Intimidation during the vote – 37½ minutes
Unity is desperate to get this contract to pass. One line they are using claims that there will be no modifications to school schedules unless the contract passes: “If the contract is not ratified the default schedule is 37.5 minutes of student engagement…”
What gives?
Unity allowed SBOs and flexibility so they wouldn’t be blamed for creating the extra time in the first place
Every year schools pick a schedule option. They pick “preapproved” options – or they write their own School Based Option (SBO) – principal and chapter leader must agree – then it goes to a vote of the membership. There is always a default – to be sure – but many many schools SBO their way to their own schedule.
The 150 minutes (or is it 155?) has been floating around since the UFT leadership sold it to us in a bad contract two decades ago. And for the twenty years since those 37½ minutes (that’s 150 divided by four – Monday through Thursday) have been mostly a nuisance for most teachers in the system.
What came before? We used to have a shorter workday. Mulgrew, Barr, your borough reps, most of your officers – they all supported lengthening the day – they pushed for the original 37½ minutes.
And for two decades the UFT leadership has tried to find new ways to slice up those 150 minutes – to make them palatable. And they don’t want to take the blame (though they fully deserve it) – so they create lots of options, and allow schools to create their own options.
This year Unity says 37½ will be the only choice – unless the contract is passed
It’s not the DoE saying this. It’s Unity.
That is the actual language Unity wants Chapter Leaders to share with members – during the SBO vote – and during the contract vote.
Who approves SBOs? The DoE and the UFT leadership. Who is saying no? The UFT leadership. Unity. Why? They are trying to lean on members to vote yes.
Will Unity really stop approving individual SBOs?
Probably not. But they are trying to make their threat credible right now – because winning the vote is important to them. DRs are telling at least some schools that only preapproved schedules will be considered. I could see them causing a year of chaos, trying to blame teachers who voted no on the contract (which is really not related).
Would the DoE approve time SBOs?
Sure.
But Unity says it will deny them.
Is the Unity leadership really planning to make members’ schedules worse if their contract isn’t approved?
That’s one hell of a question, isn’t it?
JD2718 
what a shock that Unity is intimidating and obfuscating! It’s a modus operandi for them. Look at how they have dealt with healthcare in (or hidden in) the last few contracts in general and how they have dealt with screwing retirees by forcing them into the Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan. Unity fights against it own union members to help the city and the mayor take away rights and benefits. Then the leaders of Unity lie about or hide what really is happening, or in the case of Aetna deny what the actual contract between the city and Aetna says, and also attack the people pointing out the facts (in the Aetna case the retirees suing), claiming they don’t know what they are talking about, are misrepresenting facts, or just are bad people and the only people you should trust are the Unity people. This is Unity’s playbook for every issue these days where they get pushback. It’s also the same playbook of dictators and totalitarian states throughout history. (You can actually read about that in history books, although I’m sure Unity people would say I’m misreading history.) A full disclosure note: I used to be a chapter leader and a very active member of the Unity caucus until they started their dissembling and misrepresentations and hiding information and bullying of people like myself who actually dared to ask questions.
Did you speak out against what was being done to senior teachers via placement in the ATR pool? Did you have the teachers of your school welcome ATRs? Did you introduce yourself? Did you make sure they got a restroom key and were aware of their rights when set upon by administration? In the 59 different high schools I was placed in six years, I only met one Chapter Leader who did. Now as a retiree I’m always shaking my head when I read impassioned cries to heaven from retired former Unity folks. But then again, perhaps you were one of the few, or the one that I did come across, that actually gave a shit – if so I fully commiserate and share your concerns, as they are also mine.
I don’t know if the commenter (tired teacher) spoke out – but I certainly did.
I’m saddened that chapter leaders did not introduce themselves and offer help – but it’s also clear you were never assigned to my school. I argued that the union should direct chapter leaders to assist ATRs (I was on the executive board) and eventually wrote the “bathroom key” resolution – although the bathroom key was only one line it.
I was horrified to learn about CLs colluding with administrations against ATRs (including a current UFT full-timer who was cool with ATRs having six classes since – in his words – they didn’t need preps).
Search this blog for “ATR” or “Absent Teacher Reserve” – it goes back, as you would expect, for years – back to the D79 (unfair) reorganization
This was apparently the first resolution I ever had adopted. It’s weak, I know that – but it was necessary
I did fight against the treatment of teachers in the ATR pool, once such a thing existed. I did welcome ATRs when they arrived. I did make sure ATRs were treated like welcome members of our staff by other teachers. I did make sure they had bathroom keys and knew their rights and knew to come to me for their protection and defense against and from an abusive principal. I regularly and vigorously defended them, and all my staff, when they were mistreated. I even used up favors I had with Unity and the union to get an ATR teacher who had needed an injury in the line of duty early retirement one when the city was denying it for years and no one was helping her….and when I was injured in the line of duty and had to retire early because of it, I had to take a one third pension reduction to retire because I couldn’t get an injury in the line of duty early retirement because I was told I had already used up all my favors for helping other teachers in tough situations and had used up my injury in the line of duty favors for that ATR.
and I spent almost every day at war with the administration in my school, fighting to protect the rights of each and every teacher, even the teachers in the school who did everything they could to undermine me and the union so they could curry special treatment and cushy extra pay activities from the principal and assistant principals, even those who tried to set me up to have extra problems with my administration so it could try to force me out, because protecting and fighting for my teachers equally was my job and responsibility as chapter leader. so if you had been in my school, you would have had a different kind of chapter leader than you apparently experienced in your career.
Where was unity when I was severely injured in the line of duty? The union rep at the medical lied about the statement the doctor made to me and lost me $30,000 in line of duty pay when the doctor tried to put me back in the classroom with a fractured spine. Unity has been against us for many years. Since Sandy and Randy left, there has not been a unity president who has fought for us in the way we deserve.
I can’t speak about your union rep at your medical appointment. I pesonally as a chapter leader looked out for everyone I represented to the best of my ability…if you read what I said, I have big issues with unity for a while….and I wouldn’t be so quick to put randy in the category of the kind of president sandy was. I believe the downfall of the UFT started with randy in many ways. I remember being removed from a meeting randy was running to sell a contract she had negotiated because I asked pointed questions about that contract and what a number of terms meant. it was indicated quite clearly to me that I was to shut up and be a drone and support what randy was saying and not ask any questions, even if what she was saying wasn’t really good for us classroom teachers. there are many more examples of the change of the direction of unity that started with randy. mulgrew has just continued and exacerbated what got started by randy
Thank you, both. It is my sincerest hope that positive change occurs soon for UFT retirees and any and all active teachers that find themselves stigmatized and marginalized by the DOE and their own union.
THE DOE and the UFT******
How to prove collusion….conflict of interests????