Oct 3, 2008 2:31 PM
The UFT honors its own at Teacher Union Day, which is held each year at the Waldorf-Astoria on the first Sunday in November. The following awards will be presented:
The award given in the name of Charles Cogen recognizes outstanding dedication and service to the UFT. Cogen played a critical role in establishing the union as we know it today. In November 1960 he led a strike that won members the right to bargain collectively — the act celebrated at Teacher Union Day. Two years later he led another strike to force the city to the bargaining table, after which he crafted the union’s first contract, the nation’s first for teachers.
Under his guidance the UFT became a leader in the civil rights movement and strove for education reform, which laid the groundwork for subsequent progress. He led the UFT until 1964, then became president of the AFT. Cogen was educated in the city’s public schools, earned an undergraduate degree from Cornell, a law degree from Fordham and a master’s in economics from Columbia. His reputation for fairness made him the linchpin holding together generational, political and at-odds factions in the union. When he died in 1998, he was called the “George Washington of the UFT.”
The Sandra Feldman Leadership Award goes to a member who exemplifies the same commitment to children, public education, the labor movement and social justice that defined the life of its namesake, Sandra Feldman, the late president of the UFT and AFT.
Sandy was born in a poor section of Brooklyn to working-class parents. Public schools gave her opportunities to succeed, and this drove her lifelong fight to ensure that all members of society, especially children and the most downtrodden, have those same opportunities. Whether fighting injustice in the South during the civil rights movement, protecting the rights of teachers during several bitter strikes in New York City, taking on mayors and governors in contract and budget battles or condemning the repression of workers abroad, Sandy was both down-to-earth and visionary.
Sandy began as a chapter leader, and rose to become UFT president for 11 years and AFT president from 1997 until her untimely death in 2004. Throughout her career she forged alliances with parents, community and business groups to battle for adequate funding and appropriate resources for our public schools.
Albert Smallheiser belongs to that cadre of pioneers who came to unionism during the Depression. He saw the union’s mission as winning justice as well as higher salaries for its members. He took up the battle for the rights of more than 10,000 substitute teachers, who worked hard for a pittance without security or benefits. He helped build a case against the city Board of Examiners, the first teacher licensing agency in the state, which held the power to decide who could or could not enter the profession. Without having to offer any explanation, the examiners were able to reject candidates who had gone through the rigorous examination process. Smallheiser laid the groundwork that brought just treatment to the permanent subs and led to the eventual demise of the Board of Examiners once the state established its own certification system. This award recognizes the work of educators who strive to improve the working conditions of their colleagues.
As an African-American born and raised in the South, Sidney Harris knew first-hand what it meant to be treated as second-class, even “uneducable.” He earned a master’s degree in special education from Columbia Teacher’s College and was a champion of youngsters with disabilities. It was Harris who urged the union to become a sponsor of the Special Olympics. He was also a strong and active union member, serving on the UFT’s Executive Board and as the union’s assistant secretary. In the early days of the union he did all the drudge work without pay and without complaint. He was extremely active in the civil rights movement — and took a lot of heat for standing by the union over the issue of community control. Nevertheless, his commitment to civil rights and basic fairness was recognized by his colleagues in the black community and their respect for him never wavered. His work on behalf of disabled children helped open doors and bring new opportunity where none had existed. At his death, Al Shanker said, “He was a teacher, a leader, a friend and vital force for human decency.”
Jules Kolodny was a lawyer who devoted 50 years to the teacher union movement. He started as a high school social studies teacher during the Depression, then went on to get his doctoral degree from NYU. For 25 years he served the union as an officer, Executive Board member and UFT secretary. He argued teacher rights cases before the courts and before the state education commissioner. As trusted counselor to Presidents Cogen and Shanker, Kolodny was at the epicenter of decision-making and was present for every contract negotiation, political storm and strike. He is one of the pillars on which the UFT now stands.
This award honors two members who brought the union’s vision and objectives to their peers, to their communities and to the powers that govern our city. They continued their devotion to unionism until the day they died.
Gerry Backer started as a cab driver but found his true calling as a teacher. While driving, he got involved in the cabbies’ union then being organized by Harry Van Arsdale, head of the Central Labor Council. When he began teaching in the 1960s, he threw himself into UFT activities and became a chapter leader in time to become embroiled in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville controversy. A colleague said, “He was always available to speak with a fellow teacher, day or night.” Another said, “He would work for a teacher he hardly knew as he would for his own son.” He was a stalwart of the union who held District 23 together when there was constant threat of confrontation. He died of cancer at age 50, still standing strong for the union.
Mildred Scheintaub went into teaching at the urging of fellow members of her PTA. She quickly established herself as a staunch unionist, becoming a chapter leader, a UFT delegate and, within a few years, district rep in Bronx District 11. Over the next seven years, literally until the day she died, she served her members with distinction. Her tremendous sense of justice fueled her prodigious COPE drives, in which she gathered contributions a dollar at a time. She also reached out to people in the community and to politicians using her unique personal qualities. She was able to win over her opponents, who came to respect her. Now each school in the district presents an award in her name, and an athletic field at Coop City was named in her honor after her untimely passing. Those who followed her call her a role model for what a UFT leader should be.
The voice of the UFT is a familiar one in the legislative halls in Albany. It speaks to our lawmakers of fairness to educators, of the right to earn a decent day’s pay for a hard day’s work and for the future of our children, our city and our nation. That voice was epitomized by the two unionists in whose names this award is given.
Alice Marsh came from the generation of teachers who wore a hat and gloves to work each day. She was a superb union organizer, carrying the banner of unionism to workers in factories and mills from New York to New England. As a junior high teacher and chapter chairperson, she was always involved in efforts to better the life of her colleagues and she became one of the founders of the UFT.
Her devotion to the union and her skills at organization were recognized by Charles Cogen, the first UFT president, and it was he who sent her to Albany to lobby for the needs and rights of teachers. She had never tackled this kind of assignment before, but Marsh created and went on to lead a powerful, highly successful legislative lobbying operation, regularly working with the state’s top politicians. She lived to 95 and was active until her death in 1999. She is well-remembered for her pioneering efforts, such as the improved pension plan that gave us Tier I. She made the UFT a force to be reckoned with — as it is today.
Mario Raimo attended public schools from kindergarten through high school in the Bronx. And after receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from City College, he went back to Bronx schools to teach. He rose through the UFT ranks to become first a district rep, then borough rep of the Bronx. So steeped in education and union work was Raimo that he met his future wife, Dolores, while they marched on a picket line.
Like Alice Marsh years before, he served as the UFT’s legislative representative in Albany and became an indefatigable fighter for teachers’ rights. He applied his keen intellect to win many benefits for his colleagues. Raimo served on the UFT’s Executive Board, on NYSUT’s Board of Directors and on the Marchi Legislative Commission (to restructure the city’s schools). He was VOTE/COPE chairman for many years and was a founder of FIAME, an Italian-American educators association.
David Wittes became an accountant during the Depression — which sounds like really poor timing or a bad joke. When he turned to teaching to earn a living, he found more than a job — he found a calling. Wittes rode into union activities full tilt and was at the center of the political and ideological wars that rocked and formed the early union. But his most lasting contribution to the UFT was within the realm of his early training in finance. Wittes became the union’s treasurer and a trustee of both the Welfare Fund and the Teachers’ Retirement System. He was the architect of the present pension system, which reduced retirement eligibility to 20 years of service and lowered the minimum retirement age to 55. Teachers today owe the financial security offered by the union to the sharp mind and devoted unionism of David Wittes, and to the dedicated staffers who follow in his footsteps.
Audrey Chasen was a “teacher’s teacher.” She devoted her 28 years of teaching to some of the neediest children in the city. Beyond that she gave generously of her knowledge, her talent and her love of learning to her colleagues. Tragically, while driving three other educators back to school in her car, she was caught in the crossfire of a drug battle and shot to death. They were returning from a workshop she had just conducted, training teachers in her specialty: making Shakespeare come alive for students. Throughout her professional life Chasen gave and received the love and trust of her students and colleagues. She inspired them with her unselfish dedication, and all who knew her mourned her as a fallen hero of education.
For a school to succeed in its mission to provide students with the best possible education there must be a spirit of cooperation and professional partnership between administrators and educators. The UFT Partnership Award is presented to schools where such a successful partnership has been forged, thereby allowing all educators to bring their expertise to bear on crucial decision-making. These schools serve as a model of how genuine collaboration at the school level has the power to create a quality educational climate that maximizes the opportunity for all children to learn.
Ely Trachtenberg grew up amid the hurly-burley of left-wing debate in New York City, where socialism and union theory were everyday topics. Union old-timers said Trachtenberg’s theoretical acumen, coupled with first-rate organizing skills, made him a force for the union. What he recognized from the start was the importance of creating and nurturing unionism at its most basic level, the school chapter.
He’d been an auto worker and noted how relationships that developed on the shop floor became the seedbed of cooperation and solidarity. Later, as a teacher unionist, Trachtenberg stressed the active participation of the rank-and-file through frequent chapter meetings, newsletter and social activities — any activity that brought people together. Sadly, because of his untimely death at age 40, he never lived to see the fruit of his efforts bloom into the network of communication that chapters and the union have today. The chapters being honored today carry on the tradition he began and the future he envisioned.