Cara Matthews

Caring for people in need and promoting equity were top of mind in the five resolutions UFT delegates approved at the Delegate Assembly on Nov. 19, including support for disaster relief in Jamaica and LGBTQIA+ rights.

The UFT Welfare Fund Retiree Social Services' Nationwide Telephone Reassurance Program offers support for retirees that is just a phone call away. Retirees can chat for as long as they need about whatever issue they may wish to discuss or may be going through.

The UFT posthumously honored two accomplished members who died this year and presented their families with memorial plaques: Ron Jones, a former vice president for elementary schools, and Richard Miller, a former vice president of middle schools.


Richard Sacher, who retired from teaching in 2005, has made acting and singing his second act.

Some 265 new UFT retirees were celebrated for their service, passion and commitment to changing students’ lives during the UFT Welfare Fund’s New Retiree Luncheon at UFT headquarters on Nov. 18.

About 25 school staff gathered on Dec. 3 for a "Demystifying Dsability" workshop led by special education teacher David Friedman from PS 69 in Jackson Heights.

After more than 18 months of unsuccessful contract negotiations, Starbucks Workers United on Nov. 13 kicked off the “Red Cup Rebellion,” a nationwide strike that has expanded to include thousands of baristas at more than 145 coffeehouses.


The Utah Legislature voted in a Dec. 9 special session to repeal an anti-labor law adopted earlier this year after a coalition of 21 labor unions, including the Utah Education Association, collected 250,000 signatures in favor of a referendum to repeal the new legislation.

As the Trump administration continues to decimate the U.S. Department of Education, a coalition of states is challenging the shifting of many of the department’s core functions to the U.S. Department of Labor and three other federal agencies.