“I know that you all got in this business because you want to help kids,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told close to 200 physical and occupational therapists at a Meet the President event at the union’s headquarters on Jan. 22.

But therapists, like educators and other school staff, are struggling under record amounts of paperwork, the lack of a new contract for five years and job pressures that run counter to the union’s primary purpose of serving children, Mulgrew said.

“I know you’re working in really tough times,” he said. “Thank you for holding on and staying.”

Leslie McDonnell, the chapter

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Miller Photography

Therapists asked the president about the status of contract negotiations and the opportunity in a new contract to increase therapists’ salaries and improve their working conditions. Mulgrew told the members that their concerns have been heard “loud and clear.”

During the 12 years under Mayor Bloomberg, the union had to fight the administration on every front just to protect the basic rights of its members and New York City students, Mulgrew noted. “Now our fight is about trying to get the working conditions and pay that you deserve,” he said.

Mulgrew also reminded the audience that the UFT is a large union, serving 200,000 members in varied fields. “We have a very diverse union,” he said. Every chapter in the union came into the UFT with a different history and at a different starting point for salary and benefits, he added.

“We have heard the needs of this chapter,” he told the therapists, adding that the union will do everything possible in the next contract to “move it forward.”