Our Finalized ABC-UFT Platform: Forged by All of Us, Together
Here is your ABC platform, UFT members.
Back in August, we put out a survey asking UFT members to share their thoughts on the DOE and the union — what’s working, what isn’t, and everything in between.
We asked, and you answered! We received over 1,200 survey responses that overwhelmingly identified common issues our membership is largely in agreement on.
We then put out a tentative draft of the platform based on the survey results and asked for additional feedback. Those who responded overwhelmingly supported it while also offering additional tweaks.
Based directly on that second round of member feedback, we’re excited to share our slate’s final platform with you. It focuses on bread and butter issues that the survey data indicates have broad support from UFT members, and deliberately stays away from issues that are divisive and/or partisan.
Preamble: Why We Need A BETTER CONTRACT
We believe that we need transformative improvements to our labor contract with the DOE and the City of New York, and the social contract between us and our union leadership.
For too long, DOE employees have been overworked and underpaid. While our current union leadership purports to represent our best interests, they have stood by silently while our employer has steadily eroded our working conditions, benefits, and sense of basic dignity. Worse, they have worked hand in glove with the employer to fundamentally degrade the quality of our pensions and healthcare while attempting to pit in-service workers and retired workers against each other.
We further believe that our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions, and that how our employer treats us is inextricably linked to how they treat the children and families of all NYC schools.
At a time of rebirth and renewal of the greater labor movement in the United States, we believe now is the time for a resurgence within the United Federation of Teachers.
We believe it is time to unite as one, non-partisan election slate to end the one-party rule of Michael Mulgrew’s administrative UNITY Caucus and return power to the membership of the UFT.
We acknowledge that we cannot meet these objectives alone, but can achieve success only by working together and leveraging our collective strength as the largest educators’ local in the country.
Our 4 Core Commitments
We will work to:
• Get you the better pay that you deserve that keeps up with the cost of living; while protecting and improving your healthcare and retirement pension/benefits
• Demonstrably improve your working conditions and give you more freedom as a professional
• Build a stronger, more responsive union that answers to you
• Defend public education from any and all attempts at privatization and reduced funding
The Labor Contract with the DOE
We commit to:
• Leveraging the collective power of the MLC to negotiate raises that outpace cost of living for all titles
• Ensuring a living wage for paraprofessionals in particular; win LODI and longevity increases for paraprofessionals that is comparable to other titles
• Protecting premium-free healthcare, including traditional Medicare, for both current employees and retirees
• Fixing Tier 6 sooner than later; lowering the retirement age back down to 55 years old and achieving parity with Tier 4, including restoring the ten year cap on individual contributions
• Increased flexibility for use of CAR days, including using our days for the care of sick children
• Enforcing the contract for all and ensuring our probationary educators are also protected under it
• Working to reclaim the 8.25% interest rate for our TDA
• Adding IEP writing to the default C6 activity menu
• Fixing the broken grievance system and making superintendents accountable for their principals’ actions
• Securing teacher autonomy and members having real input and voice on curricula
• Lobbying for a pro-union amendment to the Taylor Law that allows us to be fully action-ready — including the option to legally strike, if necessary
• Prioritizing our lobbying of elected officials for passage of fairer, more timely COLA adjustments for retiree pensions
• Contract language that gives teeth to state class size legislation
• Fighting to end unilateral mayoral control of our schools
The Social Contract for the UFT
We commit to:
• Boosting UFT Welfare Fund benefits for members on Day 1 — more of the $800 million they’re sitting on will be used to protect members from rising dental costs
• Implementing principles of greater accountability, transparency, member voice, and genuine union democracy — divisions will elect their VPs, CLs will elect their DRs, and members will be provided with a copy of the tentative collective bargaining agreement in its entirety prior to any ratification vote
• Fostering a greater UFT presence in our schools that helps build and support stronger chapters, creates a sense of solidarity with our union and each other, and builds collective power and awareness
• The immediate creation of new functional chapters for librarians, per diem titles, central office positions, and other members who are not being adequately represented by the current UFT leadership
• Giving functional chapter leaders direct access to their members, without censorship from the leadership at 52 Broadway
• Proportional representation — no more winner-take-all elections or one party rule of the union
• Electronic voting now, not later — no more anemic election turnout; we will aim to get more than half of UFT members to vote by 2028 (roughly double what the historical turnout has been) by offering multiple voting methods including electronic voting
• Member voice and referenda — no more decisions on big issues like political endorsements or mandated and/or scripted curricula without genuine member feedback
• Building relationships with other stakeholders — families and students — to oppose top-down DOE policies that harm our school communities; lobbying to provide greater access to resources like mental health and wraparound services
• Aligning our contract expiration dates with UAW and the rest of the labor movement in 2028. (https://www.aft.org/resolution/supporting-uaws-call-align-contract-expirations-may-1)
