Fix Para Pay, the rank and file paraprofessional slate of the UFT, responds to the proposed City Council legislation by the current UFT leadership to get pay increases through a supplemental bonus.
Unity, who controls the UFT, may think they're onto something here. But this pivot to lobbying City Hall to give paraprofessionals a long overdue pay bump just proves how poorly the Unity-run union leadership has governed. First they tell the paraprofessionals that in the last round of contract negotiations the negotiating committee wouldn't bring up salary. Then they cook up this unprecedented strategy (without input from the rank-and-file paras) of lobbying for legislation to supplement para salaries - somehow, with money that Unity had told us wasn't there during the last contract negotiations when we said sub-inflation raises weren't enough. They then perform self-praise on social media for what amounts to an announcement of a lobbying campaign as if they scored some actual victory for the paras. And the kicker is, in the unlikely event that City Hall actually passes a para pay bill (which apparently doesn't even exist yet), the money would be non-pensionable. Unbelievable. At this rate, what fraction of UFT members' pay will be non-pensionable? Are we okay with this bargaining strategy - union officials dictating to actual workers what and how to collectively bargaining, then ramming through poor contracts, and inventing lobbying campaigns to source non-pensionable raises outside of the bargaining process? We deserve better than that - especially the paras.
Well said Fix Para Pay!
but you’ll take the money if it’s offered to you! Right??
Unity, who controls the UFT, may think they're onto something here. But this pivot to lobbying City Hall to give paraprofessionals a long overdue pay bump just proves how poorly the Unity-run union leadership has governed. First they tell the paraprofessionals that in the last round of contract negotiations the negotiating committee wouldn't bring up salary. Then they cook up this unprecedented strategy (without input from the rank-and-file paras) of lobbying for legislation to supplement para salaries - somehow, with money that Unity had told us wasn't there during the last contract negotiations when we said sub-inflation raises weren't enough. They then perform self-praise on social media for what amounts to an announcement of a lobbying campaign as if they scored some actual victory for the paras. And the kicker is, in the unlikely event that City Hall actually passes a para pay bill (which apparently doesn't even exist yet), the money would be non-pensionable. Unbelievable. At this rate, what fraction of UFT members' pay will be non-pensionable? Are we okay with this bargaining strategy - union officials dictating to actual workers what and how to collectively bargaining, then ramming through poor contracts, and inventing lobbying campaigns to source non-pensionable raises outside of the bargaining process? We deserve better than that - especially the paras.