LACK OF ACTIVE UFT CHAPTERS SHOULD RAISE ALARM BELLS

I am often in disbelief about how underutilized the UFT Contract is. It is a worthless document if people don't use it to exercise their rights. One of the easiest and most powerful ways to show solidarity and union strength is through the UFT Consultation Committee. Contract Article 19H3 covers consultation at the school level:

The head of the school and the school chapter committee shall meet once a month during the school year to consult on matters of school policy and on questions relating to the implementation of this Agreement.

Teachers have the right to meet in the school with the Principal regularly. The Chapter Leader can select or have an elected Consultation Committee and the Principal has to meet with them monthly. This is a contractual obligation. In these consultation meetings the Chapter Leader sets the agenda on what school policy matters need to be discussed and what problems there are in implementing the Contract. I would think that from over 1,600 non charter schools in NYC that this would be the simplest way for a UFT Chapter to sit across a table on equal footing with the Principal. However, at the UFT Executive Board the other night we learned from Arthur Goldstein's report that there are only 230 schools that filed over five reports of Consultation Committee meetings with their Principals last year.

Here is exactly how Arthur put it in his minutes of Michael Mulgrew's President's Report:

Report on last year’s consultations—1400 schools filed at least one, 230 over five. Wants at least 7 from all this year.

Let's do some simple math to see how active UFT Chapters are. The Department of Education Website says there are 1,840 schools as of September 2018. Of those 1,840, 235 are charter schools. I think some of those charter schools are UFT and subject to the Contract but for our purposes here, I'm going to exclude all 235 because I don't know who is UFT and who isn't. That leaves 1,605 schools. 230 schools had more than five consultations. 230 divided by 1,605 = .143. If we put that into percentage terms, that means 14.3% of the schools have chapters that are meeting with their principals more than once every two months. That is frightening.

I'm going to assume for our argument that less than 235 are doing monthly consultations with the Principal because Mulgrew stated that 235 did over five and he is known for painting optimistic pictures with numbers. Maybe some schools are meeting but not filing reports but any which way you slice it, this shows that the overwhelming majority of UFT Chapters are inactive at a very basic level. To be fair, Mulgrew boasts that 1,400 did file a report of at least one consultation. That is something but one Consultation Committee meeting a year is inadequate. Mulgrew's figures concede that around 200 don't consult at all or can't be bothered to file one report that the Union asked for.

If I were the President and I had this information, I would call this a school level engagement crisis in need of immediate attention. I would be directing every District Representative and Vice President to make sure their Chapter Leaders were holding monthly Consultation Committee meetings, even if they have good relations with their administrators. I would check on this every month. All of the officers would be showing up at the dead Chapters and forming Consultation Committees. I would run meetings if people were afraid to. I would go so far as to publish the list of  Chapters doing their job and maybe list the Chapters that are not. Union presence at the school level is so important and it seems to be so lacking these days.

This is not exclusively leadership's responsibility. If I was teaching, I would be working with colleagues to find out about Chapter Committee consultations. A group of us would show the Chapter Leader the Contract so nobody has to face a Chapter Leader who might be in bed with management alone. That is called organizing.  I would do that instead of anonymously commenting here. If UFT members get together, they can't all be targeted.

The UFT needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. We now have some evidence from the President to show that there is much work that needs to be done. If you want to know how far we are behind our peers in Chicago in terms of member activism, this week the Chicago teachers in their schools took a strike authorization vote and 94% voted in favor of striking. They did this while they are being offered 16% raises over 5 years.  They are demanding better teaching and learning conditions. Yes it could happen here if we rebuilt a real union from bottom to top