UFT Leadership Gets a C-….And That’s with Grade Inflation…

Every teacher has had that student, happy to coast by doing the bare minimum, but with so much potential. These can be the most frustrating and gratifying students in the class. Their comments in class are solid, but their homework is inconsistent. Their tests and quizzes are passable, but their papers are lackluster. This is not a matter of intellect but simply effort. That is what is so frustrating as teachers, we see the capabilities are not matching the effort. We hope these students grow out of this habit, or we work to find ways to motivate them, yet we allow our union to operate as a C student without intervention. Our union is too happy to minimize losses instead of achieving gains. Our union looks not to deliver, but to deliver just enough to continue to maintain the current power structure. 

This is not solely the fault of UFT leadership, after all we continuously elect them. Single party control by the Unity caucus of the UFT has provided little accountability for those in charge. While there have been recent gains among the opposition parties, especially in winning the popular vote in high schools, the UFT leadership doesn’t feel any real threat of competition for control of the UFT. Therefore, they feel no pressure to meaningfully perform for membership. They have never paid a price for their underperformance, and don’t ever expect to. The teachers have failed to implement classroom management and the C students are in control of our classroom. 

The most recent underperformance by UFT leadership is our newest contract. Behind closed doors, Michael Mulgrew will admit he was furious to see DC37 accept such paltry raises. While he sells a series of 3% raises as wins to the general membership, UFT brass is fully aware that these raises are actual purchasing power cuts versus historic inflation. These “raises” are unlikely to catch up to inflation. Simply put, inflation grew by an estimated 16.6% from 2021-2023 (US Inflation) and we will receive 9% raises during that time. Furthermore, other public sector and even non-union workers outperformed this contract. Moreover, many of the victories the UFT leadership celebrate are confusing or contingent on the whims of administrators. While UFT leadership conveniently blames other unions for poor performance, can anybody point to any actions taken by UFT leadership to provide better contracts or prevent this kind of abuse of pattern bargaining from reoccurring? The C students are pointing their fingers at the other members of the group project who did the heavy lifting. 

Recently, we heard the UFT leadership is ready to fight to fix the horrendous Tier 6 pensions a majority of their membership were placed into. New Action will be sharing information in the coming months about Tier 6 and  how bleak it is. The original sin of Tier 6 was not fighting back hard enough when it was signed into law by Governor Cuomo 12 years ago. Strike may be a dirty word in New York State, but we have seen other public sector unions accused of taking actions short of striking. The changing of  pension laws in NYS affected hundreds of thousands of public sector workers across the state, with no collective bargaining taking place, and no meaningful actions undertaken to counteract the changes. A union that doesn’t fight for its members is hardly a union. The UFT leadership wants a second bite of the apple. “We failed to stop these changes, but you can rely on us to fix it now.” Without accountability from membership, the UFT leadership will accept minimal changes to Tier 6 that will do little but placate the members and keep them in power. The C students believe an apple at the end of term is enough to save their grade. 

Much great writing has been done by our colleagues concerning the MLC, abetted by Michael Mulgrew, forcing public sector retirees into a Medicare Advantage Plan. The roots of this poisonous tree are the 2014/18 UFT contracts and connected MLC agreements guaranteeing billions in savings to the City from our Healthcare. UFT/MLC leadership has never had to explain why this was negotiated. The retirees have managed to stop the bleeding for now by using litigation against their own former unions. Meanwhile, in-service members will soon see new healthcare plans that deliver the guaranteed and negotiated savings to the City. Savings to the City is a euphemism for cuts. While promises are being made about the quality of the new plans, many find the likelihood that cheaper plans will meet or exceed the quality of more expensive plans dubious. The C students plagiarized their paper and were given a second chance. Now they plan on copying and pasting other students’ work for the resubmission. 

This piece should not be misconstrued. It is not meant to denigrate the C students in our classrooms. Far from it. As teachers, we get great joy from finding what motivates students and aligning our pedagogy to meet that need. The C students are perhaps the most challenging, interesting, and enjoyable students to teach. There is a special gratification in reaching those students who are more motivated by instruction that speaks to them. We do not remove accountability, but work to find what inspires them. We must mirror this action as a teacher’s union. UFT leadership under the Unity caucus has made numerous blunders, only a few of which are mentioned above. Yet as a membership, we have not held them accountable nor utilized what motivates them effectively. They have paid no price for their underachieving and without recourse they will continue to run our union this way. We are experts in motivation and accountability. We need to apply our classroom principals to our union. 

This blog post was written by an anonymous in-service NAC member.