Monday, September 02, 2019

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.


46 comments:

  1. Give them the benefit of the doubt? That's the problem, been doing that too long. 12/23 should have been solved by now, and should have never been a work day, but we are suckers. Yeah, tell your untenured chapter leader. Where do you think that's going?

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  2. It's not just the 1 day, it destroys the week. We lose the weekend and Monday. Cant go away till 12/24 at the earliest.

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  3. Who is doing a sickout?

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  4. You didn't mention the petition from MORE which has 25,000 signatures even though the leaders of MORE seem to want to swap Dec 23 for Columbus Day. Now there's a radical idea but clearly politically motivated by the anti-Columbus crowd at MORE.

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  5. Totally oppose the MORE petition because of the swap idea. School on December 23 when it falls on a Monday is a giveback. Trading it for another holiday is still a giveback. I oppose more givebacks.

    Make a conference day an instructional day and we can talk.

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  6. From our May 8 post on this topic:

    MORE suggesting we make one of the last two weekdays in June a workday (or trade Dec 23 for another holiday) is a pure and simple giveback.

    We now have a bipartisan consensus in the UFT among two of the political caucuses that we should have a new giveback. MORE would make it June 29 while Mulgrew-Unity wants it to be December 23.

    ICEUFT blog stands against either giveback. We've given back enough already! (see 2002, 2005, 2014 and 2018 Contracts, 2013, 2015 evaluation systems, Tier VI, four years probation and more for ample details)

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  7. Not happening, nobody is changing anything. The suckers, like me, will go to work.

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  8. WHY DO YOU ALL CARE ABOUT THIS? Yeah, so we gotta work on a Monday and it screws up our week. That is ONE day. It is a minor deal. You all want to know what IS a big deal? It is looking like tenured teachers are still gonna be having more than the state mandated 2 observations this year. I have been hearing from colleagues around the city whose admins are saying that they will still be using the same 4 observations as in the past. (one formal observation and 3 informal observations or 4 informal observations) This fact is way more of an issue to me. The stress level was supposed to be reduced this year with observations. However, since the wussy UFT only agreed to a "minimum" of 2 observations, admins still can do as many observations as they like. In other words, it's a shit sandwich and we're all gonna have to take a bite.

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  9. December 23rd is symbolic of everything we have been forced to endure. The difference here is it impacts everyone, even those protected in good schools with decent principals will have to work that day for the first time ever.

    As for the observations, this is what we said in opposing the new contract back in
    October 2018. We are on record as saying there should be a maximum. Nothing really changed here.

    "A minimum of two observations for some teachers is a gain. It is better than this year’s minimum of four observations. However, it only impacts tenured people who are rated highly effective the prior year or effective the past two years. The teachers who need relief are the people rated ineffective who will now have a minimum of one additional observation for a total of five and many of the probationary teachers who are drowning in work. Their observations remain unchanged at a minimum of four. How about a maximum number of observations like they have in Buffalo and many other districts in NYS? How about agreeing with the DOE to jointly go up to Albany to attempt to enact legislation to rid New York of the whole stupid evaluation system where teachers are rated based on scores on invalid-unreliable student assessments and classroom observations from the awful cookie cutter Danielson Framework?"

    86% voted yes. My only fault was not getting to more people.

    The whole evaluation system should be scrapped like we call for in our petition. See box at right corner of the blog.

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  10. Anonymous 6:18- it's a quality of life issue. First, we cave on this because "it's only one day". Next thing you know, they're coming for February break.

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  11. big wutevs.
    no fn way ill be at work on the 23rd. already booked flight out for the 19th.
    another letter to file.

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  12. Because we wait all term to get that break, it has been destroyed where all the fun of it is gone.

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  13. Tell your concierge 6:18.

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  14. Once you state that December 23 falls on a Monday it is unnecessary to state that Christmas Eve is on Tuesday. Anyone requiring that redundancy should have to work Christmas, Yom Kippur and Chinese new year

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  15. It is necessary to show we have traditionally worked December 23rd when Christmas Eve fell on a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. UFT apologists say we have worked on the 23rd in the past. We need to specify when we have not worked on the 23rd.

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  16. Anyone see the email from Mulgrew. Didn't we get a full day for set up in the past? Now it's at least half a day? I feel like puking having to go back tomorrow as I just saw the agenda for the next two days in my email. Gonna be some hate whitey PD, some dept and grade meetings, and some of my favorite team building! Which is hilarious as I am in a building of two faced back stabbing SJW warriors who think they are gonna save all the little brown children. I will be out for every PD day this year and the 23rd. 10 self treated days they can't question. Fuck em All. It is gonna be real hard to continue after Oct 2020 when I get my last 12 grand from them.

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  17. It is going to be interesting to see how hard DOE questions Dec 23rd. I am fairly certain there will be many absences.

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  18. Swanky Office, New Age Music, knock knock no ones home! Working on the 23rd!!BAH HUMBUG!!
    Our union dues need to be called SUCKER DUES

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  19. Automated and gatekeepers seem to be the way things are going. When I try to call my retirement system, I'm easily on hold for 30 minutes. It must be cheaper for them to make each of us wait rather than hire more people to answer the phone. That said, answering the phone, especially during this transition, must be a thankless job.

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  20. I dropped out as of July 1, you see why...

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  21. I dont have one minute for classroom on Tuesday. 3 hour presentation, lunch, dept meetings, curriculum prep.

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  22. You are correct, it doesn't help anyone, but it's all I can do, just read the comments from the last 10 years. Enough is enough. I would rather save the $1600. The work year is enough abuse.

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  23. Show Mulgrew email to chapter leader (see below). Show it to principal. If too shy or principal has an issue, call concierge to tell DR.

    Dear ,

    Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed a restful summer break and you’re re-energized for the year ahead. As always, we’re here to help you meet the challenges and opportunities that present themselves every September. Please extend yourself to the new teachers who are finding their footing in the classroom this year. We’ve all been there, and it can be daunting.

    For teachers and paraprofessionals, the first two workdays after Labor Day are both six hours and 50 minutes. For other titles, Tuesday follows regular work hours and Wednesday is six hours and 50 minutes. Teachers must be given sufficient time to prepare their classrooms, which is usually at least half a day...

    Michael Mulgrew

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  24. concierge must identity personal pronouns!

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  25. God how I hate the UFT.I want 2 observations MAXIMUM!

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  26. The question I have is, how many observations (documented and scored) are necessary beyond the two? Will principals record N/A for domains they say they didn't witness to extend the observations?

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  27. They can do as many observations as administration wants. No maximums.

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  28. Anyone hear UFT commercial on the way to work this morning? Happy talk has started already. Schools are the best.

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  29. Dec. 23 is a trap. SCI and the Post will be working hand and glove that day. They will scour social media and hang out at LGA and JFK. O bet they’ve got the front page article about theft of services already written and they’re just waiting to fill in a name and post a picture. All of you calling in sick need to be comfortable with the consequences. Just google what has happened in the past; hint; not a letter to file. Often a a five-figure fine, possible termination, and infamy on the web. Good luck.

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  30. Anyone absent that day should get a medical note.

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  31. DEC 23RD-SELF TREATED MENTAL HEALTH DAY. FORGET THE NOTE. THE UFT IS SHOULD BE ASHAMED TO TAKE OUR MONEY AND LEAVE US WITH A CONCIERGE INSTEAD OF DOING THEIR JOBS

    CRAPPY RAISES BUT THE BUDDIES OF CARANNZA GET HUGE RAISES-TERRIBLE

    WILL THE UFT BE WORKING ON DEC 23RD OR WILL WE GET AN UNTRAINED CONCIERGE IF WE CALL THEM ON DEC 23RD??????

    CALLED LAST WEEK AND WAS TOLD TO CONTACT MY PRINCIPAL FOR A CONTRACTUAL QUESTIONS-THE UFT IS SIMPLY AMAZING!

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  32. SICKOUT FOR TEACHERS ON DEC 23RD. LET THE DOE HIRE CONCIERGE TO DO OUR JOB. THE UFT WILL HIRE A CONCIERGE TO DO THEIRS.

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  33. Very easy to say this anonymously 9:44. Do you have commitments from thousands of UFTers to take off on the 23rd? We have to address 9:23's warning.

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  34. Should be an easy “trap” to avoid. Just fly out on December 21. Call in sick from your destination.
    Keep your stupid face off the internet for 2 days, and resume your pointless posting on December 24. Happy new year, you whimpering cruds

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  35. Ok it is easy for non active and anonymous people to offer advice. No skin in the game. I will follow the lead of active people here.

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  36. No skin in the game? Aren't you retired? Whose skin is it if WE the nonretired teachers take a self treated sick day? You are already OFF on Dec 23rd. 6:00pm is right just stay off social media for a few days call in sick using your cell phone if you will be out of town. We have the right to call out sick and travel early just like everyone else. Many people take off who are not teachers on Dec 23rd to travel to be with family. Why should teachers be any different? This is common sense. It's not our fault that the city or union don't respect us. This is just a job. Family should come first. It is the fault of the city and union for not being respectful of teachers. The question should be why are NYC teachers not respected enough not to be scheduled off on Dec 23?
    We are only trying to resolve an issue that should never have happened in the first place. Asking us to defend our stance constantly is WRONG! YOU SHOULD QUESTION THE UNION FOR AGREEING TO WORKING ON DEC 23RD NOT US SAYING NO TO IT!!!!!!!!

    SICKOUT DECEMBER 23RD BECAUSE WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN SCHEDULED TO WORK IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!

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  37. I said active people have to lead this precisely because I am a retiree. I am already off. I totally agree that December 23 should not be a work day and have been extremely critical of the UFT here for this unforced giveback. Read what I have written and called for on TV.

    That said, if high employee absenteeism on that day occurs and I predict it will, people have to expect a backlash from our uncaring employer, the DOE along with little, if any, backing from the UFT. I fully agree with the earlier comment that the press will look to make examples out of people so be aware and protect yourself.

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  38. I will be VERY pissed at any teacher at my school who takes off December 23rd. I will be at work that day. If I have to cover any classes for teachers who are absent, you can bet your ass that I will be checking your Facebook and Instagram accounts and I sure as hell better not see you sipping a gin and tonic on the beach somewhere. Look, I don't want to work that day but NYC expects us to come to that work day if we are not really sick. Be responsible and do the right thing. If tens of thousands of teachers take that day off, the general public and the DOE will come back to bite us in the ass. Don't mess this up. Show up for work and do the job you singed up for.

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  39. I accidentally deleted the above comment before finding it. Be careful folks, solidarity is not always there.

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  40. The problem is the leadership and teachers like 7:11. Just take it when we are shitted on and tattle tail on anyone who is defiant.

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  41. In general, don’t make up bogus reasons for taking days off.

    https://nycsci.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/Reports/06-05-Kaye-Matthew-Ltr.pdf

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  42. A teacher taking off to wrestle professionally in public is not exactly analogous to a wildcat sickout. I do understand your point 12:58.

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  43. Complete utter bullshit to be only schools open in New York State! I spoke to a Bronx district rep who stated they are working on it haha. Even when I mentioned how ridiculous it is to have 4 snow days built in. Should take two days and use one for December 23rd.

    Only good news is next school year starts late and christmas break is great! This year sucks.

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  44. I heard they are working on it too. Keep up the pressure on those concierge. It might be working. They aren't just saying fuck you to us. Union knows we are pissed off about this

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