Unity Chapter Leader speaks out to caucus about their personal attacks against union members — especially retirees and paras

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As Mulgrew’s administrative, bureaucratic Unity caucus continues its “scorched earth” campaign attacking rank and file members, especially against paraprofessionals and retirees who speak out for more member voice, a brave high school Unity chapter leader has had enough of the caucus’ bullying tactics.

The Unity chapter leader took objection to caucus peers’ antics in a well known, popular Facebook group that many DOE UFT members participate in.

Just last week, a high ranking UFT official, Mulgrew’s own executive assistant, doxxed a newly elected paraprofessional on her Facebook page, misrepresenting the para’s long held second job as some type of conspiratorial attempt to profit from her new position. In fact, this para has had this second job for several years now and is left little option but to work another job, like most paraprofessionals in the DOE, because they don’t earn a living wage. Rather than address the calls to fix para pay, Unity has engaged in a bullying strategy against paras calling for a living wage.

The following is the Unity chapter leader’s social media response to a propaganda-ridden, unsourced blog post that Unity members shared in a coordinated attack against long time union activist, Norm Scott, mischaracterizing his remarks at the most recent October delegate assembly. The CL showed displeasure at a toxic pattern of behavior within Unity.

(For more context find the minutes and analysis of the last Delegate Assembly here, written by Nick Bacon.)

I wasn’t in attendance at the DA either in person or remotely, so I’ll refrain from commenting on the accuracy of how Norm’s position is being characterized.

What I would instead like to know is why UNITY Caucus, the caucus I’ve been a member of for nine years, 1) doesn’t give attribution to the author(s) of these blog posts and 2) refuses to allow comments on them? This follows anonymous social media posts someone made on Unity’s FB page cyberbullying a paraprofessional and, prior to that, staff members heckling a member who expressed their concerns about the current MOA at a negotiating committee meeting.

I doubt anyone from Unity will read this but I am telling you as someone with experience in politics that the lack of transparency and open dialogue is not doing us any favors as a caucus. Far from it.

I have raised these concerns as well as others internally and gotten nowhere. I messaged the Unity FB account months ago and have never received a response (despite getting a read receipt), apparently leaving me no choice but to raise these concerns publicly.

Maybe I’m mistaken, but the approach smacks of a "don’t like it? too bad" attitude that may have worked in the past, but more recently has cost us control of two huge functional chapters and put our stewardship of the union at risk. I have spoken with longtime friends in Unity who privately agree that this approach is damaging how the membership views us but that to speak up would get us ostracized from the caucus.

Well, I’m not afraid of being ostracized. Sometimes to be a good friend you have to be blunt when someone you care about is hurting themselves. Unity’s approach, at least when it comes to social media, is tone deaf and alienating. The toxic positivity, often unhinged defensiveness, and commingling of official UFT business and caucus politics is a major turnoff to the approximately 99.5% of members who are unaffiliated with *any* caucus.

Here’s a simple question I like to pose when people are really gung-ho about their cause: "Are you ever wrong? If so, can you give examples?"

What concerns me about many Unity folks (particularly some of the loudest ones on this platform) is I genuinely can’t recall a single instance in which these individuals have ever been like "yeah, in hindsight such and such was a screw up. We got that one wrong."

Instead, there’s always this Orwellian display of mental gymnastics in which even obviously bad things are actually good and you just don’t get it if you think otherwise. I’m in my third term as CL of a chapter with over 130 members. If I took this kind of approach with them — insisting everything is great, that their concerns aren’t actually valid, and that anyone who disagrees is either ignorant or acting in bad faith — I’d be (rightfully) thrown out of my position in a heartbeat. It’s not hard to grasp that that same truth applies to the union writ large. I don’t know how much clearer I can be about this.

Let’s see where this chapter leader’s heartfelt concerns land. Will Unity reflect or dig in further?

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