Michael Mulgrew elected UFT President

The UFT has a new president. It’s Michael Mulgrew, the union’s chief operating officer since 2008 and its vice president for career and technical education since 2005.

Mulgrew was elected 81-0 by secret ballot at a special Executive Board meeting on July 29.

He will complete Randi Weingarten’s term, which runs through next June. Unionwide elections will be held in the spring.

Mulgrew took office on Aug. 1.

Weingarten, who announced her resignation at the June Delegate Assembly after 11 years in the post, now devotes herself full time to her duties as president of the UFT’s 1.5 million-member parent, the Washington, D.C.-based American Federation of Teachers.

A 44-year-old Staten Island native and 12-year classroom teacher, Mulgrew will be the UFT’s fifth president since its founding in 1960. He is the first career and technical education teacher to hold the post.

Among his achievements as a top UFT officer: organizing the budget-cut-fighting Keep the Promises campaign in 2008 and One New York: Fighting for Fairness coalition this year, as well as spearheading the union’s overhaul of its school safety program two years ago.

Mulgrew was also instrumental in creating a tight fit between the technological skills taught at the city’s career and technical education high schools and the current needs of city and regional employers.

This past school year, with Weingarten dividing her time between New York City and Washington, D.C., Mulgrew increasingly served as the union’s public face, organizing and emceeing the giant March 5 City Hall rally against cuts and representing the union at City Council and Albany legislative hearings.

After the vote, Mulgrew spoke with emotion about the value of the UFT.

“This union means so much to so many people, myself included,” he said. “It’s all about the classroom. We get to do the right things all the time. … Not many people get to say ‘my job is helping people do the right thing; my job is to help children grow, to help those in need, to get up every day, no matter how tired I am and know that I am of use and that I am doing what should be done for humanity as a whole.’”

Mulgrew considers his election less as a personal victory than as recognition of what good work members do each day and how he cannot advance that work without the active support of members.

“Now I will need the union behind me, because there are so many people out there who do not believe in what we do,” he said. “Our job, which we do so well, is to continue ensuring that those people don’t hurt others.”

Executive Board members and UFT staffers give a standing ovation to Michael Mulgrew, who addresses them after being elected president.

In nominating Mulgrew at the July 9 Executive Board, Weingarten said she believed Mulgrew was uniquely ready for the job.

“I’ve watched him work,” she said. “I’ve pushed him to a place few people want to go because I know the kind of pressure that comes with this office. That role requires tremendous strength, judiciousness, caring and savvy; Michael has proven to me he’s got them all.”

Weingarten said she was not recommending Mulgrew lightly.

“I could never turn my back on this union, my local, my home, unless I knew that our leaders were prepared to take us to greater heights,” she said. “No one is better prepared to do that than Michael Mulgrew.”

Executive Board members were enthusiastic about Mulgrew, too.

Typical was Jack Pitula, math teacher at Manhattan Comprehensive Day and Night HS, who has known Mulgrew for years. Pitula called him “a hard worker, dedicated not just to members and students but to the principles of unionism.”

For retiree Abe Levine, his vote came because, “Bottom line: from the first time the retirees met him at our chapter meeting, they were impressed. He was capable, competent and spoke on our issues with intelligence and authority.”

School secretaries liked him, too.

Jackie Ervolina, the school secretaries chapter leader and a school secretary at PS 4 in Queens, called Mulgrew “a real people person, with the experience and the compassion that a union leader must have to understand the issues and the needs of all our members. He’s shown great insight and drive in helping our school secretaries obtain not only a high level of professionalism in our careers, but a reason to be active in our union.”

The paraprofessionals chapter’s Doreen Raftery called it “wonderful” that someone as “energetic and talented” as Mulgrew could step in.

“He’s spoken to the chapter numerous times,” Raftery, the chapter’s first vice president, said, “and visited a lot of our members at schools.”

Others attested to Mulgrew’s approachability, intelligence and common touch. Gregg Lundahl, chapter leader

at Manhattan’s Washington Irving HS, told the Daily

News that “I see him as a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy; he doesn’t put on airs, has a lot of common sense.”

The new president holds a master’s degree in special education. He was elected chapter leader of Brooklyn’s William E. Grady Career and Technical Education HS in 1999 before he became a UFT vice president.