On Tuesday 12-12 at 5:30 PM, UFT’s New Action Caucus (NAC/UFT) will come together as they ramp up their education/advocacy efforts around healthcare, pension, and working conditions for UFT members.
It is my great hope that New Action will recruit retirees who will become delegates to the Retiree Advocate slate to stop the Unity slate of the Retiree Chapter which is voting against the health care interests of UFT retirees to take away Medicare and GHI Senior Care.
What isn't mentioned among NAC's accomplishments is that, from 2004 to 2016, NAC formed an electoral coalition with the same Unity Caucus he so accurately critiques here. During those years, in every city wide election, NAC supported first Randi Weingarten and then her successor, Michael Mulgrew, for UFT President. In exchange, Unity supported a handful of NAC's candidates for Executive Board, enabling them to win. So NAC shares the responsibility for all the bad decisions the union president made those years, including the disastrous 2005 contract, which, among other givebacks, gave up the right to grieve letters in the file that were "unfair or inaccurate. "
Yes, albeit before my time. In 2004, I was a sophomore in high school. NAC had its reasons for joining electorally with Unity - a particularly terrible climate for public education and unions made NAC feel the best choice for UFT members was to have something of a partial alliance. We also learned from our mistakes. I can tell you with confidence there's no plan to go back. Here's an article I wrote about why we ran with UFC rather than Unity in the last election: https://newaction.org/why-new-action-is-running-with-united-for-change-not-unity/
It is my great hope that New Action will recruit retirees who will become delegates to the Retiree Advocate slate to stop the Unity slate of the Retiree Chapter which is voting against the health care interests of UFT retirees to take away Medicare and GHI Senior Care.
What isn't mentioned among NAC's accomplishments is that, from 2004 to 2016, NAC formed an electoral coalition with the same Unity Caucus he so accurately critiques here. During those years, in every city wide election, NAC supported first Randi Weingarten and then her successor, Michael Mulgrew, for UFT President. In exchange, Unity supported a handful of NAC's candidates for Executive Board, enabling them to win. So NAC shares the responsibility for all the bad decisions the union president made those years, including the disastrous 2005 contract, which, among other givebacks, gave up the right to grieve letters in the file that were "unfair or inaccurate. "
Yes, albeit before my time. In 2004, I was a sophomore in high school. NAC had its reasons for joining electorally with Unity - a particularly terrible climate for public education and unions made NAC feel the best choice for UFT members was to have something of a partial alliance. We also learned from our mistakes. I can tell you with confidence there's no plan to go back. Here's an article I wrote about why we ran with UFC rather than Unity in the last election: https://newaction.org/why-new-action-is-running-with-united-for-change-not-unity/