We Also Do The Work

“It’s a big club…and you ain’t in it!” -George Carlin

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“We do the work.” I’m sure you’re familiar with this catch phrase as the slogan of Unity: the caucus that has been in control of our union for sixty some odd years. To be honest, this tagline irks me. It always has. Long before I ever even considered becoming a slate candidate in the general election, the idea of a small circle of people taking all of the credit for the accomplishments of our union was something I found to be quite insulting. Our union has nearly 200,000 members. How many of those are members of Unity? 1%? 2%? 5%? We do the work? Is the idea that the other 90+% of us are just sitting on our hands?

“We do the work.” To be clear, the “We” in their slogan does not include you. It does not include me. It does not include any of us who haven’t taken the Unity loyalty oath and forked over the extra cash to be a part of their exclusive club. I have been a UFT member for over 23 years and a chapter leader for the past 13 of those. I am not part of the invite-only Unity “We”, but I am absolutely (and more importantly) a part of a much larger “We”: the vast majority of chapter leaders, delegates, para reps, and other rank and file UFT members who are not a part of their club, but are very much a part of this union. And for the record: We also do the work.

We may not have headshots on the UFT website, fancy titles, paid union gigs in the borough offices, or additional pensions, but we are on the frontlines in our school buildings every day. We organize our members. We sit on committees. We hold meetings. We attend rallies. We mediate disputes between members. We circulate petitions. We fight back against abusive administrators. We lobby lawmakers. We make sure our buildings are safe and that our contract is enforced at the school level. We pay dues. We contribute to COPE. We also do the work. A lot of it.

The United Federation of Teachers has nearly 200,000 members. We should be the strongest union in the country. We should be doing much better than settling for small raises that don’t keep up with the cost of living and contracts that do little to improve our working conditions and continue to keep us falling back instead of surging forward. 200,000 is a lot of people. If we were able to truly activate 200,000 members (or even a larger fraction of them), we would be able to accomplish so much more. Unfortunately, however, despite our numbers, our power is lacking. Pardon the pun, but rather than “unity’, what we have in our union is division. An elitist small group of people at the top who dismiss the masses will never harness the true potential of our power. I feel much of that is owed to the fact that their system is set up to keep certain people in power rather than to advance the interests of the collective.

True story: A few years back, a Unity member that I knew from my work as chapter leader reached out to me to discuss a “financial opportunity” for me with the UFT. I was initially interested, but when I was told becoming a member of Unity was a prerequisite for the job, I declined the offer. I’m not a caucus type of guy. Blind loyalty is not my thing. In a perfect world, there would be no caucuses, but rather all members working for the same goals: to improve our pay, benefits, and working conditions. Regardless of which caucus or slate you prefer in this election, I would imagine that we ALL want those same things. I don’t think anyone is out there campaigning to keep Tier VI as is or to lower our salaries, or to increase class sizes or our workload. So it is not really a question of where these slates or caucuses stand on these issues, but rather a question of who would serve us better in helping to achieve those goals.

If you think that is our current leadership, that is your right, but I simply ask why?

There is a lot of this “we do the work” talk now that we are in election season. Some big issues that didn’t seem to be a priority previously are front and center. Our paraprofessionals are a prime example. The potential $10,000 non-pensionable, non-contractual bonuses are better than nothing, I guess, but the caucus in charge has had the opportunity to “fix para pay” in every contract negotiation since before we landed a man on the moon, and it hasn’t happened yet. Beyond that, a pay increase is not the only thing our paras need. Some quick cash is always good to have, so I am not at all opposed to the so-called “respect check”, but if you really respect our paras and the work that they do, why hasn’t anything been done about their actual payscale, longevity increases, and LODI protections? And once again, with the recent news of many city council members vowing to support the para bill, Unity is taking all of the credit for it. It doesn’t matter if you were a rank and file member out there rallying in support of the bill or if you were a para rep or chapter leader who circulated a petition, or if you contacted your city council members, or that your COPE dollars were used to advance this push. You don’t matter. In Unity’s mind, they do the work, not you. As Geroge Carlin once said: “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!”

In fairness though, if they want to credit any positive news to the Unity “We’, they should also take “credit" for the rest of it. Unity was in charge when Cuomo brought Tier 6 about and despite the election-time talk, I don’t recall much pushback at the time. Worse, they’re now offering him a free photo op to come play teacher for a day and actually entertaining the idea of endorsing him. Hard pass. I still have my “Fight Cuomo” UFT button.

It was Unity at the helm when our 8.25% TDA fixed rate guarantee was reduced to 7%. They did that work. They were also in charge when Danielson was ushered in, when 155 minutes were added to our work week, and when mandated and scripted curriculums were forced upon us without our input (Now we have to do that work). Under our current leadership our healthcare costs have skyrocketed with exponential increases in co-pays, and our retirees needed to battle their own union in court to hold onto the healthcare they were promised. I can’t honestly say that I have confidence in that type of track record.

I find it interesting (but not at all surprising) that most of those who are openly showing support for Unity are those who hold paid union positions. I am not sure if there are any district reps, borough reps, special reps, paid UFT staffers, etc. who are NOT members of Unity. Can anyone who is in one of these positions explain why this is not problematic? This is not meant to knock any individuals who might be in this situation; I know many staffers and reps who work hard and do a fine job. I do, however, seriously question the practice of exclusively hiring or appointing sworn loyalists. If your job is dependent on your loyalty to the leadership as opposed to the membership, aren’t your interests compromised? I have had others tell me that they joined Unity because they wanted to get a job with the union, so they played the game. It shouldn’t be a game.

I have to admit that when I was initially asked to be a part of the ABC slate for this election, I was a bit hesitant. While I was impressed by the fact that the people in ABC were actively reaching out to the rank and file to get their input on creating a truly member-driven platform, I also knew that being part of a so-called “opposition slate” could come with certain risks. Unity has a lot of power. They have been in charge for a long time and the system is set up in a way to make that difficult to change. Again, I know (and respect) quite a few Unity members, some of them in high positions, and I am sure most of them won’t be happy with what I wrote here. But they can’t say it’s not true. So while it may put me in an uncomfortable position to be in opposition to the powers that be, I take comfort in the truth. We also do the work.

One of the main points that sold me on A Better Contract is the fact that it is made up of current and former members from various caucuses, as well as people like myself who have never had any caucus affiliation. ABC envisions a union where those in positions of power are accountable to the membership rather than the leadership. To be clear, I am under no delusions that a change in leadership is going to automatically and instantly make everything better. I know it will take a lot of work to achieve the things that are important to all of us, and not just from those who are in elected positions, but from ALL of us as union members. As an English teacher, it’s a bit hard for me to write this next grammatically incorrect sentence, but I can’t think of a better way to say it: We need a bigger “We”. In order for us to reach our potential we need a leadership that values the work of all of our members regardless of what group they may or may not belong to and members who feel empowered by their leadership as opposed to unseen.

So for me, this election really comes down to who I trust more to look out for the best interests of the membership, to build true union power from the ground up, and to actually listen and respond to the concerns of chapter leaders, delegates, teachers, paraprofessionals, school counselors and other members who are also doing this work day in and day out. Is that an invite-only caucus that puts itself above the union and claims all of the credit, but none of the blame? Not for me.

My vote is for Amy Arundell. My vote is for ABC. My vote is for the UFT. We also do the work.

-Gary Malone

ABC Executive Board