Top News Stories
‘No way on earth’ contract will be reopened
May 22, 2008 11:57 AM
Delegates approve resolution to nix any bid by DOE to fire excessed teachers
left: Britta Wheeler, chapter leader at the Art Institute of New York City — formerly the New York Restaurant School — urges support for keeping the culinary restaurant management portion of the school open. The Institute’s board of trustees made the decision unilaterally to terminate the valued program for cost-cutting reasons, she said, and delegates voted unanimously to instruct the union to “seek to reverse the decision to terminate the school’s culinary program” and support the 110 Art Institute members in their efforts to preserve the school.
UFT delegates on May 14 flatly told the city that they would not reopen the UFT contract.
The resolution, which passed unanimously, rejected reopening the contract to loosen the job security provisions which prohibit the Department of Education from firing excessed teachers. It also committed the union to “continue to press the DOE to stop wasting money and talent” and instead take responsibility for helping ATRs secure full-time positions.
UFT President Randi Weingarten, in her report, stressed the importance of the job security clause negotiated in the 2005 contract, when the union agreed to the open-market transfer system and an Absent Teacher Reserve pool.
“We won’t reopen the contract. Unlike virtually every other job, we have job security that few people enjoy, and once we got it, there is no way on earth that I am giving that up,” Weingarten said to wide applause.
When she asked how many members had been bumped or excessed in their careers, many hands went up.
“With the 2005 contract, we stopped all the bumping and excessing that led to layoffs. Now, except in a real fiscal emergency, this is real job security,” she said.
UFT President Randi Weingarten shows delegates the “Keep the Promises Actions Calendar” that appeared in the May 8 edition of New York Teacher.
UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Leo Casey, in motivating the popular resolution, excoriated the chancellor “and the hirelings at the New Teacher Project who have slandered these teachers and refuse to take one practical step to reduce the size of the ATR pool, because they want a political issue to try to force this union to give up due process. Not this union!”
The delegates also reaffirmed their commitment to the Keep the Promises campaign to fight the city’s budget cuts to schools.
Michael Mulgrew, vice president for career and technical high schools, urged passage of a resolution committing the union to stepped-up involvement in the Keep the Promises campaign.
“The only way we are going to win this budget fight is grass roots, and making sure the mayor understands that we are not going to sit idly by when the mayor, sitting on a $4.5 billion budget surplus, cuts the schools by $450 million,” Mulgrew said. “So, when you vote for this resolution, it’s about the actions that we are committing ourselves to do.”
The resolution passed overwhelmingly.
Legislation/Political Action Director Marvin Reiskin asked the body’s support for the proposed City Council agenda, which included fully restoring all promised school funding, along with funding for Teacher’s Choice, work stations and computers, Dial-A-Teacher and Provider’s Choice.
Newcomers HS Chapter Leader Michael Fiorillo called for striking language calling for $300,000 previously earmarked for teacher lounge furniture to be earmarked for the purchase of computers “in light of the extensive data analysis now required of teachers and the city’s failure to assist them in fulfilling these new responsibilities.”
Fiorillo charged that teachers would be “relegated to becoming data entry clerks … We are teachers. I find it offensive that I have to enter data for tests that we all know are being used to harass teachers and close schools.”
Countering Fiorillo, Reiskin said it was unfair to assume computers would be used for data entry.
“Let teachers decide what they will do with those computers,” Reiskin said.
Fiorillo’s amendment failed by a wide margin and the resolution carried.
The delegates endorsed Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (64th AD-Manhattan) for re-election and Elizabeth Crowley (30th CD-Queens) for a special election to the City Council.
A resolution supporting the union’s state legislative agenda also passed without challenge.
UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Leo Casey motivates a resolution to reject reopening the contract to make it easier for the Department of Education to fire excessed teachers.
A resolution on “Justice for the Freightliner Five,” motivated by Brooklyn’s Franklin D. Roosevelt HS delegate Megan Behrent, passed as well. The resolution put the union on record calling for reinstatement of five bargaining committee members and founders of United Auto Workers Local 3520 in Cleveland, N.C., who were terminated by management at the Freightliner Truck Manufacturing Plant following a brief strike in April 2007. It also encouraged UFTers to contribute to a hardship fund for the fired workers.
[Go to www.justice4five.com for more information.]
Delegates voted down motions to place two resolutions on the June Delegate Assembly agenda. The first urged support for 17 strikers penalized after the nearly two-week-long March strike of the Teachers’ Federation of Puerto Rico, which ended with some gains to the workers. The 17, all teachers in the city of Utuado, were suspended without pay for pre-strike and strike activities.
Bronx HS of Science Delegate Peter Lamphere offered a motion that the delegates consider a resolution that would have had the UFT contribute to a welfare fund and engage in “solidarity activities” on behalf of the disciplined teachers.
Bronx Borough Representative Jose Vargas spoke against considering the motion, saying the DA’s March 11 unanimous resolution in support of all the strikers was sufficient.
“This resolution is just for 17 people, and I think we should stand with the original resolution, which was for everyone,” Vargas said.
The second motion, made by Clara Barton HS delegate Joan Heymont, urged the UFT to consider — in light of the Sean Bell verdict — a resolution to “organize teach-ins in the schools against racism, police terror, the war in Iraq and budget cutbacks.” That resolution was referred for consideration to the UFT’s social justice committee.
