Mulgrew/UFT : Acquiescence, Collusion and its Establishment of Ageism Against it’s Members

  

Something dawned on me the other day. I was looking and reading about how all these diverse groups are demanding justice based on already established laws. I think that’s great - if you discriminate against a group of people for no other reason then they’re different and/or for some type of gain, those doing the discriminating should be punished. Then I started thinking about my own experiences with the DOE, especially towards the end of my career. This was precipitated by the 2005 contract in which we had traded away our seniority rights for a higher salary. I guess nobody, including the Uft, figured out that Bloomberg would close down schools and not rehire senior teachers. He basically outwitted everyone, even the folks we paid to protect and advocate for us. The person who facilitated that particular infamous contract was Randi Weingarten. In her ever ambitious pursuit for her next position, she left and became president of the AFT. Before leaving she chose Michael Mulgrew to replace her. He didn’t have much of a curriculum vitae. He was a Staten Island workshop teacher, who really wasn’t - in that he solely showed workshop videos in class. Huh? Yeah, I know. He seemed like a pleasant enough guy though, not especially remarkable in anyway - other than he seemed like a regular guy - someone Rodney Dangerfield might hang out with in Easy Money. What ensued during that first year of his inauguration was pure mayhem for many of us. Our schools were closed and we were turned into modern day traveling gypsies. A different school, every week with Bloomberg trying to get us to go to a different borough every day. There were a few victories, in that we didn’t have to randomly travel to a different borough daily and we still had a job - as we were told over and over again, for years, ad nauseum. It was little consolation to me at the time - I felt betrayed, angry and totally humiliated. You see I had spent about seven years before that trying to use compassion, sensitivity and reason in dealing with some of the worst students in the city. I had been kicked, punched, spit on and viciously berated in front of large groups for nothing other than trying to institute some type of order and safety for my school, students and staff. Sublimating that anger can do a number on one’s psyche. Often not screaming, threatening and cursing out the offending party was seen as being soft - even worse acquiescing to whatever is being said. From personal experience, I knew this type of ghetto reasoning was wrong and I gave Mulgrew a lot of credit and leeway in his position. In other words, I supported him fully, especially in the beginning. I felt he was thrown into something that he really didn’t understand and that wasn’t completely explained to him. There wasn’t much you could do but remain standing. That in and of itself is quite the feat when you’re fighting someone like Bloomberg. I recently found out that I have quite a bit of Norwegian blood even though I’m 100% Irish. My father used to tell me all the time we had a lot of Viking blood, and that Vikings would die standing up in battle. I think some of that must’ve sunk into me because I would never walk away, even when I was getting wildly berated or attacked. And I thought of that when I saw what was happening to Mulgrew. If anyone complained to me about him, I said give him a break - we’re all getting hammered and he’s doing the best he can. I maintained that stance until about the time Bloomberg left. With a new mayor and administration coming in I felt there was now a lot that could be done.

I believed (and still do) that some of the more insidious Bloomberg policies needed to go. The worst of his intricate games was co-invented with Joel Klein and called Fair Student Funding. Each school got their individual budget for the year, and out of their budget they had a certain amount of money in which to hire their teachers. FSF was used to ensure that there was a monetary disincentive to hiring a more experienced teacher. 90% of the time this equated to an older teacher. This accounting scheme was and is allowed to go on to this very day, without any attempts by our union or Mulgrew to stop it. It was at this time that I felt Mulgrew had made a choice and the choice was not for his members, but for pragmatism, i.e. getting a seat at the table with those who make the important decisions. This choice was open collusion. Nothing has changed as far as that philosophy with Mulgrew or with the Uft.

Currently, Mulgrew and the Uft have taken it a step further, in that they have initiated what can only be called overt ageism. Closed door deals to save the city money on the backs of fixed income retirees. Medicare Advantage - (a misnomer if there ever was one) a plan which has fewer doctors and pre-approvals galore - and there are other numerous intricacies that leave this plan far inferior to what  Uft retirees are currently offered. Meanwhile, there was/is no planned diminishment of working Uft members healthcare, only retirees. Additionally, there was no initial input from the retirees or voting - and worse there were threats and intimidations bandied about because Mulgrew couldn’t legally do what he was doing. So he threatened to take away everyone’s health care or establish an inferior plan for everyone. ‘Everybody has to work to change the current code or everybody’s gonna get an inferior deal.’ Why should one group be pitted against the other? Why should you punish the neediest members of the Uft? One remembers the constant screams of social justice for various groups that the Uft constantly bull horns - well what about ageism? Where are the resolutions against that? The UFT will fight to protect the rights of every possible group, but it won’t protect its own members?! Where does this lead to? Every year the city says it’s broke and every year another one of our rights are traded away for a raise. Maybe it’s time to look at things differently. Maybe it shouldn’t be about a raise -maybe it should be about maintaining or increasing the rights of working and retired teachers. I know Michael Mulgrew is not the man for the job. He’s not as clever as Randi Weingarten. That’s a shame - but, she was a backstabbing bitch. Karma is catching up with her. It’s OK that Mulgrew is not too smart - I don’t hold that against him. What’s not OK is that Mulgrew is a liar, a coward and deeply dishonest towards the very constituencies that he has taken an oath to protect, and paid handsomely to do so. There are federal laws against ageism and I believe the Uft has broken them and is currently attempting further illegalities under the direction of Michael Mulgrew.