NEW UNITY VIDEO CLAIMS UNITY IS MOVING THE UNION FORWARD

 Please watch the latest Unity-UFT promo video. For those who do not know, Unity is the invitation-only caucus (political party) that has controlled the UFT since the 1960s.

I commented at youtube and so should you.

My comment:

Moving our Union forward. Are you serious? 

-Unity surrendered our seniority rights in 2005 by agreeing to the creation of Absent Teacher Reserves (there is no such thing as Absent Firefighter Reserves; when firehouses are closed, firefighters are placed permanently; most unions respect seniority rights); 

-Unity let the interest on the fixed TDA go down from 8.25% to 7% (CSA [principal's union] and PSC [CUNY Teachers union] still get 8.25%); 

-Unity weakened tenure rights where the burden of proof is now on teachers when charged for incompetence; 

-Unity allowed the law to change so there is an extra year to achieve tenure for new teachers; 

-Unity did nothing to stop the creation of the vastly inferior Tier VI pension system for teachers hired in 2012 and after; 

-Unity allowed anti-public school state education commissioner John King to impose the horrible Danielson teacher evaluation system on us;

-Unity agreed to a contract with 18 months of zero raises in 2014 and they lied to us by saying the city's cupboard was bare when the city's financial situation was improving and moving ahead was better than ever;

-Unity agreed in 2014 to set the worst pattern for raises for municipal unions in NYC history by agreeing to increases totaling 10% over 7 years and then Unity extended the contract for almost another half year of zeros.

-Unity leadership did not pull UFT members out of school buildings the UFT knew were infected with Covid-19 in March 2020 (subsequently over 70 DOE employees died in the spring from COVID-19 and even President Mulgrew admitted it's logical to assume some were infected at work); 

-Unity leadership sent out a memo worrying more about losing union dues than protecting member lives in March where they discouraged UFT members from engaging in a life saving sickout;

-Unity forfeited spring break in the pandemic; 

-Unity suspended the grievance process since the pandemic started, leaving individual members at the mercy of administrators (courts are open via Zoom so why not virtual grievances?);

-Unity is as responsible as the mayor for allowing the city to reopen schools in the fall when the majority of parents are opting for remote learning and many buildings are not safe; 

-Unity agreed to let the city withhold the final payment of the interest-free loan we made to NYC in the 2014 Contract so now we will be waiting 12 years before we will be paid back in full for work we did from 2009-2011 (and by the way, the city is not so broke https://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2020/10/comptrollers-report-shows-city-not.html);

-Unity will not stand up publicly to most of the many principals who abuse UFT members; 

-Unity enthusiastically supported Bill de Blasio's reelection in 2017 when we knew after four years, he was Bloomberg lite on education.  

-Unity ended even rudimentary democracy at union meetings so now all questions are screened in advance and now basically only softballs are asked to the president;

-Unity rigs elections by allowing retirees scattered all over the country to vote for who will represent active teachers. (In what other union can a retiree in Florida vote on who will be the high school vice president for NYC?)

I can go on and on. 

I ask one question: Is the teaching profession in NYC better off now than it was before Michael Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten took over the UFT? It's time to repair or replace the UFT with a real union.