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Maternity workshops held for new generation of UFT members
Jun 11, 2008 9:04 AM
Soon-to-be moms fill the conference room at the Queens borough office for the first maternity workshop last June.
Want to take part? The Queens UFT office will hold workshops beginning in Sept. at the borough office, 97-77 Queens Blvd., Rego Park, fifth floor conference room. Space is limited, so RSVP Karla Jordan at 1-718-275-4400 or by e-mail to kjordan@uft.org for the dates and time. Please include your file number.
The UFT: it’s not your father’s union, anymore. Or your mother’s. The union’s generational shift has been incremental, but now there’s been a sea change in the union’s composition as many younger teachers replace the retirees who were the founders and first generation of the UFT. And with that change in composition comes new membership needs. One of the most pressing: maternity workshops.
It’s not that babies are new to UFT members. Nor has the fertility rate gone up or stork sightings increased. The new concentration of young members means more new and prospective parents who are ratcheting up a demand for information on work-maternity issues — things that the union needs to supply in new ways.
“Used to be, future parents would call in with questions about medical leaves, child-care leaves, insurance issues, medical rights,” Queens Borough Representative Rona Freiser said. “This past year, the number of calls was so high that we had trouble meeting the need.”
Freiser and her borough staff did the logical thing: organizing a late June maternity workshop “for mommies to be.” Twenty-four members — all in their third trimester — and one future dad joined the workshop. A second grouping — also meeting in the borough office conference room — was convened soon afterward.
Now, the Queens borough office plans to hold maternity workshops monthly throughout the year. Other borough offices are considering offering the workshop, too.
“It was just great,” Freiser said after the initial workshops. “The eagerness was just overwhelming. A lot of our district reps dropped in, too. It was just the best feeling,”
Freiser thanked PM staffer Greer Hanson-Velasquez for organizing the effort.
