feature stories

Aces at organizing

by Dorothy Callaci

Nov 2, 2006 4:34 PM

These two chapter leaders know how to build an effective union at the school level

“I could go to a small town in the middle of nowhere and run it.” That’s how Maria Bucca sums up what she’s learned over four years as chapter leader at James Madison HS, a large comprehensive high school in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where she addresses the needs, ensures the rights, and solves the problems of 270 staff members who are responsible for the education of 4,700 students in a school built to accommodate just over half that many.

Up in East Harlem at PS 206, the number of staff and students may be much smaller but not the energy and commitment of Chapter Leader Victor Diaz, who not only takes good care of the staff of 36 at his school but reaches out to the staff of the other two elementary schools in his building.

“We’re all in the same union,” Diaz explains, pointing to the names of all the chapter leaders at the top of the weekly newsletter he puts together for the three schools.

Chapter leaders like Bucca and Diaz are the linchpin of the UFT. The union’s 1,400 chapter leaders take on tremendous responsibility when they are elected to lead their schools. They become the heart and soul of the building, the lead organizer and troubleshooter, the general at the front line. Who else is on site every day to make sure that all the hard-won protections in the contract are observed, all questions get answers, safety issues are promptly addressed, members’ rights are protected, and the building is environmentally sound?

With contract negotiations now under way, chapter leaders will also become an information conduit to and from their colleagues. Their job will be to keep members informed, engaged and prepared to support their union’s efforts to gain a fair contract.

After teaching her early-morning chemistry classes, Bucca puts on her chapter leader hat, often walking the halls, clipboard at the ready for anything she thinks needs checking out.

“Staff feel comfortable coming to me because they know I will address their problems immediately to find out what’s going on,” she says.

Biology teachers Michael and Lisa Calise, who organized Madison staff and students for the “Making Strides” breast cancer walk, described their chapter leader as someone who “crusades for us and has her finger on the pulse of all of us.”

With a warm and ready smile, Bucca is as willing to address trivial complaints as more serious ones.

“I try to nip problems in the bud so they don’t escalate,” she says.

Bucca’s biggest challenge has been that the school’s four sessions, made necessary by the overcrowding, make it impossible for the staff to have common time to sit and talk about school issues.

Her solution? To keep all members up-to-date, she sends out weekly e-mails and has created a school Web site, www.MadisonUFT.org, which keeps information flowing between her monthly meetings. At Madison, each meeting must be held four times because of the multi-session scheduling.

But new challenges are always popping up. This year the school has nine pregnant teachers with lots of questions. So Bucca put together a pamphlet that contains information about maternity and childcare leaves as well as options for health insurance that members need to make wise decisions.

Diaz at PS 206 is another model of efficiency.

If you need numbers, dates, forms, he has them. He puts together a package of everything they need to know for all staff members at the start of every school year.

The key to Diaz’s philosophy is “communication — let’s talk, let’s find a solution.” But, he emphatically notes, “that doesn’t mean you defend the principal.” This approach has resulted in the filing of only one grievance in his nine years as chapter leader.

Diaz’s leadership has also brought together the staff of the three schools in his building. He plans joint monthly meetings that often feature guest speakers. His weekly newsletter, which includes the names of Chapter Leaders Ada Cuadrado of PS 112 and Berla Miniah of PS 37, goes out to staff in all three schools.

When the 37.5-minute tutoring sessions were created last February, Diaz helped mediate the conflicts that arose among the three schools, each of which had a different approach to meeting the time requirement and three different bus schedules, so that it worked out for every constituency.

At the beginning of the school year, when Diaz discovered that the staff of PS 37 had no chapter leader, he quickly arranged for an election. Now he’s running an election for the PS 206 school leadership team in which 11 candidates are running for three positions — an indication of the active, involved chapter that he has cultivated.

Fifth-grade teacher Roberta Wappel and Brenda Brewer, a technology teacher, agree that Diaz is “exceptionally strong and articulate — the best.”

In recognition of the chapter leader’s shifting role and responsibilities as the school system constantly reorganizes, the UFT is offering a revamped three-part training program this year for new chapter leaders. Throughout the year, the union also holds workshops and citywide meetings to keep chapter leaders informed about union issues and to give them the opportunity to share information and air their concerns. District representatives and borough offices are another key source of support and information.

Bucca and Diaz both acknowledge that the post of chapter leader can sometimes be overwhelming or frustrating. But their sense of mission keeps them going.

Says Bucca, “Staff needs me to be their voice, their go-between, to make sure there’s fairness in all decisions so that everyone gets a fair piece of the pie.”