UFT Members Demand That UFT President Michael Mulgrew Represent Them Properly and Not Promote Secret Changes To The Contract

The coronavirus has added another historical moment to UFT activism. 


NYC teachers are seeing the disaster that collective bargaining by President Michael Mulgrew and other top people at the teachers' union has brought to effective representation and members' rights. The UFT is, it seems from their actions in the past decade, too politicized to follow their own principles. New lawsuits are popping up in Federal Court citing the collaboration of the Department of Education AND the UFT in pursuing harm to members - or at least playing along to get along.

UFT members are not blind to the lack of support the rank and file get when a problem arises such as workplace injury, discrimination, false charges of incompetency, or misconduct. At least most who have had, or continue to have, a problem in his or her workplace have been frustrated by the lack of fair representation at hearings or getting relief.

UFT Secretary and Staff Director Leroy Barr

Two recent cases show what I mean. In one case: a probationary paraprofessional who worked without any disciplinary actions for 18 years, suddenly was accused of swinging a small boy - whose para left him for a moment - in the air and yelling at him. He has autism. One person described this alleged "event" to the principal, and the paraprofessional was discontinued. She filed for arbitration with ADCOM and was shocked when she received the decision, written by Staff Director Leroy Barr who was not at the hearing yet cited her "confession" as stated in the principal's testimony, not the paraprofessional's own testimony, to dismiss her case and deny her the arbitration she requested. 

Tenured members also get shoddy treatment. Tenure is created to protect the rights of teachers to due process and to fight the whims of false claims, and this is something that the UFT is denying members. I know many UFT members who are assaulted by violent students in their classrooms and are denied LODI (line of duty injury) relief by their principals or are told to not go back to their schools and then charged for not stopping the violence, and sent to a 3020-a hearing to be terminated. 

Where is the UFT in this absurdity? 

JANUS V AFCME also made a dent in the all-powerful pocketbook of the UFT as well as other Unions, albeit minor, so far.

Over the last couple of months, members have been demanding the UFT make the Department provide guaranteed safety measures in the fall so that they can go back to in-person teaching without worrying they are going to die. What does the UFT leadership do, but alter the contract without the rank and file voting on the changes! This is what UFT member Michael Flanagan, Ed.D., UFT Chapter Leader, District 10 the Bronx writes, re-posted below.

We hear you, loud and clear.

Betsy Combier

betsy.combier@gmail.com
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Dear UFT President, Represent Your Members by Dr. Michael Flanagan

                                                              August 6, 2020

Dear UFT President Michael Mulgrew, 

I am a 34-year member of the United Federation of Teachers. This morning I received an email from you informing me—and the other 77,000 or so UFT members—that you unilaterally agreed to drastic changes of our working conditions. Those working conditions were voted on by the rank and file members of the union that you were elected to represent. They cannot be changed by you or by the city without another rank and file vote by the members. That has not occurred.

I represent 110 staff members in a school, and I need to protect those members’ rights, from a disease, from a Mayor who is willing to send us back into harm’s way and now, apparently, from my own union. And I will do so.

I am linking our current, legally enforceable UFT contract, for your review. I am also including the email you sent this morning entitled “Your Work Day If School Buildings Reopen”

It is interesting to note, that these very same revisions that you agreed to, were sent out to principals by the Chancellor’s office a week ago, I am linking the video of the Chancellor’s Presentation to the principals, dated July 30th. I was presented with these revisions by my own principal two days ago.

Why is it we, your union members, only hear from you today?

When did these negotiations take place? Who was on those committees? Why were none of these new conditions brought to your members for a vote? Why did the principals know about this a week before your members?

As UFT President you do not have the right to change our contract without a vote by your members. If we are forced to work under these conditions, we will be forced to resist.

With or without you.

Many will claim that teachers in New York City cannot strike, because of the Taylor Law. Well under the Tri-Borough Amendment of the Taylor Law, if our contract expires, we continue to work under the conditions of that expired contract until a new one is approved by the union’s membership. The City of New York will be violating our contract’s working conditions if these “agreed” upon changes go into effect. UFT members will have no choice but to engage in job actions. They may include any and all of the following:

1. Working to the letter of our CURRENT CONTRACT

2. ALL of the UFT members working remotely, and none of us showing up in the physical buildings

3. Mass sickouts

4. A strike

5. Class action lawsuits against the NYCDOE and The UFT for contract violations

If we strike under the Taylor law, we will lose two days' pay for every one day we are out of work. Our union will be fined one million dollars a day, and the union leaders will be arrested.

Due to the health risk of the Coronavirus pandemic, many union members are prepared for that. More will be, the closer we get to the reopening of school.

There is also the unfortunate option, of union members defunding the union, until we get real representation during this crisis. Under the Janus decision, we are all VOLUNTARILY paying union dues. If we are not represented by our leadership, then we have no leadership.

I would urge you to reconsider your email today and this “agreement” you entered without the voice or consent of your union members.

Put these proposed changes TO A VOTE. Now.

Represent your members.

Sincerely,

Michael Flanagan, Ed.D.
UFT Chapter Leader, District 10 the Bronx.

The UFT Bargains Away 3020-a Procedural Due Process: The Cases of Helen Hickey and Rachel Cohn (Court of Appeals, 2011)

From Betsy Combier:

In light of the fact that teachers are now voting on a new contract, perhaps a review of the cases of Helen Hickey and Rachel Cohn is timely. The UFT bargained away important procedural due process rights available under Education Law 3020-a. See below, the Court of Appeals ruled that:

"...with respect to the placement of written materials in tenured teachers' files, that petitioners' union was well aware that, by adopting the CBA provision, it was agreeing to substitute that procedure for other due process procedures that had previously been in place. Therefore, there was ample basis to conclude that the union knowingly waived the procedural rights granted in section 3020-a in that limited arena."

Remember:

"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."

-- Edmund Burke  

In the Matter of Helen Hickey, Appellant, v New York City Department of Education, Respondent. In the Matter of Rachel Cohn, Appellant, v Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York et al., Respondents.

No. 101, No.102

COURT OF APPEALS OF NEW YORK

17 N.Y.3d 729; 952 N.E.2d 993; 929 N.Y.S.2d 1; 2011 N.Y. LEXIS 1339; 2011 NY Slip Op 4541

April 28, 2011, Argued 
June 2, 2011, Decided

PRIOR HISTORY: Appeal, in the first above-entitled proceeding, by permission of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the First Judicial Department, from an order of that Court, entered June 3, 2010. The Appellate Division (1) reversed, on the law, a judgment of the Supreme Court, New York County (Sheila Abdus-Salaam, J.), entered in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, which had directed expungement of a letter from petitioner's personnel file, (2) denied the petition, and (3) dismissed the proceeding. The following question was certified by the Appellate Division: "Was the order of this Court, which reversed the [judgment] of the Supreme Court, properly made?"

Appeal, in the second above-entitled proceeding, by permission of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the First Judicial Department, from an order of that Court, entered June 3, 2010. The Appellate Division (1) reversed, on the law, a judgment of the Supreme Court, New York County (Carol R. Edmead, J.; op 2009 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 4104, 2009 NY Slip Op 30090[U]), entered in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, which had directed expungement of a disciplinary letter from petitioner's personnel file, (2) denied the petition, and (3) dismissed the proceeding. The following question was certified by the Appellate Division: "Was the order of this Court, which reversed the [judgment] of the Supreme Court, properly made?"

Matter of Hickey v New York City Dept. of Educ., 74 AD3d 458, 903 NYS2d 362, 2010 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4619 (N.Y. App. Div. 1st Dep't, 2010), affirmed. 
Matter of Cohn v Board of Educ. of the City School Dist. of the City of N.Y., 74 AD3d 457, 901 NYS2d 640, 2010 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4624 (N.Y. App. Div. 1st Dep't, 2010), affirmed. 

DISPOSITION: In Each Case: Order affirmed, with costs, and certified question not answered upon the ground that it is unnecessary, in a memorandum.

CORE TERMS: teacher, disciplinary, personnel files, collective bargaining agreement, written reprimands, tenured teachers', placement, waived, reprimand, written materials, significantly different, rights granted, school district, incompatible, discipline, negotiated, federation, alternate, knowingly, signature, expunged, agreeing, replace, purview, ample, arena

HEADNOTES

Schools -- Teachers -- Waiver of Statutory Dispute Resolution Procedure

Petitioner teachers were not entitled to have "letters of reprimand" expunged from their personnel files on the ground that respondent board of education failed to follow the disciplinary procedures set forth in Education Law § 3020-a, since petitioners' union waived those procedures and agreed to replace them with alternate disciplinary procedures contained in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) as authorized by Education Law § 3020 (4) (a). The broad CBA provision clearly encompassed written reprimands, and the disciplinary letters at issue fell within its purview. Comparison of the statute and the CBA provision revealed that the procedure in the CBA was significantly different than, and incompatible with, the procedure in section 3020-a, meaning that the parties to the contract could not have intended both procedures to simultaneously apply. Their history of collective bargaining indicated, with respect to the placement of written materials in tenured teachers' files, that petitioners' union was well aware that, by adopting the CBA provision, it was agreeing to substitute that procedure for other due process procedures that had previously been in place. Therefore, there was ample basis to conclude that the union knowingly waived the procedural rights granted in section 3020-a in that limited arena.

COUNSEL: Richard M. Krinsky, Brooklyn, for appellant in the first above-entitled proceeding.

Sherry B. Bokser, New York City, Richard E. Casagrande, Ariana A. Gambella and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, LLP, for appellant in the second above-entitled proceeding.

Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel, New York City (Dona B. Morris and Francis F. Caputo of counsel), for respondents in the first and second above-entitled proceedings.

JUDGES: Chief Judge Lippman and Judges Ciparick, Graffeo, Read, Smith, Pigott and Jones concur.