Spring 2005

Interview with George Fesko

By Abbe Nosoff

As secretary of the UFT from 1985 to 1995, George Fesko was one of the union’s top officials. He was intimately involved in the formation and development of our committee and over the years continued to act as a liaison between it and the UFT. In a recent interview, George talked about the committee’s early years.

What prompted you to start the Capably Disabled Committee?

Carol Blatt wrote a letter to [then] UFT President Sandy Feldman describing the difficulties of a disabled teacher at the Board of Education and Sandy referred the letter to me. That began the process.

I called Carol up and she came up to see me. She brought to my attention the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which covered all employees whose employers received money from the federal government, as our school system did and still does. Section 504 of the act required employers to have a coordinator for employees with disabilities. Since the Board of Education was a multi-billion dollar employer, it was supposed to comply with the law and have a 504 coordinator, but it didn’t. There was no excuse not to have one as the Board had an extremely large budget.

So, because of this, what steps did you have to take with the Board?

I met with Tom Ryan, head of Human Resources and Labor Relations at the Board and I learned that the Medical Bureau was unofficially accommodating some members. But there was nothing in writing. There were really no formal procedures. Problems would just come to the attention of the medical director and he might write something that might be an accommodation, such as not having a traveling program for a teacher who had limitations in walking or was wheelchair bound.

Having become familiar with this I could talk to the Medical Bureau about members who needed accommodations. So I would intervene with the bureau, or sometimes members would contact it directly. I would often discuss accommodations with Julian Covell, Medical Administrator at the Board.

As a result of Carol Blatt’s activity, the union decided to create a committee and we called a meeting of all interested members. That first meeting of the committee was in March 1990 — so this March was our 15th anniversary. Once we had formed the committee, we invited various Board of Education people to our meetings as speakers. More and more I was able to have members make a formal request to Julian Covell for an accommodation.

Because of my involvement in representing members with disabilities, I was called upon to make presentations to the union’s Executive Board, the officers, borough and district representatives and chapter leaders at weekend training programs. So people all around the UFT were becoming more aware of our committee and our issues.

Was increasing awareness your main objective?

It was one of my objectives, certainly, but my primary goal was to get accommodations for our members. Then I wanted a formalized procedure to create accommodations. We did achieve this through Personnel Memorandum #51.

After our committee had become active, the ADA was enacted in 1990 and became effective in 1992. That was a major event. By and large, the reason we got accommodations at first was the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. That probably was the basis for accommodations with the ADA. Then we got a compliance officer at the Board of Education, which was one of our great goals.

I also learned that the UFT was in the forefront of accommodations in the country. We stood out as an example to emulate in school systems and unions throughout the nation. At the President’s Committee for the Employment of People with Disabilities, we came in contact with other unions and served as an example of what could be done in the area of accommodations. I was a presenter at the President’s Committee and we also had an excellent AIDS program, which served as an example to other unions. We can be proud that through the work of our committee the UFT has become a leader in the nation in showing how to work constructively with people with disabilities.