UFT EXPLAINS YOUR RIGHTS

I copied this list below directly from Unity's Gene Mann's online publication for UFT activists called The Organizer. There are links to explanations for many rights UFT members have that are mostly not used according to what I read here in the comments and hear from around the system.

I highly recommend UFT members proceed directly to the grievance section for the harassment, intimidation, retaliation, and discrimination by supervisors part and then go to the Whistleblower protection section in the Other category to take advantage of these rights that have to be used to be effective. Member fears are legitimate but if we don't overcome them as a group, this job will never improve.

Absences

· Absences

· Attendance Procedures

· Bereavement

· Cumulative Absence Reserve (CAR)

· Educational Conference

· Excessive Absences/Lateness

· Graduation

· Jury Duty

· Religious Observance

· Storm Day Procedures

Certification

· New York City License/Appointment

· New York State Certification

Class Size

· Class Size

Disciplinary Charges

· Corporal Punishment and Verbal Abuse

· Disciplinary Actions

· False Accusations

· Insubordination

· Peer Intervention Plus

· Reassignment

· Summons

Excessing

· Excessing

Grievance

· Grievances

· Harassment, Intimidation,Retaliation and Discrimination by Supervisors

Health Benefits

· Health Benefits

Injured On The Job

· Injury in the Line of Duty (ILOD)

· Medical Arbitration

Leaves Of Absence

· Leave of Absence

· Parental and Maternity Leaves

Letter In The File

· Counseling Memos

· Letter in File

· Official School File

Observation & Evaluation

· Classroom Observations

Per Session

· Per-Session Work

Professional Activities

· Administrative Assignments

· Homeroom

· Professional Activity Options

· Professional Activity Procedures

Program Preferences

· Program Preference

· Rotation

· Teacher Programs

Salary

· Salary

School-Based Option

· Departmentalization in Elementary Schools

· School-Based Option (SBO)

Teaching

· Academic Freedom

· Bulletin Boards

· Class Coverage

· Curriculum

· Grades

· Lesson Plans

· Micromanagement

· Professional Conciliation

Teaching Help

· Mentors

· Peer Intervention Program (PIP)

Tenure

· Probationary Period

· Tenure

Time

· Extended Time

· Length of School Day

· Length of School Year

· Lunch Periods

· MOSL Window

· Other Professional Work

· Parent Engagement

Transfers

· Transfers

Transit Programs

· Transit Program

Shortage Areas

· Shortage License Areas

Environmental Health

· Environmental Safety and Health

School Safety

· Assaults

· Damaged or Stolen Property

· Disruptive Children (Behavior Problems)

· School Safety

· Victim Support Program

Supplies

· Supplies

· Teacher Facilities

School-Based Positions

· Cluster Teachers

· Coaches (Literacy and Math)

· Compensatory Time Positions

Workload

· Paperwork

Other

· Arrests

· Child Abuse

· Closing/Phasing Out Schools

· Consultation

· Discrimination

· Legal Assistance

· School Budget

· School Leadership Teams

· Social Networking

· Whistleblower Protection

LARGEST INDEPENDENT TEACHERS' UNION IN THE COUNTRY ENDORSES BERNIE

The latest large teachers' union to endorse Bernie Sanders is the Clark County Education Association. They represent Las Vegas, Nevada teachers. What is so fascinating about this endorsement is that CCEA is a union local that broke away from the Nevada Education Association and the National Education Association in 2018 to become a pretty substantial independent union.

From the Las Vegas Review Journal:

The Clark County Education Association, the union representing more than 19,000 local teachers, has endorsed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Nevada Democratic caucuses.

“Sen. Sanders has a stellar record of supporting educators,” union President Vikki Courtney said in a statement released by Sanders’ campaign. “His position on public education issues is second to none. He has always been a champion for educators and working class people.”

The association is the largest independent teaching union in the country. It represents educators in the Clark County School District, the nation’s fifth-largest school district.

“Together, we will finally give teachers a much-deserved raise, reinvest in public education and create an education system that benefits students no matter their background or socioeconomic status,” Sanders said.

How did the Clark County Education Association become an independent union?

This is from The Nevada Independent in 2018:

An ongoing spat between the statewide teachers’ union and its Clark County affiliate over money and operational strategy has ended in a severed relationship — and the birth of a new labor organization.

The Clark County Education Association voted Wednesday night to disaffiliate from the Nevada State Education Association, a decision that has been more than a year in the making. Eighty-eight percent of the roughly 700 CCEA members who participated in the election cast votes to cut ties with the statewide teachers’ union, the union’s executive director, John Vellardita said.

CCEA officials said membership stands at 10,915, meaning roughly 6 percent of its members participated in the election.

“We have officially broken away from them,” he said Thursday morning. “They are an ATM machine. They expected educators in Clark County to subsidize the entire state and its operations for a flawed political agenda that doesn’t advance public education in the state.”

The NEA started a new local affiliate in response. The CCEA reaction was to lower dues:

But CCEA leaders contend its organization will be stronger now that it won’t be sending 70 percent of membership fees to NSEA and the National Education Association. CCEA members’ dues will drop to $510 from $810.50, Vellardita said.

The union leader also said CCEA plans to introduce new benefits for members such as professional liability and group life insurance options, expanded professional development programming and a legal defense fund that would foot the cost of litigation to “best advance and defend the interest of members.”

Vellardita brushed aside any notion of concern that NSEA’s new local affiliate could put a dent in CCEA’s membership or threaten its existence. He said the dual-union concept is designed to “circumvent, undermine and then replace the existing union.”

But CCEA remains the collective bargaining unit and, therefore, still negotiates the contracts with the school district, Vellardita said. He said the union would take legal action against the district if it engages in “aiding or abetting” NSEA in a way that undermines CCEA.

A union local in Vegas stood up for themselves. Teachers in NYC can do the same if they so desire. I know the situation is not totally analogous as in Las Vegas it was a local union that ditched their state union and here our local, the UFT, is basically the core of the state and national unions. However, teachers in Las Vegas found a way to alter their union representation by standing up for themselves. The size of the local is around 19,000, roughly equal to how many high school teachers there are in NYC and larger than our middle school division. Again, it comes down to organizing if a group wants to do something similar in NYC.

Please stop writing anonymous complaints here and organize the teachers around you if you are not happy with your union representation and want to do something about it other than keeping your dues and going home. WE NEED A UNION however 75,000 NYC teachers are not bound for life to the United Federation of Teachers, the New York State United Teachers or the American Federation of Teachers by an act of God. Work together and start an independent union if you feel it is the right way to go. If that is not possible, then please join together to fix our union.

Do something, anything, if you really want to change your union representation! Otherwise, please STOP commenting anonymously about the UFT and sending me anti-union garbage.

LONG BEACH POLICE REJECTED CONTRACT

Even though they were threatened with disbanding their department, the Long Beach Long Island Police Benevolent Association last month rejected a contract that would have given them on average annual 2% raises over the lifetime of the deal.

From Newsday:
The Long Beach Police union rejected a proposed 12-year contract Thursday night after city officials had warned before the vote that the city is not in a financial position to maintain its own department without concessions from officers.

The pact included a 24% raise over a dozen years, but put limits on payouts, vacation and sick time and required contributions to health insurance, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by Newsday.

The department of 70 full-time officers serves about 35,000 residents and responded to 15,722 calls last year, according to a state finance board report.

Long Beach police officers are paid $165,374 on average, which is the highest among all cities in the state, according to the state comptroller’s office.

You gotta like working people who are making pretty good money but still refuse to just surrender their hard earned gains.

ACADEMIC RESEARCH SHOWS CHEAPENING OF HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA IS HAVING AN IMPACT ON EMPLOYMENT

Here is an excerpt of a piece I saw in The Hill that I found interesting on how employers are seeking employees with college degrees for jobs that may have traditionally only required a high school diploma. Researchers are talking about consequences of our "everybody passes" high schools.

...the phenomenon of “up-credentialing” is also of note. As high schools are at best stagnating in quality, as the most recent Nation’s Report Card results for 12th grade math and reading make clear, employers are likely to value this measure even less, and seek a 21st Century equivalent of the high school diploma: a college degree. Put simply, degree inflation — like grade inflation — means that a degree becomes less valuable when it is more common. Its value as a signal is diminished. Employers may be counting on colleges to do the work that high schools used to do.

Many of the readers here will say, "Well duh, we've been saying this but nobody's listening." A high school diploma is completely meaningless if everyone gets one for nothing.

Keep saying it folks. There are people hearing you. We seem to agree on the problem but the solution is not privatization of the schools and breaking up our unions, but rather empowering teachers to have REASONABLE standards, including behavior and attendance standards.

FRENCH GOVERNMENT STARTS TO BACK DOWN AS STRIKES CONTINUE; NY POST PUBLICIZES DOE NOT COMPLYING WITH COURT RULING AND LACK OF SUBSTANTIATED SEXUAL HARASSMENT COMPLAINTS

There are multiple news stories on the labor beat this morning.

Labor power succeeds when workers in huge numbers withhold their labor. The generic term for this is a strike. In France, the unions are not afraid to use this weapon. When the government proposed increasing the retirement age, the unions responded with massive strikes. The inevitable government retreat has started.

From the BBC we learn that French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has written a letter to the unions where he is taking raising the retirement age off the table:

"To demonstrate my confidence in the social partners... I am willing to withdraw from the bill the short-term measure I had proposed" to set a so-called "pivot age" of 64 with effect from 2027, he wrote in his letter to the union leaders.

President Macron described it as "a constructive compromise".

Reactions from the unions:

One of France's largest unions, the CFDT, welcomed the announcement saying it showed a willingness to compromise.

However, the CGT union called the proposal "a smokescreen".

In a statement it said it was "more determined than ever" to stop the reforms.

Industrial action against President Emmanuel Macron's planned pension reform is in its 38th day and has badly disrupted France's transport system - particularly trains.

Protesters again took to the streets of Paris and other cities on Saturday. In the capital, police fired tear gas at some groups of protesters who smashed windows and set light to rubbish bins and billboards.

In France, the unions are not playing.

Back in NYC, not a word from our union, the United Federation of Teachers, on a labor victory where the the Department of Education has finally emailed the Francesco Portelos victory over the DOE to teachers. It was in my wife's email account late Friday afternoon.

From the NY Post:

Francesco Portelos won a long battle to make the DOE notify about 120,000 fellow union members — on bulletin boards in every building and emails to each employee — that it must rescind actions against him for asking questions about his school budget and helping colleagues who alleged workplace bullying.

The DOE defied the order to make the notification for nearly three years.

That they are allowed to defy an order from the Public Employees Relations Board for almost three years with impunity shows again that the DOE basically has no respect for labor law or workers. We have seen this over and over. What got the DOE to finally relent? It wasn't Portelos, the courts or us who convinced the DOE to abide by the court ruling and finally post the settlement and email it to teachers. It looks like it was Post reporter Sue Edelman.

After The Post asked about the notices on Friday, the DOE said it sent out all the emails that day, blaming a “technical error” for the delay.

Where is the UFT on this? Noticeably silent.

The DOE statement on unions in the Post article is laughable:
 “NYC is a union town and we are proud to have strong unions representing school employees. The DOE is complying with the current court order by instructing that the PERB notice be posted for 30 days, and by emailing this notice to all teachers.”

My guess is that the decision still hasn't been posted in many schools.

The Post has another story on the DOE. This one is on the DOE not substantiating sexual harassment complaints.

Officials at the Department of Education only sided with victims in fewer than three percent of the more than 200 reported cases of sexual harassment last year, jaw-dropping new figures dumped by City Hall on Friday show.

That means DOE officials uncovered just a tiny fraction of the wrong-doing discovered by their counterparts in other city agencies.

Citywide, 13 percent of harassment complaints were stood up.

DOE officials claimed they found fewer than six confirmed cases of sexual harassment across the city’s biggest agency, which employs 135,000 people full-time.

DOE reported receiving 209 complaints between July 2018 and June 2019, a 12 percent jump from the year before.

The comparatively smaller Parks Department upheld 10 of the 31 complaints received over the same 12 month period; while the Fire Department found probable cause or substantiated 9 of the 15 reports it got.

But, for the second year in a row, DOE did not disclose the actual number of confirmed cases. Instead, the agency only provided a range of fewer than six as all city agencies are required to due under current law.

That means officials could have upheld zero complaints over the last two years.

My guess would be zero or one or two substantiated complaints would most likely be accurate.We hear nothing from the UFT on this subject either. If you want to know how we should respond, some self centered comments here will say that the only thing we can do is to stop paying union dues. They are totally wrong. We don't need an even weaker union with fewer members. French workers have the answer: Withhold labor and take to the streets to protest if the situation calls for it.

We are nowhere near that point where we could successfully do that in NYC but to turn it around, we have to start somewhere. How about eliminating the culture of fear? We can attempt to change that culture now, not by dropping a union which will only make it worse but by organizing. The first step is to tell other UFT members about what is happening around the city and the world. Tell people about the Portelos case. Talk about France. Tell them what is going on around the USA as teachers are fighting back.

Do something but please don't make an anonymous comment saying how you stopped paying union dues. I'm sick of spending energy responding to the same comments over and over.  I repeat again that this is a pro-union dissident blog.

TWU LOCAL 100 CONTRACT PASSES

The NY Post is reporting on the results of the TWU Local 100 contract ratification vote. It passed but there is still a real opposition within the TWU. 

From the Post:

The vote was 10,112 in favor and 5,176 against the deal. Just 15,000 of TWU Local 100’s 35,650 eligible members cast ballots, union President Tony Utano said.

TWU members went nearly six months without a contract while management pushed for higher worker healthcare contributions, restrictions on overtime and the creation of part-time positions.

Union leadership was able to stave off most of those proposals — and win a 10 percent wage hike that will cost the MTA hundreds of millions of dollars over the next four years, according to fiscal experts.

35,650 eligible and only 15,288 cast ballots. This is somewhat troubling that a union considered very active only had a 43% turnout rate in a contract ratification. I believe this was a mail in vote and this does tend to lead to lower participation. 

On the ratification percentages, it was 66% in favor of the contract and 34% opposed. For those who follow union contract ratifications, that is a fairly significant no vote. The UFT no vote for teachers on the 2018 deal where annual average raises were lower than the TWU average increase was only 14%.

Those of us in opposition to the ruling Unity Caucus have a great deal of work to do in order to form a viable opposition within the UFT.

BERNIE SANDERS OPPOSES HIGH STAKES TESTING AND WANTS MORATORIUM ON CHARTER SCHOOL EXPANSION WHILE MICHAEL BLOOMBERG FAVORS CHARTER SCHOOLS

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wrote a pro-public school op-ed piece today in USA Today. The Vermont Senator is very favorable toward teachers along with our unions while he opposes high stakes testing and wants a moratorium on charter school expansion.

Some highlights:
Wednesday marks 18 years since the signing into law of No Child Left Behind, one of the worst pieces of legislation in our nation’s history. In December 2001, I voted against NCLB because it was as clear to me then, as it is now, that so-called school choice and high-stakes standardized testing would not improve our schools or enhance our children’s ability to learn. We do not need an education system in which kids are simply taught to take tests. We need a system in which kids learn and grow in a holistic manner. 

Under NCLB, standardized tests were utilized to hold public schools and teachers “accountable” for student outcomes. As a result, some schools that underperformed were closed and their teachers and unions blamed. 

The long-term effects of this approach have been disastrous. NCLB perpetuated the myth of public schools and teachers as failing, which opened the door for the spread of school voucher programs and charter schools that we have today. Some of these charter schools are operated by for-profits; many of them are nonunion and are not publicly accountable.

Further down:
Fortunately, educators, parents and students across the country agree. From West Virginia to California, teachers have been striking to demand real investment in their schools, instead of tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. In some cities, teachers have refused to administer tests that do not improve learning, and increasing numbers of parents and students are opting out of standardized tests and demanding more effective ways of assessing student performance. 

We must build on this grassroots movement. If our children are to succeed in the 21st century economy, we need to recognize that there are no shortcuts around real investment in public education. Even the best educational assessments are of limited use if schools are underfunded, our teachers are disrespected, and millions of students and their families are living paycheck to paycheck.

As president, I will address these challenges by making transformative investments that eliminate one-size-fits-all solutions and put our students, our teachers and our public schools first.

This sounds very positive for us. Contrast this with former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. There is a NY Post piece on Bloomberg's soon to be released education plan touting charter schools as he runs for the Democratic nomination for president.

Some low-lights:
Presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg may have backed off supporting stop-and-frisk, but he plans to double-down on another controversial policy from his time as New York Mayor — expanding charter schools.

Bloomberg will soon roll out an education plan that will include backing the privately managed schools as an option for families, his campaign office told The Post — drawing a contrast with other top-tier Democratic presidential rivals.

“Mike’s education plan will absolutely promote charter schools,” Bloomberg campaign spokesman Stu Loeser insisted.

“The record number of charter schools opened under Mayor Bloomberg is clear. That isn’t changing.”

Bloomberg's plan on charter schools aligns with Cory Booker, Donald Trump and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.

On the contrary, Bernie states:
My Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education addresses these fundamental problems by increasing teacher pay to start at $60,000 a year, empowering teachers to craft thoughtful assessments that consider all aspects of a student’s academic progress, and putting a moratorium on charter schools and the federal charter school program until they can be made publicly accountable.

I understand the UFT/AFT not taking a position on who to endorse in the primaries although I disagree with them as I would follow United Teachers of Los Angeles and endorse Bernie. Since the UFT/AFT won't take that step, can we at least take a position that we will under no circumstances endorse Bloomberg, Booker, Trump or any other candidate who favors charter schools to the detriment of public schools? How about members demanding the UFT/AFT leadership take this position?

COMPTROLLER REPORT NUMBERS WOULD MAKE STARTING TEACHER LOW WAGE JOB

Earlier in the week we reported on the latest Comptroller's Report on the NYC economy. We noted how wages in NYC private sector were up 4.1% for most of 2019 but teachers and other city employees have settled for 2% raises for this year. It is very interesting to note that Comptroller Scott Stringer considers a starting teacher to be a low wage job. Wages for jobs are highlighted in the report although the report talks about the private sector. It still translates.

Most of the new private sector jobs were in low-wage industries paying less than $63,000 on average. Of the 80,700 new private-sector jobs, 63,000 or 78.1 percent were in low-wage industries. High-wage industries, with average earnings/salaries of more than $126,000, accounted for 14,500 or 18.0 percent of the new private-sector jobs, with just 3,200 jobs or 3.9 percent of total new jobs, paying in the middle of the range.

Teachers in NYC start at $57,845 and we have to pay to get a Masters degree and then 30 credits beyond that Masters. Granted, we do move up to the middle range with a couple of years of experience but we should be starting in the middle range, particularly with the high cost of living in NYC. I keep hearing about a looming teacher shortage coming in certain fields as we baby boomers and the Generation Xers retire.

NYC FINANCES CONTINUE IN GOOD SHAPE; DOE COUNTING ON ATR SAVINGS

There are mostly positive numbers in the latest Comptroller's Financial Report. Comptroller Scott Stringer is once again projecting the city will end the 2020 fiscal year with yet another budget surplus. As for the  city economy, Comptroller Stringer's report states:

Both the national and local economies continued to grow in the first nine months of 2019, making the current expansion the longest on record. However, the 2019 growth in the national economy slowed to an annual rate of 2.4 percent from 3 percent in 2018. In contrast, growth in the local economy picked up slightly in the first nine months of 2019 to an annual rate of 2.9 percent, marginally above the 2.7 percent growth over the same period in 2018. The Comptroller’s Office expects both the national and local economies to continue growing in 2020 through 2023, but at a more moderate pace, fueled by consumer spending, low inflation, and accommodative monetary policy by the Federal Reserve.

On wages, the report says:

The tight labor market led to an increase in average hourly earnings. On a year-over-year basis, average hourly earnings in the City grew 4.1 percent during the first ten months of 2019 to $37.55, surpassing the nation’s 3.1 percent growth. It was also the biggest jump since the City posted 8.1 percent growth in 2008 (Chart 3). The New York metro area inflation rate was 1.6 percent during the same period, yielding a growth in real incomes.

So the city economy grew at 2.9% and wages in the city rose by 4.1%. Stringer is projecting continued economic growth through 2023. How about a 4.1% salary increase for city employees? No, we have Mike Mulgrew and the other union leaders who don't understand what it means to be in a booming economy with a tight labor market and still agreed to healthcare concessions and paltry raises. At the rank and file level, union members should be demanding a fair share of the pie but we are not.

The UFT  does have union dropouts who think they can opt out of the union to make the union fight to get us larger raises even though they have shown zero evidence that this strategy has ever worked anywhere at any time for any group of workers to improve salary or working conditions. Showing this report to fellow teachers might wake a few up.

On the Absent Teacher Reserve situation, Stringer's report says this:

Two other notable efficiencies initiatives are in the Department of Education (DOE). The DOE will further centralize procurement practices, which is projected to generate savings of $10 million annually. In addition, DOE is offering an Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) severance program to encourage teachers in the ATR to leave the City payroll. The severance program is estimated to produce savings of approximately $11 million in FY 2020 and $30 million annually in FY 2021 and beyond.

The DOE is expecting many ATRs to leave. This is somewhat troubling as the severance package that has been offered is only worth it if you are young and have another job lined up or if you are a veteran and are already eligible to retire.

On the City Pension funds, I received this in the mail from Stringer along with my statement for the final quarter of 2019:

Protecting our city's pension system is one of my top priorities as Comptroller, and that means working to strengthen the city's fiscal condition. A report just issued by my office--the annual Comprehensive Annual Financial Report--showed that our Bureau of Public Finance, working with the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget, generated $935.99 million in budgetary savings by refunding outstanding bonds of the City, the Transitional Finance Authority and the Water Authority, over the lifetime of those bonds. At the same time, our Bureau of Asset Management reported $207.9 billion in pension assets in the last fiscal year--an increase of $12.1 billion, for a 7.2 percent return. We're working to keep the pension system strong and ensure a dignified retirement for those who helped build this city.

Nice to see we are getting decent returns on the pension assets and that the overall city economy is doing so well.

HAS YOUR SCHOOL POSTED THIS PERB RULING AGAINST THE DOE?

Francesco Portelos is for certain a controversial figure within the opposition in the UFT. We've worked well together and had our differences. That said, he won a big victory against the Department of Education at the Public Employees Relations Board that has been upheld by a judge in civil court.

PERB ordered that the ruling that Portelos' rights were violated be posted at every school or district office in NYC for 30 days. The DOE didn't comply so PERB took them to court. Judge Christina L Ryba agreed that the notice should be posted. The notice also should be emailed to UFT members working in schools according to how I read the Ryba decision. The reason for the posting I believe is to show that employees do not have to accept the DOE's anti-union work environment.




Is this posting up in every school?

DIANE RAVITCH HIGHLIGHTS FDR'S SECOND BILL OF RIGHTS PROPOSAL; BERNIE SANDERS' 21ST CENTURY ECONOMIC BILL OF RIGHTS SPEECH

As we start 2020, I'd like to be optimistic so I am copying most of Diane Ravitch's post on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's second Bill of Rights proposal from 1944.

I have become a somewhat regular donor to the Bernie Sanders campaign for President of the United States as Bernie is the best hope for fulfilling FDR's dream as we head into the 2020s. (Speaking for me and not ICEUFT or anyone else here.) I was thrilled when Bernie mentioned the teachers taking to the streets to fight for public schools near the beginning of his 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights speech which you can see in full below. We are the number one profession among Bernie donors. Will we have democratic or corporate socialism? We'll decide.

Happy New Year!

Over to Diane for the FDR history:
This is a good time, I think, to revisit Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1944 State of the Union Address. FDR came from the landed gentry but he somehow developed an acute social conscience.

Here is an excerpt from that speech, in which he described the “second Bill of Rights,” what he called “an economic bill of rights.”

He said, as he looked forward to the day when the World War came to an end:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth- is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

One of the great American industrialists of our day—a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis-recently emphasized the grave dangers of “rightist reaction” in this Nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such reaction should develop—if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called “normalcy” of the 1920’s—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.

I ask the Congress to explore the means for implementing this economic bill of rights- for it is definitely the responsibility of the Congress so to do. Many of these problems are already before committees of the Congress in the form of proposed legislation. I shall from time to time communicate with the Congress with respect to these and further proposals. In the event that no adequate program of progress is evolved, I am certain that the Nation will be conscious of the fact.

Our fighting men abroad- and their families at home- expect such a program and have the right to insist upon it. It is to their demands that this Government should pay heed rather than to the whining demands of selfish pressure groups who seek to feather their nests while young Americans are dying.