In Praise of the UFT Staff

Over the past year the opposition caucuses have been demeaning the folks who keep the union running, for the most part invisible, the staff. 

The borough offices are staffed by part timers who work a few days a week supporting the full time staff who worked their way up the informal internship system.

I was a union “activist,” I volunteered for rallies, I attended the Executive Board meetings, and I was offered a part time position. I was working on my dissertation (never completed), I had passed the principal’s examination, I chose the UFT, and in time was selected as a District Rep,  an intense job, representing teachers in thirty schools, attending community meetings, working with electeds, and also an Arbitration Advocate. An intense period of training, it was both gratifying and meaningful. 

Arbitration decisions are the equivalent of Appellate Court decisions for the Department and the Union, they are precedential.

A teacher was arrested and removed to rubber room pending a court appearance missing his summer per session job, the court issued an Adjournment Pending Dismissal and after a requisite period of time dismissed the charges, does the dismissal require the Department make the teacher whole by paying him for lost per session, the arbitrator ruled yes, the APD is not a finding of guilt, a precedential decision.

A long term substitute was dismissed and placed on an ineligible list, he was accused of calling female students “tigras,” the principal said it was a sexually connoted term,  At the CUNY Center for Dominican Studies I located an expert who was anxious to testify, the term had no sexual connotations, we settled case, remove him from the ineligible list and expunge all references to the incident in his file.

Three teachers Orthodox Jewish teachers filed for religious observance absence days for the middle days of Passover, the superintendent denied the request, arguing the days were insignificant. I located a highly respected Talmudic scholar who gave me a copy of an ancient text listing the duties of Jewish men during the days. The superintendent was adamant. The arbitrator ruled management could not determine the depth of an employees religious beliefs, again, a precedential decision.

The union staff defends the rights of members every day, from answering questions, resolving salary problems to complex grievances.

From pension consultations to the “care and feeding” of individual City Council members, a highly important legislator always comes by a union staffer’s mother house during the Passover Seder, he loved her matzo ball soup, building relationships is crucial.

I sometimes muse, I might have become a high school principal, if I finished my dissertation, a college professor, no regrets, defending the rights of teachers, making “teaching” more of a profession, the path is steep, we must pass the baton to new generations of fighters, demeaning union staffers  is disgraceful, we should be thanking them and urging newer teachers become union activists, especially in the years ahead.