VPerspective
A look ahead
Jan 18, 2007 2:56 PM
In a way, it’s a gift. No, not a holiday gift, but something far more precious: the gift of time — something educators know a thing or two about.
From the start of 2006, we started planning for collective bargaining — working externally to create a coalition with other unions, and internally creating a 300-member negotiating committee to guide our work. Through hundreds of school visits, we listened to whether our members were prepared for the actions necessary (be they no-contract/no-work or other strategies) to achieve a contract with a raise and no more time or other givebacks. And between the creation of the coalition, the DC 37 contract, our membership survey, and our delegates’ approval both of the demands and of the strategy of exploiting the city’s own pattern bargaining thrust, the negotiating committee had set the stage for an unprecedented early contract.
Our strategy worked — probably because even City Hall recognized that students get hurt by bitter, protracted labor disputes. Not only did we get a raise with no givebacks, but we started on the road to “takebacks” with the restoration of health sabbaticals for secretaries and lab specialists. And, reaching the $100,000 salary level is an important milestone. Salary is the way society signals that a professional is valued, and teaching should be (but still isn’t) the most valued of professions.
Of course, we didn’t get everything we wanted. But we accomplished more than what is written in the pages of the contract. To be blunt, every outside labor activist and expert I told about my intent to create a large and diverse rank-and-file negotiating committee thought I had lost my mind. No one in the outside world thought it would work — but they don’t really know our members. I believed that with enough team building and education about the ins and outs of labor negotiations, it would be the best new strategy we could deploy.
And it was. We developed an effective, confidential two-way communication system — something critical in negotiations, but almost impossible with 100,000 in-service members. At every critical decision the negotiators were able to tap into member thinking, and in turn, members were both more informed and more involved in the negotiating process. Our union is only stronger as a result.
The process demonstrated that membership committees that think through all the “what ifs” and develop policy work effectively in our union. It mattered to the Delegate Assembly, for example, that the negotiating committee had wrestled with an issue for hours. And for me, it was invaluable during the last few days of negotiations to run all our judgment calls by the committee.
So now, armed with a ratified contract through the end of this mayor’s term, we have the gift of time to devote to other issues that are critical to us in the pursuit of educating children effectively. Here are three big ones:
- Building greater respect for teachers as professionals
- Improving school safety for students and staff
- Reducing class size across the board in all grades
I could write a column about each of these — and no doubt, I will in the coming months. For now, let me just give you a brief overview of how we are proceeding.
With the new governor willing to finally resolve the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit at a higher amount than the Court of Appeals ordered, and the new legislative session beginning in Albany, our class- size campaign must shift into the highest gear. I hope you’ve already heard about our legislative lobbying blitz. We plan to meet with every legislator in person (both in the city and in Albany), and to communicate by every other means available. Please click on the Action Center on our Web site (www.uft.org) to fax your representatives today. Our state representatives must know that there is nothing more important to do with the CFE money than to reduce class size. We have won at least the rhetorical battle in the early grades, so now we must focus on grades 4 through 12.
Gov. Spitzer has said the right things — he is the first governor I’ve ever heard mention class-size reduction in a State of the State message, calling it “investing in programs that have been proven to work.”
But we cannot rest on words. We need you to participate in this effort. Who better to tell a legislator why lowering class size is so imperative but those in the trenches who see it and feel it every day? So, when your chapter leader or district rep reaches out to you, please go on the Web site to send a fax and/or become part of our lobbying corps.
On safety, we have made tremendous strides with our new incident reporting system. At first blush, it seems absurd to root for an increase in reported incidents, but we all knew they were being hidden, and without the transparency that the online reporting system provides, the DOE could deny the problem existed. Like Compstat, our system has provided data and that data apparently has convinced the chancellor that the problem is real. In his first principals’ newsletter of the new year Chancellor Klein urged principals to enforce the discipline code and to institute a “real student removal process” when discipline problems impede learning by other students. It’s a step in the right direction and he should be praised for it.
While school safety can be largely reduced to numbers and trends, the issue of building respect for teachers cannot. With all the talk about what it takes to improve education, it seems that those with the most responsibility for actually educating our kids are the ones who are least likely to be asked or listened to.
Thus the need to keep the importance of what we do in the public eye. Our new approach, which the DA passed in November, is called “Teachers Make the Difference.” We started this month by launching a TV spot — which I hope you have already seen. It focuses on both class size and the importance of listening to teachers. We are planning the second stage of this campaign, which I will leave to my next column.
Of course, respect is not earned through public relations; it grows out of your persistent determination — even when we are demoralized — to stand up for your students and for yourselves. You can read in this newspaper about the members at Lafayette HS, at John F. Kennedy HS and in District 32 who stood up against principals who brought false charges, who abused staffers and who systematically violated the contract — and, with the help of the union, won those battles. As each of them will tell you, it wasn’t easy, but they stuck together and prevailed. Their stories made me so proud, and I hope they give you the confidence to act.
So that is the agenda we have embarked upon. Unfortunately, it won’t be without conflict or distraction. All of us have heard the rumors that the mayor and chancellor will soon be announcing yet another school restructuring effort.
While it makes no sense to us that the chancellor would constantly focus on structure (How many reorganizations have there been under Chancellor Klein?) instead of instruction, two things are for certain. One, we will fight any attempts to privatize the management of the public schools. In addition to the fact that privatization usually ends up costing more without improving student achievement, it is an abdication of public responsibility. Moreover, the only way a public system can engage a private manager of a public school is through the limited charter process — and that is supposed to be an incubator of ideas, not a wholesale delegation of responsibility.
The second certainty is that whatever is proposed, the contract must be honored, and that means stability and certainty, including: the raises, the job security, the conditions, etc That’s where having a closed contract through the end of the mayor’s term has its real payoff. Be prepared, however. Given that no one in a supervisory rank has the same security of a locked-in contract and a strong union, there will be great trepidation about what a new reorganization means to them. That will no doubt have a spillover effect onto you, your schools and your students.
So whatever it is — and we may know as early as the mayor’s State of the City this week — rest assured, we will fight the fights we need to: against restructurings if we believe, after seeing the fine print, that they may hurt students and teachers; and for professional latitude, safe schools, smaller class sizes, and the programs that work to make every public school a school where educators want to work and parents want to send their children.
An ambitious agenda? For sure. But this union is up to the task. Happy New Year!
