Fighting for educators, building chapters, increasing democracy, with a progressive agenda
Yesterday night, New Action co-chair Michael Shulman was interviewed by Daniel Alicea on his WBAI show, Talk out of School. Listen here for Michael’s key perspectives on the history of the UFT and New Action, as well as for commentary on the state/trajectory of our union today. This is a must listen.
As expected, DC37 has voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new contract. This is important news for teachers, because the contract is pattern-setting. In other words, the economic details will also apply to the UFT. I hope the contract turns out to be a fair one that improves working conditions for our fellow unionists. But, we already know the economic details aren’t good.
The numbers come down to about 3% in annual wage increases, along with a $3,000 signing bonus. In the end, that will come to about 16.21% over 5.5 years. That might sound like a big number, but it’s less than inflation. It’s also less of a pay increase than what workers are getting on average across the United States – and most U.S. workers aren’t in labor unions. For a unionized comparison, in Los Angeles, where public sector workers have and exercise the right to strike, SEIU 99 just negotiated 30% raises. In New York, where labor leaders argue against even having the right to strike, DC37 just agreed to about half that.
Still, DC37 had access to the numbers and still voted in the contract. We don’t know the ins and outs of their negotiations and what led them to settle for less. We do know that DC37’s membership was strongly encouraged by their union leadership to take the deal. We also know that, other than the pertinent financials, DC37 members did not have much information about their contract. They didn’t receive a full copy with their ballots. All they had was this one pager. And, while I hope the document was accurate, we’ve also seen hidden appendixes get voted in before.
Speaking of hidden appendixes, we also know that healthcare is being negotiated in parallel to our contracts. So, we aren’t just looking at a disappointing pattern. We’re also facing the possibility of being switched off our health plans for something cheaper. And unless we are successful with our petition, we won’t even have a say in that decision. Some DC37 dissidents tried to urge a no vote based on healthcare uncertainty alone. However, DC37’s progressive opposition is smaller than the UFT’s, and their union is much larger and more difficult to organize without the advantage of leadership’s institutional resources.
There are still loose ends to uncover. Soon enough, we’ll learn the specifics of in-service healthcare changes. With time, the full DC37 contract will also become available for analysis, and we’ll have more detailed information about what their deal means for us. Once we know more, we’ll publish more. In the meantime, I hope DC37 maximized the improvements they were seeking.
Writing can only be one small piece of unionism. Directly after publishing my piece yesterday analyzing the grade-ins (which was blatantly and maliciously misrepresented by Unity), I organized. Like many others in New Action and across the union’s progressive opposition, I did my part and shot over to a contract event near my school, where I participated in a morning protest asking the City to do right by our educators. Dozens of teachers and other UFT members from several schools on the Lower East Side / Chinatown came together to ask for better pay and working conditions. Members of the community cheered us on and joined in. Here I am, along with fellow H.S. Executive Board member, Alex Jallot (MORE) – one of the successful event’s primary organizers. (Hopefully UFT leadership doesn’t sue over the sign).
After the event, I walked the ten minutes to my school and worked a full day, teaching the kids of our city in exchange for normal teacher wages. I’m not paid a UFT central salary to organize full-time. But, I do organize. Plenty of teachers in the opposition do, but not necessarily in the ways that Unity wants us to. During my duty-free breaks, I spread the healthcare petition around my chapter. Despite reports that Unity Caucus members are using their titles/positions as paid UFT staffers to try and dissuade our membership from signing the petition, teachers in my school are signing it in droves, seeking to stop the City (and our complicit Unity-elected leaders) from making major changes to our healthcare without democratic member input. Petitions, by the way, are a great way to have 1:1 conversations about union issues with members of your chapter – members who you may not have a chance to regularly speak with throughout a busy school week. So don’t just sign today, take it to your chapters and get other members to sign as well.
New Action - UFT 
