Just recently many UFT retired members led by New Action joined with thousands of other retired members from other Unions to lead protests and support lawsuits to Protect our Healthcare. In the last week a New York City Supreme Court Judge ruled in favor of the NYC Organization of Municipal Retirees to prevent the City along with the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC) to take away our Original Medicare and put all Retirees in Medicare Advantage. Also, active members, except occupational and physical therapists, ratified a new Contract. The OTPT contract dispute is still going on. But, the issue of discontinued Probationary teachers has not been addressed in a number of years by the UFT leadership.
Over 9 years ago there was a meeting with Deputy Chancellor Laura Fehoo. The meeting included the Secretary of the UFT, John Halabi (then, New Action member on UFT Executive Board), and myself. We brought up the issue of discontinued UFT members being prevented from working in other schools and what could be done to give them a fair shake. Many of these teachers were in schools with questionable Principals. No improvements have been done in the years since.
At the UFT Executive Board we have something called the “Open Mike” where any UFT member is given a few minutes to speak. These Discontinued members were never given this opportunity because some Union Officials have said they are no longer UFT members. The issue should be reopened.
The U.S. Marines have a saying “ No Marine should be left behind. Let’s make sure that no teacher is left behind by our Union and denied their rights.
Submitted by Gregory Di Stefano
New Action - UFT 