Around the UFT
Jonathan Fickies
Retirees boasting 50- and 60-year UFT membership rise to be recognized.
History and politics topped the menu for the record crowd of 570 retirees attending the 55th annual UFT Retired Teachers Chapter Luncheon on May 29 at the New York Hilton in midtown Manhattan.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew drew attention to the historic contributions each generation of UFT members has made to improve working conditions and empower educators, from the old fight to get class size under 45 to this year’s fight to win paid parental leave.
“We fight for what is morally correct and our responsibility,” he said, “and we have watched out for each other through every generation in the history of the union.”
Describing the forces behind the Janus threat as those who feel workers should be grateful just to have a job, who would silence them politically and who feel they have a right to dictate how the world is run, Mulgrew said, “We are going into this fight swinging.”
His audience — many of them 50- and 60-year UFT members who have walked the picket lines and forfeited two days of pay for every day they were out — thundered their support.
Retiree Pat Bonadonna, a winner of the Pearl Berger Award for outstanding political and legislative activity, noted, “Now more than ever we will keep a watchful eye on our legislators and they will know, loud and clear, that they will be held accountable on Election Day.”
Scores of retirees were honored at the morning awards ceremony, with NYSUT Community Service awards presented by NYSUT Vice President Paul Pecorale.
At the luncheon, the spotlight shifted to UFT/RTC Political Action Coordinator Millie Glaberman, who was honored for her long career as an activist from the founding of the union to recently spearheading the campaign that made 22,000 phone calls to head off a state constitutional convention.
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Jonathan Fickies
Si Beagle poetry instructor and award winner James Cunningham declares, “Retirees rock.”
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Jonathan Fickies
The record-breaking crowd of retirees at the New York Hilton.
Congressman Jerry Nadler called Glaberman a “seminal figure in the union” and City Comptroller Scott Stringer described her as “a force of nature,” as they presented her with the NYSUT Retiree of the Year Award.
Like many at the luncheon, David Bentley — a former chapter leader, a 50-year member and now a freelance performing arts critic — was catching up with colleagues when he stopped to remark: “It’s been a great blessing to spend my career with children and then be rewarded with full retirement benefits that have allowed me to move on to other interests.”
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Jonathan Fickies
The spotlight is on NYSUT Retiree of the Year award winner Millie Glaberman flanked by (from left) NYSUT Vice President Paul Pecorale, RTC Chapter Leader Tom Murphy, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, Congressman Jerry Nadler, UFT President Michael Mulgrew and NYSUT Secretary-Treasurer Philippe Abraham.
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Jonathan Fickies
Joyce Parker (center) celebrates her Si Beagle award with smiles and flowers from her former Bronx Studio School for Writers and Artists students (from left) Lucecita Degante, Caroline Ramirez and Anderson Contreras, and retiree Yvette Campbell.
Joyce Parker, who received an award for outstanding service to the Si Beagle Learning Centers, was surrounded by family members, a phalanx of knitters from her Si Beagle knitting class that just returned from a knitting cruise to the Bahamas, and three former students who brought flowers. “It takes a village to support me,” Parker said.
Valerie Nibbs, one of the knitters, observed, “It’s hard out there if you don’t have a pension and benefits like we do.”
RTC Chapter Leader Tom Murphy regaled the gathering with his stories and storied sense of humor.
In the program greetings he wrote, “UFT retirees were the heroes of the past and are still the activist superheroes of today. Amidst our national nightmare, we know there is still work to be done.”