UFT NOW HAS CONCIERGES TO ANSWER PHONES; CAN THEY DO SOMETHING ABOUT GETTING US BACK MONDAY, DECEMBER 23 AS A DAY OFF?

When you call the UFT, you will now be talking to someone who is called either a Level I Operator or Concierge. Apparently, these level One Operators have not yet figured out how to get you through to the borough offices. I have heard from two members who have called and both were not exactly thrilled with the new system.

This is from South Bronx School who calls his piece on the new phone answering policy: "The Tone Deafness of the UFT Never Ceases."

An excerpt:

So I call. I hear, "Hi this is Mike Mulgrew, yada, yada, yada," I raise an eyebrow. Mike asks me to stay on hold. OK. Then I have to listen to New Age music for a minute or two until I hear...

"Hi, this is Tim, the UFT, concierge, how may I help you?"

"Is this the Bronx UFT?" I ask.

"This is the UFT," Tim replies.

"But is this the BRONX UFT?"

"This is the UFT."

I hang up and try back. I get Lance, another UFT concierge. Well, after listening to Mulgrew and more New Age music.

I inquire to Lance why am I getting 52 Broadway even though I am dialing 718-379-6200. Lance informs me that though the Bronx UFT has been open since Monday and apparently they have yet to turn on their phones.

"Can you transfer me there please?"

Lance responds, "We can't."

"Can you try?"

"OK, I'll try."

Lance gives it the old college try. While on hold I hear New Age music and Lance at the same time trying to transfer me and asking others how to transfer calls. This is my UFT and yours too, hard at work. And putting our union dues to good work.

A friend from Queens told me a similar story of trying to call the Queens UFT and no phone was connected so the member went in person to the swanky new $50,000 a month office which was locked around 1:00 P.M. last Friday. The District Rep this member wanted to see was there and tried to leave without talking to the member (benefit of the doubt: maybe nobody on the inside heard the knock on the door). The member found the DR in the building lobby leaving the building a few minutes later.

Here is the UFT take on the new system from retired Unity Chapter Leader Gene Mann's "The Organizer":

 New Cards, New Numbers

You will be receiving a new membership card this month . New UFT Contact Center telephone numbers have been added to the back of the card as well as the UFT Welfare Fund telephone numbers for our DOE in-service members and retirees.

Here are the new UFT Contact Center telephone numbers:

DOE in-service members: 212-331-6311

DOE in-service functional chapter members: 212-331-6312

Governmental/private sector members: 212-331-6313

Retirees: 212-331-6314

These numbers will put you in touch with a Level I call center operator who has been supplied with the resources to answering the overwhelming number of union questions you might have. If the Level I person can’t answer your question or solve your problem, you will be routed to a Level II expert on matters such as payroll, leaves, safety, etc.

The goal of the new system is to get you a responsive human being as quickly as possible, i.e., the polar opposite of the experience of calling HR Connect!

Concierges, Level I Operators and Level II Experts. More customer service from the Union. Good luck getting to the representative you want to talk to. It looks like you now have a new layer of bureaucracy to get through first.. Maybe I am too cynical; perhaps this system will be an improvement.

As always, if you want to get right through to a genuine experienced Chapter Leader, you are welcome to email or comment directly here. We will do our best to answer you and we can refer you to other veteran chapter leaders too. We don't have all the answers but we cut out the middleman here at ICEUFT. UFT members are our colleagues, not customers.

Hope you all had a great summer. All the best for the new school year.

Speaking of the 2019-20 school year, we are seeing a great deal of traffic on the ICEUFT Blog going to our April 26 post on December 23rd for the first time in memory being a work day when Christmas Eve falls on a Tuesday. It should be a day off as it was traditionally as there are sufficient instructional days and hours in the calendar to satisfy state regulations. We know this since there are four extra days that can be used as snow days built in and two non-teaching days before the kids come in on Thursday. My guess is there aren't too many other districts in New York State that are in session on December 23rd. If you want to see an activist (uh, me) explain the situation on TV, check out the NY1 story from May on the December 23rd controversy.

I strongly recommend that each reader here call the number above and tell their UFT Concierge that December 23rd needs to be a day off like it is in surrounding districts and always was in NYC when it fell on a Monday. Then, tell your Chapter Leader, your Delegate, your District Rep, your Vice Presidents and your UFT President how school being open on Monday, December 23rd when Christmas Eve falls on a Tuesday is an outrageous, unacceptable giveback. Tell your Principal too, It's something we can all agree on.