Archives For UFT Contract 2014

Disappointment

June 3, 2014 — 25 Comments

For the first time in almost five years, UFT members finally have a contract. But almost one quarter of the membership (23%) voted against the deal. Most of the members with whom we spoke who approved this contract only did so because they felt it was the best our union could do. We disagree, this contract does not provide the same pay raises that other municipal labor unions received in 2009 and some of those unions are already stating they will reject these terms if offered. We believe our union can and should do much better than this.

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When MORE members reached out to the union leadership about observing the count of the contract ratification ballots, Leroy Barr the UFT assistant secretary and chair of Unity Caucus (the caucus of Michael Mulgrew), offered one observer per caucus of the UFT contract vote.

You should not have to be in a caucus to observe the count. We demanded the vote be open to all UFT members. Members of MORE are not special, we are all UFT. Although the Unity and New Action caucuses both support Michael Mulgrew we see no reason why they should receive special treatment either. MORE refused to send a special representative. Anyone who attends from MORE does so a a UFT member, not a caucus member, Every UFT member must be allowed to observe this critical vote.

In response to our efforts, the UFT leadership has offered to allow as many members who wish to observe the count. See the details below.  We hope that they will advertise this information at UFT.org and in their weekly email to chapter leaders, as we requested. Continue Reading…

Vote No

By Kevin Prosen

Chapter Leader I.S.30

This letter first appeared here in Jacobin

A Letter to New York City’s School Teachers

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votenogeneral1As balloting on the tentative contract proposal begins in schools across the city, please make sure that you distribute the Vote No flyer to your colleagues. Encourage your colleagues to spread the word to as many schools as possible.

Download and print the flyer here.

 

votenogeneral1As balloting on the tentative contract proposal begins in schools across the city, please make sure that you distribute the Vote No flyer to your colleagues. Encourage your colleagues to spread the word to as many schools as possible.

Download and print the flyer here.

 

by Peter Lamphere, member of the UFT Negotiating Committee
Vote No[Click here for a one-page PDF version of this article to distribute to your coworkers]
One of the key questions facing rank and file UFT members at this moment is what happens if we decide to reject the contract proposal from Mayor de Blasio and our leadership.  Few educators are jumping up and down happy about the contract, and many are downright upset, but everyone wants to know – What happens if we vote this down? Is it possible to get something better? What about the leadership’s argument that we would have to “go to the back of the line” and wait for all 150 other city unions to settle?

 

First off, the money is clearly there for something better. Continue Reading…

faircontractnow_logo

By Julie Cavanagh

Teacher/Chapter-leader P.S. 15k

A shortened version of this was published at WNYC/NPR Schoolbook 

The Wait Isn’t Over

UFT members and the children we serve have suffered over the last several years due to deteriorating learning and working conditions. The proposed new UFT contract highlights this administration’s commitment to the restoration of collaboration and communication between our union and the city. It is a welcome departure from the previous administration.

The proposed contract includes some steps forward in rebuilding respect for educators, voices of parents, and open dialogue between the city and its workers. There are changes in this proposed contract that will improve our students’ learning conditions and our working conditions. I have serious concerns, however, with several aspects of this proposal that undermine the importance of solidarity, that fall short of bringing us closer to the schools our students deserve, and that bring into question our value as workers.

Solidarity

The proposed contract will divide educators into several tiers. Once we destroy union solidarity, we destroy our union. Career ladders are nothing more than a merit pay scheme with a different name. The only incentive given here is for great teachers to leave the classroom, which is not a plan for long term school progress. Teacher leadership is critical to the success of schools, but dividing teachers by salary is not a way to achieve this goal.

Due process, job security, and fair evaluations for all educators are the foundations of any teacher’s union contract. There cannot be two sets of rules for educators. Those who were excessed through no fault of their own and were placed in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) pool should not be held to a different standard than their fellow union members.

I also hoped this contract would address pay parity.  Occupational and Physical Therapists, who are essential to the success of the children we serve, make considerably less than their educator colleagues. Paraprofessionals also deserve consideration in this contract, as they are underpaid for the important and challenging work they do.

The Schools Our Children Deserve

This proposal is a missed opportunity to improve the relationships with the communities we serve. I applaud the increased time for parent and teacher collaboration, but this step does not go far enough in advancing the policy issues that parents, educators, and our students are most concerned about.

I hoped this contract would go further in addressing issues of class size, developmentally inappropriate standards, lack of robust curriculum, targeted intervention for students, art instruction, too-large caseloads for counselors, psychologists, and social workers, over emphasis on high stakes testing, the deficit of resources for special needs children, and the continued reliance on flawed test based evaluation.

While I commend the effort to address the needs in hard-to-staff schools, I believe a different path should be taken. Wraparound services, reduced class size, additional nurses, librarians, social workers, counselors, healthy food initiatives, after-school and weekend academic programs, and extracurricular activities are all proven formulas for success, not $5,000 bonus pay. Simply, I feel this money would have been better spent on direct services to children.

I also commend the additional time for educators to work in teacher teams, engage in meaningful professional development, and complete the monumental tasks that we frankly do not currently have the time to complete. However, I am concerned that this time that has been reconfigured to support teachers leaves our children behind, because, with the information I have seen thus far, there will be no efforts to replace targeted intervention for students.

School Leadership Teams (SLTs), which consist of administrators, teachers, parents, and students at the high school level, should be empowered to make authentic decisions for their schools.  While I appreciate what I believe is the good intention behind the PROSE School Initiative, I am concerned about the possibility of “thin contracts” and the inherent acceptance of the assumption that the union contract and Chancellor Regulations have a negative impact on schools.  I would have rather seen these efforts directed at strengthening SLTs in all schools.

Our Value As Workers

UFT members are dedicated professionals, and although we didn’t become educators for the money, we do have families to raise and financial obligations that have become more difficult over the past five years.  I am a teacher, a wife, a mother, and a New Yorker; I want to live where I work and provide my son with every opportunity. I do my part to improve our schools and society for him, for all children, and for their families.

This proposed contract would have members accept raises that are less than two percent each year between 2009 – 2018, less than the rate of inflation. Salaries around the country have fallen behind, which has caused income inequality for many families of the children we serve. Every working man and woman deserves a living wage and annual cost of living increases. If our union does not take this stand, who will?

Our friends in virtually every other municipal labor union received the wage increases they deserved nearly five years ago. Today they continue to have the full 8% as part of their salary scale, even though most now also find themselves with expired contracts. UFT members will not receive these wage increases with retro-pay until 2020. In September, UFT members will walk into a 2% raise and $1,000 rather than the 8% we deserve.

If we accept this deal, other union members may be forced to accept similar bad contracts. This proposed contract sets a dangerous precedent.  Politicians now have the green light to refuse to negotiate in good faith and force pay freezes for workers, 0% pay raises, deferred raises and retro-pay and a contract that is below the rate of inflation.

The Contract Our Schools and Educators Deserve

UFT members have been without a contract for over five years. We, along with the communities we serve, have faced a tidal wave of attacks on our neighborhood schools. A new contract has the power to right these wrongs. I believe the path to real change must be traveled together. Only through the active involvement of our members, parents, and with respect for all students, can we achieve the promise of public education and the schools our children deserve.

Many teachers I know, and my amazing colleagues at PS 15, would have happily conceded some financial compensation in favor of a greater improvement to teaching and learning conditions.  Given that this contract extends beyond the next Mayoral election, we have surrendered vast opportunities for meaningful improvements and progressive “reform”.

I encourage school communities in the coming days and weeks to have collective, open and transparent discussions in their chapters, during lunch, and with their families, the kind of conversations we should be having in our union hall, to reach an informed decision on members’ ratification vote.

Please see our contract tab on this site for fliers and additional articles

 

"MEMO to UFT President Michael Mulgrew from Movement of Rank and FIle Educators MERIT PAY ≠ Solidarity"

By James Eterno

Jamaica High School Chapter Leader

Report from UFT’s 5/7/14 Delegate Assemebly

I am going to dispense with my usual lengthy summary of what President Mulgrew said because you’ve already seen most of it in the UFT propaganda literature or you will hear it when union representatives come to your schools.

“Up until two months ago at the DA, Mulgrew was telling us that the city has money but they always say they are broke.  I keep reading in the papers that the city surplus is growing.”

(Mulgrew in February)
“We look at the city’s fiscal numbers all the time; it is clear to us that there is money out there. We need our teachers to be paid at least at the level of the school districts around us, which we are not.”)

I continued: “The city is not in bad shape financially so why are we settling for so little.  If we take out the 4% + 4% for the first two years that just equals the last pattern (and we won’t see until between 2015 and 2020), the pattern we set for the rest of municipal labor is 10% total over 7 years.”  That is the worst pattern in municipal labor history (at least as long as I have been around).”  Continue Reading…

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? john lydon vote no on the uft contract"

UFT CONTRACT: NOT A DONE DEAL UNTIL THE MEMBERSHIP VOTES

NYC Public School Educators to UFT Leaders: “Go Back to the Bargaining Table!”

 

MORE –  A UFT Caucus — Calls for Educators to Vote No

Launches grassroots campaign for “Contract NYC Educators Deserve”

 WHEN: Wednesday, May 7 2014, approximately 6:15pm (After UFT Delegate Assembly)

WHERE: SW Corner of 6th Ave and 54th St, in front of Hilton (1335 Ave of Americas, NYC)

WHAT: MORE-UFT (Movement of Rank and File Educators) calls for UFT members to vote “no” on the leadership’s contract proposal. The bargain under consideration: Continue Reading…

by Mike Schirtzer, Teacher/Delegate, Leon Goldstein HS

Deferred Raises in the 2014 UFT Contract

 

The UFT and City of New York finally came to an agreement. In fact, the UFT Facebook celebrated by proclaiming “the wait is over” and it’s “the contract for education”. Unfortunately, this is not the contract we deserve, and it is no reason for a victory lap. Simply put, the retroactive pay is delayed until 2020, the raises are deferred until 2018, and New York City educators are left with 5 years of pay freezes and “raises” that don’t even keep up with the cost of living in New York. We have not received a raise in 5 years and now are being told to celebrate because we finally have one! This is not a fair contract and clearly not the raise and back pay we deserve. Our costs from milk to gas to utilities to our children’s colleges, have skyrocketed and all we can celebrate is a 2% pay increase starting in September.  This is a demeaning insult to our profession.

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