UFT Contract PSA: Beware of Distracting ‘Perks’

Yesterday, I analyzed most of the UFT’s new tentative agreement with the City, and was able to determine that this contract is not a deal that provides UFT members with what we deserve. Sure, there’s a lot of noise about nice bells and whistles like the ability to potentially work from home for parent engagement time. Of course, when you look at the fine print that Mulgrew left out of his promotional materials, you see that those bells and whistles come with big strings attached (like the ability for principals to take away your right to do parent outreach from home without due process).

More insidiously, however, bells and whistles distract from real concessions. The new additions to the contract remind me a lot of the ‘perks’ you see in Medicare Advantage Plans, which we’re all going to be forced onto as a huge giveback condition of the last decade or so of bad negotiations with the City. As I wrote a few months ago on the Aetna MAP plan that retirees are being forced onto, “some of the perks, like the fitness benefit, I don’t see swaying retirees. But a few, like hearing aid reimbursement, unspecified meals after hospital stays, some transportation benefits, and an OTC allowance stand out. These perks, of course, can only be offered because of the profits Aetna will make on the administrative end – namely denying care through pre-authorizations.” A few miscellaneous perks are thrown in here and there to distract from the fact that ultimately retired members will have less access to potentially live-saving care.

We can draw a similar analogy with the 2023 contract draft. We get 5 extra minutes of OPW time, 20 fewer minutes of PD, possible geographic flexibility with newly micromanaged parent outreach, some extra C6 options, one self-directed C6 period in multi-session schools, and some committees that may or may not make our working lives easier. But we lose big on pay and healthcare. There’s no excuse for a powerful union like ours accepting an inflation-adjusted pay cut. Make no mistake: the new contract codifies sub-inflation wages that fail to match the gains of even non-unionized American workers. And, if we set the precedent that we’re willing to do the same work for less, how little will we make compared to our peers in more militant union cities like Los Angeles 5 years from now, 10 years from now, or 30 years from now? This crisis in our ability to keep up with cost of living is the real story of our contract, not 5 extra minutes of OPW (which many of us are going to lose to IEP meetings now anyways, ostensibly without coverages, by the way).

The other big giveback we are being distracted from is healthcare. I already mentioned Medicare Advantage. When you retire, your healthcare is now going to be a decimated and barely recognizable version of what it was for retirees before us. But, your current healthcare is also about to be gutted. While none of the documents on the UFT website mention healthcare changes, the City was blunt with all unions that new contracts would be predicated on finding healthcare savings first. And frankly, the City and the MLC have been lock-step on many of the proposed changes. Where does this leave us? As Mulgrew has stated time and time again, healthcare is a part of our overall compensation package. Union officials have stated that they are seeking a plan similar to GHI at around 10% less of a cost. They have also threatened the possibility of premiums. So, if the City reduces our healthcare or increases our costs, the already bad 3ish% annual wage increase could be much worse. Heck, we might see a pay cut even without adjusting for inflation.

Call me crazy, but maybe we need to actually see the proposed healthcare changes before we vote in a contract based mainly on perks which themselves have fine print?