We thought we would be able address some of the many questions that have been raised about the proposed new UFT contract but it will have to wait until Tuesday. I spoke to a UFT officer a little while ago and he told me the official Memorandum of Agreement (actual wording of the changes to our contract) will not be available until tomorrow.
The UFT told Chapter Leaders and Delegates they would post the MOA at UFT.org as soon as it is ready.
Since the UFT Executive Board is meeting tonight, I guess they will vote on the document without looking at it the same way the Negotiating Committee did last Thursday.
I would not be surprised if they approve it without looking at it because the Executive Board is made up primarily of members of the Unity Caucus: the invitation only group that has run the UFT since the 1960s. To be accepted into Unity, one must sign a pledge to support the positions of the caucus in public and union forums. They allow no dissent.
After the Executive Board approves the contract, it will go before representatives from the schools called the Delegate Assembly. The DA - made up of all of the Chapter Leaders and Delegates - will meet at the midtown Manhattan Hilton on Wednesday to vote on the contract. The DA is also made up mostly of people who have joined Unity as it is the ticket to union jobs and free trips to union conventions. Members should try to find out if their Chapter Leader is a member of Unity because if they are, then they are obligated to support the contract.
In the next couple of weeks an army of union officials will be invading the schools to sell the contract. UFT members need to understand that these people work for the union and are accountable to President Mulgrew. They are there to push the contract and members must not be afraid to ask them detailed questions.
Ultimately, the membership has the power to either say yes or no. If we say yes, we live with what we voted for. If we say no, it does not mean a strike. It means we think we can do better. However, just saying we think we can do better is not enough. Members will need to mobilize themselves to get a decent contract.
For further information, go to the Movement of Rank and File Educators' website to read Mike Shirtzer's view.
People can also go to NYC Educator to hear from Francis Lewis High School Chapter Leader Arthur Goldstein.
My former colleague at Jamaica is the blogger called Chaz and there is also Perdido Street School.
There are many other bloggers and social media where you can turn to for opinion including the UFT facebook page.
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26 comments:
I would vote no 1000 times if I could
It does do my heart good to see this contract proposal being ripped to shreds on the UFT Facebook page. I am hoping that through social media the rank and file are getting the message that we should not jump at their first contract offer. #VoteNo.
So 18+% compounded. Full-Retro In the out years. No payments on health. Better evaluation. Career Ladder where you can earn 20,000. New protections for the ATRs (not less despite rumors). No merit pay despite rumors. Not one second more per day. Not one day more per year. Post Labor day to the end of June. Full Summers on the beach. The post does not like it. The news does not like it. Michelle Ree does not like.
Read the details, not a good contract, a great contract
UFT just tweeted Exec. Board voted it up.
What about atr severance package?
You mean the Exec Bd voted on something they didn't read either. Shocking.
If what the bloggers are saying about the ATR's, then you better hope your school does not close. Most are veteran teachers who have invested so much and are now victims of being at a bad place and at a worst time. How many of you think a principal, with budget constraints, would want to hire a seasoned veteran teacher who knows their rights, when you can get several new teachers to cover multiple duties and are afraid of speaking up because they don't want to ruin their possibilities of tenure.
VOTE a thousand times NO!!
2% a year and we don't get it for years. Career ladder is merit pay. Interminable meetings twice a week. What are the new protections for ATRs? Here comes the Unity army this post talked about. Used car salesmen are coming. Be ready everyone.
Will you naysayers please sit down and shut up? We have deemed fit that you get your money 10 years after everyone else. That should be good enough for you all. Kindly stop questioning our work and get back to paying your dues, which we will not be waiting for.
That is all.
And those dues will be going up too.
Well of course they will. Do you think it's free to maintain 52 Broadway and run all those gala luncheons?
All of those improvements to our working conditions (examples: Ability to grieve paperwork another ability to grieve not being given a curriculum another extra time to engage parents and extra time to complete paperwork without adding any time to our work day/year) but all of that and more is ignored. The only focus you have is on the way the money works and pretending like the retro payments are incomplete. The money has you desiring a NO vote. You guys may have to rethink your seemingly abandoned slogan “Our working conditions are our students learning conditions”. A new suggestion might be “Show me the Money $$$”.
I am an ATR. I don't want to go to an expedited disciplinary hearing and get fired because the two Leadership Academy Principals say I'm unprofessional.
Hey 8:35 pm. Do you know Solidarity Forever? ATRs are union members too.
How many paperwork committees are now in the contract? More wasted time in professional development, calling parents and staying for four open school nights for three hours instead of two. It's easier to communicate via computer in 2014. Less time with the kids and more time for nonsense. Only a gain in the world of Carmen Farina and Michael Mulgrew.
This is a good contract! Nearly 20% more (compounded raises) within four years! No give-backs. You gotta be kidding me that you want to vote no! How do you possibly expect to do better? Do you want 21%??? Would getting the retro tomorrow actually make you think that you are now made whole? Maybe you want to re-visit Bloomberg and get five more years of zeros? Think about it.
Vote yes.
I am voting no and doing everything I can to enlighten the staff at my school about this "landmark" deal that is making me angrier each day. I was thinking maybe a list of questions could be put together for us to have when the uft comes to our school cheering about what a great contract we have and why we should vote it in? We can post them everywhere and hopefully these young teachers will start to ask some questions! Just a thought…Will do anything to get the message out! And then I'm gonna call wells fargo and tell them I'll pay them in six years- that should be ok right?
Stop whining people!!! I look to this site for information and it's great. But, this is turning into such a fringe element.
Signed,
Teacher, ten years NYCDOE
They can't release the details of the contract until it is ready? What the hell does that mean. It has to be written down somewhere. All you need to do is cut and paste it and slap it up. The true reason (my belief no proof but gut, history and experience) is they haven't finished their misleading question and answer sheet they are preparing to help pull the wool over the teachers eyes. Gosh how our union loves their question and answers fact sheets.
ATRs don't want to rotate or get placed into schools with vacancies. What do they want. And if two principals cite an ATR for problematic behavior(not based on pedagogy) then the ATR gets a 3020a hearing where the burden of proof is on the admins. Also many ATRs go to schools and are not placed into the vacancies. If they aren't placed in vacancies then that policy doesn't apply.
The rotation is demeaning enough. If you are in a provisional assignment, you are basically on probation and can easily be dismissed. Two principals can gang up on anyone.
What kind of a raise will we really get once we start paying more for health insurance? The raise will go toward the new premium payments. Don't be fooled UFT members. It happened in Toledo, Ohio to their teachers. They voted yes on a new contract without knowing what the new health insurance changes were. They trusted their union reps who said the changes were good and would save them money in the long run. A few teachers urged the others to vote no until they were told what the changes were, but they didn't listen and voted yes ( Well, they ended up with major health insurance cuts as well as pay cuts.
How are we supposed to decide to vote yes or know
on a contract we have no credible information about.
No written facts have been forthcoming. Everything put
out by the UFT is an infomercial as opposed to written,
detailed facts. All that leaves for us is to waste time and
energy guessing and speculating. My personal philosophy, after decades of contracts that were successively worse, is to assume that this is another sell
out with slate of hand tricks. The fact that all this time
has gone by since the press conference and not a shred
of written detail is being put forth speaks for itself. No
use making any wild guesses or assumptions about
retro pay compound interest etc. The only safe assumption is we get a few crumbs we dont know about for give backs that remain a mystery.
VOTE NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bottom Line: Do I get my RETRO--retired 2012-July 1st?
""The phase-in of the retroactive raises has no bearing on the final amount of retro payments you'll receive. All in-service and retired members will receive 100 percent of the money they are entitled to, compounded back to Nov. 1, 2009, by 2020.""
TIA
Al
http://www.uft.org/files/attachments/moa-contract-2014.pdf
http://www.uft.org/our-rights/proposed-contract/salary-schedules-proposed-2009-2018-contract
http://www.uft.org/files/attachments/secure/teacher-schedule-2009-2018.pdf
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