Teacher Union Day
The ballroom at the New York Hilton Midtown is filled to capacity during Teacher Union Day.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew opens Teacher Union Day by highlighting the union’s recent victories negotiating a new city health care plan and establishing a bell-to-bell cellphone ban.
The union gives the Jules Kolodny Award to the UFT Health Care Committee for helping the UFT secure a new city health plan that locks in premium-free coverage for the next five years.
About 1,700 UFT members and guests marked the union’s 65th anniversary at this year’s observance of Teacher Union Day on Nov. 2 by honoring union members past and present for their efforts to improve working conditions and strengthen members’ rights and benefits.
“Today is the day we get to honor those who are on the front line doing the work right now,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the record crowd. “We get to honor those whose shoulders we have stood upon, and we get to honor those who are just starting out in our profession. And we want them to understand it takes a group of people to take care of this very, very special union.”
The Charles Cogen Award for outstanding service by a veteran leader — the highest honor the union gives to a member — went to UFT Secretary LeRoy Barr, who also serves as the union’s staff director [see article on facing page].
The 50 members of the UFT Health Care Committee received the Jules Kolodny Award for helping the union secure the New York City Employees PPO plan, which locks in premium-free health care for city workers for the next five years.
Committee member Holly Fleischer, a delegate from PS 199 in Brooklyn, said she was impressed by how much work went into the negotiation process and by how the union sought wide participation. “The way that they try to reach out and involve as many people as they can was really awesome,” she said. “I feel that the union has been able to deliver something that no one else can bring.”
Occupational and Physical Therapists Chapter Leader Tom Ayrovainen and three members of his chapter’s political action team received the David Wittes Award for their successful campaign to allow UFT members to transfer from the Board of Education Retirement System to the Teachers’ Retirement System.
James Haughey, a physical therapist at the Hungerford School on Staten Island, said chapter members worked long and hard to convince Albany lawmakers that the pension-choice legislation was an issue of fairness. “When you’re doing something that’s fair, it has a lot more power behind it,” he said.
The union also commemorated the “giants” who paved the way for the modern UFT, including Ronald Jones and Richard Miller, two former UFT vice presidents who both died in May 2025. The UFT paid homage to their legacies and presented their families with plaques in memoriam.
Teacher Union Day traditionally takes place on the first Sunday of every November to commemorate the 1960 strike that led to New York City educators winning collective bargaining rights.
Eighty-three chapter leaders and their chapters received Ely Trachtenberg awards for their exemplary service.
Teacher Nicholas Carbonara, the chapter leader at PS 62 in the Bronx for the past three years, said the award “means the world” to him. “I’ve put in so much work with my chapter and everything else, and this is just a symbol of all the hard work,” he said.
Albert Lee Smallheiser Awards, which this year recognized members who have improved their colleagues’ working conditions, went to the Boerum Hill School for International Studies in Brooklyn for successfully organizing to claw back empty space from a Success Academy charter school in their building; chapter leaders at the five co-located high schools at the Walton Educational Campus in the Bronx who successfully organized to rebuild the campus library; and members from the Soundview Early Childhood Center, part of Birch Family Services, for negotiating their first contract after a 10-year fight.
The Federation of Nurses/UFT negotiating team at NYU Langone Hospital–Brooklyn received the Backer/Scheintaub Award for their success in tough contract negotiations and in holding the institution accountable for safe nurse-patient ratios.
The Sidney Harris Award for strong advocacy in special education went to Brenda Caquias, the assistant chapter leader of the Speech Improvement Chapter, and the members at Mosaic Pre-K Center in Queens for ensuring students with disabilities received the related services they need.
Six UFT members received Marsh/Raimo Awards for their notable political activism.
Victoria Orozco, who teaches at P94@P188 in Manhattan and was one of 118 chapter leaders recognized for years of service, tearfully dedicated her award from the stage to Bernardo Sanchez, a paraprofessional representative she worked with for many years who died the day before the ceremony. She said it felt good to be recognized and she wanted to give him credit, too.
“I have fought so hard for the UFT, and he’s fought alongside me,” she said.
