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UFT President Michael Mulgrew opened the Nov. 9 Delegate Assembly with some good news: in Ohio the previous day, voters turned back by a 61-39 percent margin an attempt to prevent public-sector workers from being able to bargain collectively. He noted that 25 UFT retirees and staffers had been on the ground in Ohio, knocking on doors and making phone calls to talk about the issue and get out the vote.

The new school year may have just begun, but the Department of Education is already up to its old tricks. Take, for example, the job fairs the DOE hosted on Sept. 13 and 20. While Tweed required teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool to attend these fairs, it did not require principals from schools with vacant positions to attend.

No layoffs! The victory, after weeks of cliffhanger budget negotiations and literally hundreds of protest actions by concerned parents and educators, was sweet indeed for teachers who can now close up their classrooms with the knowledge that they’ll see their students again in September.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg blasted public employee pensions, current layoff rules and educators serving in the Absent Teacher Reserve in a State of the City address on Jan. 19 in which he said he would shrink the cost of government by going after public employee benefits rather than raise taxes to meet this year’s budget challenges.

The Bronx job fair was one of three job fairs that the DOE held this fall for ATRs. While all 1,800 educators in excess were required to attend the fairs, the DOE put no such mandate on schools with vacancies. “The DOE seems to be going through the motions with these fairs rather than making a genuine attempt to match ATRs with vacancies in the system,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew.

Just two days before layoff letters from the Department of Education were due to hit the mailboxes of 4,400 teachers across the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg rescinded those notices and announced that there would be no layoffs. UFT President Michael Mulgrew applauded the mayor for calling off the layoffs. “I’m glad that he made the right decision to avoid massive disruption in the schools,” he said.

Mayor Bloomberg on June 2 rescinded the teacher layoff notices that were scheduled to go out at the end of the week. He said that instead he was eliminating teacher raises for the next two years. “The mayor has the power to unilaterally rescind the proposed layoffs, and I’m glad that he has made the right decision to avoid massive disruptions to our schools,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “But he does not have the power to unilaterally decide on the teachers’ contract.”

UFT President Michael Mulgrew and state AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes wrote to labor leaders across the state on April 26 asking them to withhold all financial and political support from two state legislators from New York City who introduced a bill at the Department of Education’s behest that would empower principals to choose on the basis of “merit” who goes and who stays in the event of teacher layoffs.

It would seem unlikely that this Met fan would cite the famous “déjà vu” quote of a Yankee Hall of Famer, but after all, Yogi Berra did lead the 1973 Mets to the World Series as their manager. And since many of our teachers were not even born, 1973 seems like ancient history, as does the fiscal crisis that occurred two years later.