distribution list comes from EONYC and MORE mailing lists, both of which are part of UFC. In addition, members can sign up in many other places to get mailings. Unclear how they got on mailing list, but no violation. It should be rejected.
2. Members called teachers on school hours during instructional time. Call was passed through to her classroom. This is a clear violation of LMRDA. While it is unknown if the member was on their own DOE time, they were calling a DOE line to talk to a teacher. No reason to know if UFC knew they were calling a DOE number, but when a secretary answered the call, they should have hung up. This allegation should be upheld. UFC should be directed to not call members at school during school hours.
3. UFC texted members who have not subscribed to a UFC phone list. There is a text campaign being sent out to people who never subscribed. Again, the UFC list is an amalgam of lists from MORE and EONYC, both part of the coalition, among other ways. Unclear how member phone number came onto the list. Accordingly, UFC lists may be a violation. Telephone Consumer Protection Act. UFC should remove person from contact list and cease making texts to people from whom they don’t have consent.
4. One UFC candidate used DOE email to send campaign, asking for non-DOE emails. This is a clear violation, and the UFC candidate seems to be aware of this since she asked for non-DOE emails, but used employer resources to do this. Attempts were made to reach her to see if she took a personal day, but she was unavailable. Regardless, this is a violation, so the allegation should be upheld. Cease and desist.
5. UFC used a UFT google group to seek assistance on UFC campaigning, specifically on inexpensive copying. Candidate should be asked to cease and desist. Mike Sill takes motion to accept. So moved. No one speaks for or against. Unanimously passes. Motion to adjourn.

New Action/UFT

…a caucus of the United Federation of Teachers

615 77^th Street, Brooklyn, New York 11209

https://newaction.wordpress.com/

              March 2022

NEW ACTION/UFT PROPOSALS FOR CONTRACT DEMANDS

1. Pay raises in line with surrounding districts
2. Maximum salary should be reached in 10 years like many other unions
3. Reduce class size in every division
4. Reduce caseloads of counselors, school psychologists, and other titles
5. No agreement to place new hires into HMOs 
6. End Fair Student Funding/Return to Unit Costing to end discrimination/harassment of veteran teachers
7. Fight the attacks on Chapter Leaders and chapter members
8. Fight abusive principals and place abusers on a UFT Watch List/Send teams into these schools
9. Reinstitute seniority transfers
10. End ATR pool by placement in vacancies
11. Work to end school segregation
12. Work to increase staff diversity
13. Restore the right to grieve letters in the file
14. Allow members to challenge principal’s judgment on observation reports
15. Remove the Danielson Framework and decouple test scores from evaluations. Reform the evaluation system to be teacher led.
16. Set penalties for administrators who repeatedly violate class size provisions

EXPOSE THE “WE DO THE WORK” SHAM OF UNITY CAUCUS

The hollow “We do the work” claim of Unity’s propaganda machine belies the fact that they have stood idly by as our conditions deteriorated.

Where was Unity when the City and MLC attempted to foist a privatized Medicare “Dis”Advantage plan on retirees. Mulgrew LED the effort to put 250,000 municipal workers on this plan. And Unity minions tried to promote this privatization as a great benefit for UFT retirees. Thanks for all your work!

Where was Unity on the health care of in-service members. In the last contract Unity supported a 2-Tier system that places new members in HIP for the first year. This was and is a disgrace. In the next contract will the City and our union agree to put new members in an HMO for the duration of their probation to pay for the $600,000,000 the UFT and MLC promised to save the City? Thanks for all your work!

Where was Unity as our members were forced onto Tier 6. It’s an opportune time to press our elected friends that we’ve helped put in office to CALL FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PENSION TIERS. We’ve done it before. But Unity hasn’t made any concrete moves to fight for this. Thanks for all your work!

Where was Unity all these many years in the fight to lower class size. Yes, there were improvements we won at the City Council level but when those expired there was no real fight. There have been NO REDUCTIONS IN OVER 50 YEARS. Instead, year after year the UFT has pitted salary increases against a reduction in class size. Thanks for all your work!

Where was Unity when teacher evaluations were tied to bogus test scores. Where was Unity when evaluations became a sham. Not so long ago their leaders were arguing that teachers wanted more observations.  Thanks for all your work!

Where was Unity when our Chapter Leaders and as well as our members came under attack by abusive principals. Unity dropped the once successful “Principals in Need of Improvement” (PINI) program. We have to ask why Unity leaders eliminated this program. Thanks for all your work!

New Action/UFT is a proud member of UNITED FOR CHANGE!            

THIS APRIL VOTE THE ENTIRE UNITED FOR CHANGE SLATE   

New Action is the oldest opposition caucus in the United Federation of Teachers. Formed in the mid 1980’s, New Action has a 40- year record of accomplishments. Our history goes back as the main opposition to the Vietnam War and the struggle to pull our pension funds from companies doing business with the South African apartheid regime. New Action lead the fight for salary parity in the 1990’s. New Action led the fight against Mayor Bloomberg’s Stop and Frisk policy.

But early on we set our sights on addressing the improvement of working conditions and for a more democratic union. Up to the present day we have witnessed a continuing decline in the day to day life of UFT members. We can say, the situation has never been worse in our schools.

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK   TWITTER:@NewActionUFT   NEWACTION.ORG

Michael (Brooklyn) (646) 286-3288/ Nick (Manhattan)  (860) 922-5833/ Joel (Queens) (917 647-6923/ Greg (SI) (718) 757-4552

A. Routine Items

1. Approval of the Minutes (March 19) – All minutes (eboard and adcom) passed unanimously

Announcements: Negotiating committee will be starting at 4:30 on Wednesday, all in person, giving time for people to come from the outer boroughs. Next eboard is March, next DA is April 18th. The DA in May is now May 25th, which is not the original date.

1. Report from Districts

Rashad Brown, executive board at large, had legal plan meeting with great attendance.

Janella Hinds: Hosting 2 events next week, Tuesday April 5th, Academic High School meeting, 4:30-5:45, followed by the academic high schools award ceremony, including education, union, community, and solidarity awards. Last year’s winners will also be exited. That’s Friday, April 8th.

(Name Missed): First books event just occurred, where 12,000 books were given to many different schools in Chinatown. Lots of support.

2. President’s Report : Michael Mulgrew: Apologizes for being late, but says he’s been on meetings in Albany. Says budget, a lot of it was taken up by Buffalo Bills Stadium. Tier 6 reform discussions will be occurring all week. April 4th is now the final date of the budget, strange. Congratulate nurse chapter, settled with Northwell last Friday at 4:00 AM. Able to get contract settled and they did a great job. Thanks all involved. Now, all private sector nurse contracts are back in place. At least a year before we have to deal with another issue. On April 14th, prep is going on for Listen up – the number of teachers we have is so many that we are going to have to expand. The idea is for education leaders and policy experts to listen to teachers for what is going on and needed right now. We knew, we have a whole bunch of educators who want to do that kind of work.

Chapter leader hub goes live on Friday. Will continue to field test it to make sure all goes well, but it’s a big deal, and we’re hoping that everything goes well. It is that time of the year. We don’t have the calendar yet from the DOE, and I’m frustrated, because we need to start planning for next year now, and the DOE is taking quite a bit of time on the superintendent process, so we’ll see how that goes. Besides that, we have the NYSUT RA, and thanks all going for doing that work. It’s really tight and it’s nonstop for two days, sitting in chairs and making sure we’re representing our local in the state-wide piece. Apologizes, but has to leave.

Thanks everyone for a phenomenal chapter leader weekend. Talks about great energy and optimism, great to see how great it was. It was a well run weekend, so thanks everyone. Be well, bye.

Reports from Districts reconvenes:

Rich Mantell: April 9th is the Middle School conference in person, no remote option. Some of the classes are STEM classroom, Google Earth, CTE partnerships, loan forgiveness, morale, socio-emotional health (yoga). See you there.

Mary Vaccaro: CTLE workshops, everyone is calling. We’ve added a lot of them. Anyone on the waitlist, we’ll let you know, especially for our Apple workshops, cap being lifted to 450. In addition there are ELL credits associated if that applies to you. April 6th, Goldie Haun workshop will have workshop on SEL, free one year subscription. Many schools invited to attend. Anyone who wants to attend from eboard, we’ll get an invite out to your.

Karen Alford: Had elementary school workshops last week, was great to be back in person. Had an elementary school town hall with about 500 people online, who asked questions and heard the reports.

Tom Murphy: April 11th is next meeting for retired chapter. Will now be a regular mail letter for retirees, including for retirees who don’t have email.

C. Special Order of Business: Election Complaints

Background from LeRoy Barr: alleged misuse of union resources in election, Christina Gavin is a UFC member. We are going to review her complaint and take steps. In other instances, we have found that some Unity Caucus actions are fine, with response to use of personal accounts by UFT employee on social media. Every 3 years, we have elections. The 2022 election committee has reps from each slate, Unity and UFC (doesn’t mention how many in each). Email was sent by Christina with respect to use of media. UFT gathered more information, after which Christina amended her complaint and added additional evidence. With regard to official UFT accounts, no caucus business, email should be sent out…..with use of officer headshots from website, we say that Unity should pay a reasonable market rate for use of the photos. But recommend dismissal of the rest of the complaint.

Complaint that UFT employees use personal accounts for both UFT and caucus business, but some of these activities are not electioneering. Nothing wrong with sharing UFT information. Allegations of union employees using personal accounts to ‘electioneer’ on social media. Since personal, this is not illegal. There are also accounts that official UFT accounts should not be used for caucus purposes, and these accounts should cease being used ASAP. Some accounts are used for non-UFT purposes or caucus purposes, but this is fine. Uses of UFT and archival photos for caucus purposes, which showed caucus logos on republished UFT footage. Under LMRDA, the union is not required to stop communications to regular UFT. While it’s true that LMRDA is against using union funds for electioneering, this is not true when there is equal access. For instance, there can be a candidates forum or post in newspaper. Since anyone could have downloaded the video in Queens, anyone else could have done that, not just Unity Caucus. The same is true of the photo from the labor archives.

Use of headshots from the Unity website and campaign materials. Unity used headshots that were paid for by UFT funds. This has been ruled that one campaign’s use of photos from the website does not violate election law, because those photos are not UFT property but officer property. Still, Unity Caucus should pay a reasonable market rate for use of the headshots. President Mulgrew’s letter in support of Debra Penny for TRS Board. The allegation that Mulgrew’s praise of Debra Penny, incumbent candidate for Treasurer, and asking for signatures from all chapter leaders. The 3 teacher members serve 3 year terms, and it’s Debra Penny’s turn for an election. The DA voted overwhelmingly in support. Only after this resolution did Michael Mulgrew send the letter in support. The DOL has found this regular work of the union to be permissable during officer election season. The letter didn’t endorse Penny for UFT Treasurer, so the complaint is denied. The letter is fine.

Union representatives were found to enter different schools during UFT work hours and distributed flyers. Winnie Thompson sent caucus business from her UFT account. This matter has been addressed. And another DR allegedly dropped off caucus pamphlets to a CL in the parking lot. The other DRs deny the evidence, but they should be reminded not to do it.

Michael Sill: Only members of the eboard may debate, but Christina Gavin will be given an opportunity to speak for 3 minutes.

Christina Gavin: Our union has been in existence since 1960. The DOL has regulations, set in 1959, for election guidelines. Our union should be upholding federal labor laws. These labor laws underline the fiber of our union, but we see repeated violations. Mr. Barr and Ms. Norton take exemption and want to interpret regulations and Carl Cambria’s reminder to interpret guidelines in another way. It’s my right to appeal that. Unity Caucus has violated labor law as well as Carl Cambria’s email to them that explicitly reminded on much of what was discussed above. Cambria later said he was amending his original email. But, when you write a rule, that is what you need to be bound by. I look forward to seeing what AFT will say of this matter.

Michael Sill: Do we accept the report? No debate. Motion passes unanimously.

Barr: Ballots on April 8th. Reminds everyone to vote. Motion to adjourn.