Mulgrew had $450m in his hands to pay paras more and he chose not to! -- With no real plan to FIX PARA PAY, he and his Unity Caucus shift blame to pattern bargaining.

While Mulgrew gives lip service to 'reforming para pay' to help deal with the citywide para shortage, this newly leaked document shows just how much he could have given to paras and OT/PTs

We never get to see the costing summary sheets of city union contracts with the City… but here is UFT ’s last one. And what it reveals is pretty alarming.

When we look at this summary of the UFT contract (2022-2027) that totaled over $6.4 billion, some things jump out as to how Mulgrew:

1. failed to deliver a more sizable increase for paras, despite knowing it’s a shortage area and …

2. was undercut by agreeing to virtual learning so quickly and for so little in return.

After DC 37 agreed to sub-inflation 3% pattern yearly raises for all city workers and was also given some extra money for an Equity Fund for hard to staff positions, it was Mulgrew’s turn to negotiate.

Some big noticings from the UFT costing sheet, which he never shared with us as a union membership as a whole or the 500 member negotiating committee, include:

• The $3k ratification bonus was not costed. (It was a carrot the City gave to all.)

• The total cost of the non pensionable, retention bonuses for all titles was about 1.1% —which is about $450 million. This was not a sum or increase any of us as educators were expecting beyond our pattern raises. Nor was it ever discussed with any of us in the contract committee. That’s because Mulgrew and handful of others negotiated pay and healthcare behind closed doors.

  

  Had Mulgrew unilaterally decided secretly to allocate it to paras because of the shortage, no one would have blinked. Rather, after the deal was reached he argued that equal payments to all titles was “equitable”. This shows his fundamental disconnect as to what equity truly means.

  

  Again, Mulgrew could have easily earmarked this extra pot of cash to give a more sizable wage increase to paras. As we know, this was exactly what DC 37 sought to do with its own hard to staff shortage areas.

  

  DC 37’s last contract provided for such things as an Equity Fund and a Child Care Trust Fund

  But even as many paras work two or more jobs to keep up with the high costs of living in NYC, Mulgrew instead single-handedly diluted the cash to nearly all 120k members as non-pensionable retention bonuses.

  Ultimately, Mulgrew lacked the vision, union values and will to place paras first and failed to equitably give them the lion’s share of that $450 million. Or even share some more of it with OT/PTs who desperately need pay parity. Both titles consist of about 30k UFT members combined.

  This $450 million would have gone a long way to deal with their pay inequities.

• The costing summary sheet reveals he was credited some money from the City for other items. This gave him wiggle room (1.425%) to repackage some of this extra money for increases.

  • .25 % for agreeing to virtual learning

  • .50% for city equity

  • .675% for delaying wage increases in contract extension of over 2 months.

    At the time, it wasn’t clear to us in the UFT contract committee why he also felt he needed to quickly enter into an agreement regarding virtual learning (VL), but clearly getting back a paltry .25% was very appealing to him.

    The City’s concession here probably included costs for salaries and hours but we also know that the City wanted VL because they could save money with the added costs of the new class size law.

    Yet, one has to assume that the City will save many more millions by not having to pay for more physical space in buildings. This VL bargaining credit doesn’t come close to what the city saves.

    When we look at the weak, rushed language regarding virtual learning agreement with its so few future protections for teachers, once again Mulgrew shows us his inability to think beyond the carrots thrown at him by the City. Virtual learning brings with it some inherent risks to our professions that need more oversight.

• Notice how he finagles “more value” from the contract by delaying wage increases throughout the life of the contract. This practice is also worth further scrutiny down the road — along with the need for open bargaining.

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Where is Mulgrew’s and Unity’s plan to FIX PARA PAY? Paras deserve a LIVING WAGE.

This past spring, the Fix Para Pay slate asked the UFT Executive Board and the Delegate Assembly to pass a resolution/amendment calling for a living wage for NYC’s paraprofessionals. A reso that was co-signed by over 4k UFT members.

Mulgew and his administrative Unity caucus, who hold outsized power in both deliberative bodies, chose to gut the reso and refused to accept language for us to collectively develop a robust and comprehensive collective bargaining strategy plan with goals and timelines to achieve a living wage for paras. They instead spoke about their past ‘gains’ — such as printing a para handbook and how much more paras already make compared to other places.

Their failure to address the need for a living wage and their past failures to deliver meaningful wage increases for paras led to the Unity Caucus slate’s loss to the insurgent Fix Para Pay slate in the spring paraprofessional chapter elections. An overwhelming 75% of voting paras sided with the fight for a living wage.

Fix Para Pay (FPP), along with thousands of paras, are demanding a living wage and a union leadership that will finally prioritizes them. Paras didn’t vote for changes in their leadership because they were somehow gullible and misled into thinking this one chapter vote meant an automatic wage increase. NYC’s hard-working paras know very well how things work and who is not working for them — Mulgrew and his Unity Caucus of “No, We Can’t”. It’s why the FPP’s campaign launched with asking leadership to sit down and outline a plan.

We all know the fight for a better contract is going to take a collective effort and one that will come in stages. It’s also why FPP has teamed up with the ‘A Better Contract’ (ABC) slate for the upcoming spring 2025 UFT elections to bring about transformative new union leadership.

Now, that we’re entering a union election year, we see Mulgrew pandering to retirees after he and Unity lost the retiree chapter vote with tepid, non-actionable proclamations against his own Mulgrewcare Medicare Advantage plan. And, he’s doing similarly with more of his trademark empty rhetoric at a recent press conference where he finally addressed the years long paraprofessional shortage by *recommending* reform to their pay. But, he’s yet to share any real specifics about how he will achieve this. In addition, he continues to couch any real commitment to achieving any big wage gains hiding behind being limited by pattern bargaining, as he has stated in various subsequent union meetings.

Furthermore, he seems to even struggle to say the words, “A LIVING WAGE”, in relation to para pay. Perhaps it would mean an acknowledgment that he’s failed to deliver one for them?

Expect Team Unity to deflect after this article is shared and published with their patented ad hominem attacks and hemming and hawing.

Asking: Where is your plan to beat the pattern, Dan?

Don’t fret. I’ll share some cogent and plausible ideas in a subsequent post, shortly.

In the meantime, paras should simply know that Mulgrew and Unity blew it BIG TIME in our last contract round when they had some extra cash that was supposed to go to equitably fund shortage area, hard-to-staff positions. Unsurprisingly, they failed to deliver for our paras — ONCE AGAIN!

The bottom line: We’ve all seen enough.

His and the MLC’s 2014 and 2018 contracts were disastrous with its healthcare givebacks forcing retirees into Medicare Advantage and onerous out of pocket expenses for city workers.

Now this.

Meanwhile, he seeks to blame pattern bargaining for failing to fix para pay but what’s evident is that he and his Unity loyalists lack the creativity, power and will to get paras a living wage!

We can’t afford more of Mulgrew’s giveback, concessionary bargaining any longer.

Literally.

It’s time for A BETTER CONTRACT. Follow the ABC Substack, here.

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