I recently received the following email from the excessed pupil accounting secretary at Jamaica High School, Juliana Cody. Over a year ago, the UFT won an arbitration saying school aides should not be doing secretarial work. We provided numerous documents showing that aides were doing secretarial duties at Jamaica High School and nothing has changed since then except more of our members are being placed in excess. What follows is the email secretary Cody sent to the UFT grievance department and their reply. As the DOE just continues to laugh at the grievance process and our Contract, our members suffer.
How would an ICE/TJC union run differently? If the DOE did not comply with an arbitration award, we would have every school that was not abiding by the decision publicly exposed repeatedly in any way we could. We would not tell people to just wait.
From: Cody Julianna
To: Michelle Daniels
As of this date, myself and two other secretaries at Jamaica High School have been in excess at our jobs and illegally replaced with school aides. For more than a year now we and our union representative have been emailing, telephoning, and faxing pages and pages of required and requested documentation to the UFT to uphold the legal decision that prohibits school aides from doing secretarial work. After all of this, the only answer now given is that the decision is in court waiting to be upheld - a second time.
While I prepare for a new job in a new school, I can't help thinking how ridiculously unsatisfactory this answer is. For the life of me I don't know how you can stand by and let jobs be given away because a school administrator lied about being in compliance with a legal decision. I am being forced out of my job, but not before I say how disgusted I am in how this is being handled.
I have no faith in you as UFT representatives. You all talk the talk but you can't walk the walk, as the saying goes. You should be ashamed of yourselves for allowing this to get so out of hand. I know my UFT representative, James Eterno, has worked tirelessly to get this decision applied to Jamaica High School. We have complied with every request yet your only response is that we must wait it out in court. We won the arbitration over a year ago! Administration is lying about being in compliance and no one cares to follow through on what has already been determined to be illegal.
So, thanks for nothing and for wasting my time and that of many others as well. I now know how much I can not count on your support in the future.
Juliann Cody no longer Pupil Accounting Secretary at Jamaica High School
Reply
To: Julianna Cody Pupil Accounting Secretary Jamaica High School
From: Michelle Daniels
Cc: Howard Solomon
Subject: RE: Secretaries Arbitration
Ms. Cody,
I understand your frustration, and in fact, share it. However, the matter IS in the courts, specifically because the Union sought to have the Arbitration Award confirmed by the courts so that the DoE is ordered into compliance in the matter. As such, I do not believe that the Union is just standing by and doing nothing.
My colleagues and I have worked very hard in order to effectively argue this case and be successful at winning this case at arbitration. I do not believe we have any reason to be ashamed of ourselves.
I will notify you as soon as a court decision is rendered. Hopefully it will positively affect your current reassignment.
Fraternally yours,
Michelle Daniels Michelle Daniels
UFT Special Representative Grievance/Arbitration Department
13 comments:
So, the UFT takes no steps until after an arbitration award is confirmed by the courts? Despite concrete evidence of further violations of the arbitrator's ruling? Hello? What legal numbskull came up with that strategy? This is the exact enabling strategy the DOE would want the UFT to take.
Why not publicize, to the greatest extent possible, administrative misconduct. Additionally - and at the very least - pile on additional grievances and have additional arbitrators rule against DOE on the same issue. Has it occurred to the UFT that this might have a deterrant effect upon future administrative and DOE misconduct? As a reminder, this would be a GOOD thing for membership.
To ignore misconduct until a mysterious court affirmation of an arbitrator's ruling is to duck repsonsibility for a vigorous defense of membership rights.
Gratuitous sympathy, such as acknowledging a shared frustration, is just that. Attitudes such as that help explain why the throroughly defensive posture of the UFT is hopelesly ineffective in protecting and preserving member rights.
As another reminder, the UFT may have heard of the old saying that "justice delayed is justice dinied". The UFT, in this instance, is abetting the DOE's own failures. And harming its own membership. Hello?
The first comment hits this issue perfectly.
There's somehting fishy here.
I think this is an indirect attack against James Eterno to make him look like he can't get the job done in his school don't you?
After all he's running for president against the UNITY's candidate, isn't he?
Nice try annonymous 8:42. This has, as you well know, nothing to do with his response. Another failed misdirection attempt. Unity swings...and misses.
Here is the quote from the email on me.
I know my UFT representative, James Eterno, has worked tirelessly to get this decision applied to Jamaica High School. We have complied with every request yet your only response is that we must wait it out in court. We won the arbitration over a year ago! Administration is lying about being in compliance and no one cares to follow through on what has already been determined to be illegal.
To 8:42 on July 31: Please tell me what I should do. I am all ears.
Crawl under a rock.
This brave woman, Ms. Cody, who has surely been the landing place of lots of abuse, harassment, misdirected anger and more, is to be lauded for standing up for herself and others.
The UFT IS NOT GOING TO HELP ANY PERSON WORKING IN ANY SCHOOL OTHER THAN A CHAPTER LEADER WHO LICKS THE BOOTS OF THE UFT SUITS! And even then, the UFT "leadership" is known for throwing its own off cliffs.
The UFT is, in fact, more responsible for doing irreversible harm to teachers, secretaries, guidance counselors, students, et al. than the DoE. The UFT forcibly robs its hostages (so-called members) of thousands and thousands of dollars.
It uses the money it steals from you (forcibly, that is, because, you cannot work in the schools unless they take money from you) to pay itself extremely high salaries, take vacations using your money, and feed itself lavishly on your money.
The "leadership" look down on you, especially the teachers, as suckers, schnooks, misguided stupid pathetic jerks who are in classrooms with kids.
They routinely advise teachers to resign, they lie nearly every time they open their mouthes and they most assuredly do no work for which they were alleged hired.
They are as crooked and corrupt and dangerous to us as any union "leadership" has ever been in a country in which union "leadership" corruption is storied and infamous.
THE UFT COOPERATES (COLLABORATES, AS IN NAZI COLLABORATORS) WITH THE DOE IN DESTROYING PUBLIC EDUCATION AND THE LIVES OF TEACHERS AND OTHER HUMAN BEINGS WHO TOIL OR "LEARN"* IN SCHOOLS.
Complaining or hoping or reasoning and such won't work.
Organize to form a new, real union and decertify these sick, sick people who are destroying NYC public education.
Re: the above post
For those of you who happen to stumble upon this blog, please notice how the ICE member above compares the UFT to Nazi collaborators. That is all too typical ICE psycho-babble.
Vichy is as vichy was. Collaborators with the enemy by any other name. If Klein were a Nazi the UFT would collaborate. Certainly would not be part of the resistance. Too red you know.
Nice...more crazy talk.
Ms Cody has tremendous courage.
It shouldn't surprise us that the DOE lies and doesn't comply with arbitration decisions. If taking it to court is the only way to force them to abide by an arbitration decision how is this the UFT's fault? Because of the DOE's wrong doing, the UFT is bad? This is just a campaign bend.
If the UFT had any clout, the DOE would abide by grievance decisions and when they didn't, we would be able to take actions to stop them. Waiting while people are abused for years is the fault of the UFT.
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