As a UFT District Rep I serviced the needs of 2.000 plus union members, from answering questions, to resolving payroll and certification issues, to representing the views of teachers at the district level. I rapidly realized I had to develop relationships: to bring Kelly, the Personnel Director’s secretary a cup of her favorite coffee. she’d smile, “What do you need today?” and the para payroll problem was fixed. My wife and I spent holidays in Europe, visiting churches and listening to organ concerts in magnificent churches, and I’d buy a few religious pins in the gift shop. I’d give the pins to the superintendent’s secretaries, I was always at the top of the list to speak with the superintendent, or, “not today,” he’s in a bad mood.” Building relationships was an essential part of the job, especially if you wanted to be “.. in the room where it happens.”
When a very important person’s wife got a job in the District Office I was purposefully blind, the superintendent also had to build relationships.
The play Hamilton has perfect lyrics,
No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
… Madison is grappling with the fact
That not every issue can be settled by committee
… Congress is fighting over where to put the capital
… It isn’t pretty
… The immigrant emerges with unprecedented financial power
A system he can shape however he wants
The Virginians emerge with the nation’s capital
And here’s the pièce de résistance
… No one else was in the room where it happened
The room where it happened
The room where it happened
No one else was in the room where it happened
The room where it happened
… No one really knows how the parties get to “Yes”
The pieces that are sacrificed in every game of chess
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in the room where it happens
The Class Size Reduction bill was filed in the last days of the 2022 session, called “the Big Ugly,” hundreds of bills pass without debate, a legislator with kids in public school guided the bill, Mayor Adams demanded the governor veto the bill, it would cost the city $1.5B!!! Governor Hochul was on the November ballot and her lead was shrinking by the day, she needed a NYSUT/UFT endorsement, by coincidence (smirk!) she was endorsed and she signed the bill. Advocacy courses for years will teach processes that had absolutely no chance of ever being negotiated, bypassing management, using “politics” to pass a law.
The opposition caucuses within the UFT riled against the path, “it should have been passed through normal collective bargaining,” a pathway with no chance of ever succeeding. What happened in the “room where it happens,?” We’ll probably never know.
The Respect check for paraprofessionals, the $10,000 pay bump was derailed by the last Speaker of the City Council, Adrienne Adams, maybe because the UFT did not endorse her in the June mayoral primary. The UFT made no endorsement. Adams was term limited.
The current Speaker, the second most powerful elected in the city is “elected” by the newly elected 51 members of the City Council the first week in January, usually behind the scenes haggling over committee assignments. Julie Menin wrapped up the speakership weeks before the vote and the UFT had made generous contributions to her campaign and had built an ongoing relationship. With a substantial budget deficit the “respect check” has an uphill struggle, last year’s bill has been rewritten, maybe with significant input from the Speaker and the Mayor, however, once again the opposition caucus has sharply criticized the bill and the process (did the UFT buy off the Speaker?). It appears opposition, not invited to be “in the room” would rather have no “respect check,”
… No one really knows how the parties get to “Yes”
The pieces that are sacrificed in every game of chess
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in the room where it happens
The opposition caucus is supporting the NYS Health Act, aka Medicare for All, mirroring Canada and the European nations. Th
The bill has been introduced in the legislature every year since the early 1990s and never passed both houses of the state legislature. The NYS unions, including the UFT, have opposed the bill as written. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs for the last decade I traveled to Albany for the September to July Board of Regents meetings. I actually read the bill, discussed it with the prime sponsor. did my due diligence, and criticized the existing bill, all the public employee unions are opposing the bill, as written. Hopefully the sponsors of this year’s iteration of the bill will include labor at the table “in the room where it happens,” not present a fait accompli, although with Trump in the White House essential federal support is highly unlikely.
The opposition caucuses sitting on the sidelines lobbing rocks is not collaboration, hoping for failure to create an angry constituency may be a political pathway frequently followed in today’s political environment, for me it weakens unions, in an era when labor, and especially teacher unions ,are under attack, and quoting Benjamin Franklin, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately”.
Ed in the Apple: Blogging on the Intersection of Education and Politics Title 