New Action – UFT

Michael Mulgrew was elected President to a three-year term this week by an overwhelming majority (91%).  New Action’s bipartisan program proved decisive in providing Mulgrew with the largest margin of victory in memory.

The members appreciate the strong first year Mulgrew has had, and his willingness to take on all opponents, starting with Klein and Bloomberg. And members voted in larger numbers than last election – up 3%.

New Action’s message — we support the leadership when they are right, but are willing to engage in constructive criticism and open debate — led to an increased vote for New Action in every division of the union, the only caucus to do so.

And the members returned 8 New Action candidates to the Executive Board.

Our pledge continues to be a commitment to work with all caucuses to improve working conditions for UFT members and fight all plans to take away our hard-won rights. We will also remind the leadership of that commitment when necessary.

We are proud to support a real teacher for UFT President. Michael Mulgrew worked for 9 years in the classroom. He understands that even as pay has improved, working conditions have deteriorated.

In his short tenure as UFT President he has:

• Sued Joel Klein and the DOE over their failure to reduce class size
• Fought the closing of 19 schools — a fight that New Action urged long ago
• Refused to accept Mayor Bloomberg’s latest contract offer of 2% and 2%
• Convinced NY State Legislators to keep the cap on charter schools. Michael argues that Charters do not take their fair share of students with special needs, aren’t as accountable as NYC public schools, and some executives and principals receive obscenely huge salaries. New Action opposes charter schools and privatization of education services.
• Stood firm against Bloomberg and Klein’s demand to fire ATRs.
• Stood firm in support of tenure and against evaluating educators using student test scores
• Strengthened UFT alliances with parent and community advocacy groups