More than 20,000 UFT members now have their choice of pension systems after a campaign led by members of the UFT Occupational and Physical Therapists Chapter.

In December 2024, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law a bill allowing UFT members enrolled in the Board of Education Retirement System (BERS) to transfer into the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS).

BERS members have until Dec. 10, 2025, to request a transfer.

State Sen. Robert Johnson and Assembly Member Stacey Pheffer-Amato introduced the bill in spring 2024 after members of the UFT Occupational and Physical Therapists Chapter met with them at UFT Lobby Day on March 11. To move the proposed legislation through the two houses of the state Legislature, chapter members carried out a coordinated phone and email campaign.

“Our members really stepped up,” said Thomas Ayrovainen, the leader of the Occupational and Physical Therapists Chapter.

A small group of therapists formed a committee to spearhead the union campaign. They offered instructions via email and a Facebook group to fellow members about which state lawmakers to contact on a given day.

“The senators and Assembly members got bombarded by phone calls and emails, so they made this a priority,” said Ayrovainen.

“This was grassroots from inception to completion,” said James Haughey, a physical therapist who was a member of the committee. Haughey passed out hard copies of the committee-generated phone scripts to members at his school. He said his colleagues were “more than happy” to fit in phone calls before work, during lunch and at the end of the school day.

Catherine Szpunt, an occupational therapist and committee member, said BERS members felt motivated in part by “bad experiences with BERS,” including unresponsive customer service. They also cited news reports from February of 2023 that surfaced problems with executive leadership at BERS.

“What we were asking for was a choice,” said Ayrovainen. While some members may prefer to stay in BERS, others felt drawn to TRS because of the wider range of investment options in the TRS Tax-Deferred Annuity program and the fact that the TRS board includes three UFT members.

For other therapists, it was a matter of equal treatment. “We felt different,” explained Danielle Pellegrino, a physical therapist and committee member. “Why were we in a different system from our colleagues?”

As the campaign gained steam, other BERS-affiliated titles, including school nurses, supervisors of nurses and therapists, and audiologists, joined the effort.

For union representatives like Ayrovainen, the victory feels enormous. “This doesn’t happen every day or every decade,” he said.

For members like Adil Velija, a physical therapist at Hungerford School, a District 75 program on Staten Island, it was fulfilling to advocate as a group and win a victory for both themselves and the next generation of union members.

“As a union we advocate for each other,” said Velija. “It’s a great feeling to be union strong and fight for a brighter future.”