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Health savings programs
Members have access to free medical bill negotiation and prescription drug discount services through AllyHealth.
CTE Awards Recognition Ceremony 2025
The UFT commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Success Via Apprenticeship program at the 2025 Career and Technical Education Awards Recognition Ceremony, which was held at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel on Feb. 26. The UFT and the CTE industry gave out about 130 awards to union members and community partners and recognized 45 K-12 educators who have brought CTE into their classrooms. Many of the honorees trained under SVA, a program begun in 1984 to stave off a shortage of CTE educators.
Provider networks
Learn about the benefits of network affiliation and see links to Family Child Care Provider networks.
UFT Providers life insurance
Members of the UFT Providers chapter are eligible to receive a $10,000 term life insurance policy through Amalgamated Bank.
Enhanced benefits
As a UFT member, you have access to services, discounts and support programs to help you both personally and professionally.
Help from your union
We offer comprehensive and hands-on support to our members to enhance their professional development and ensure their business success.
Member support
You are there every day for New York City's children and families. Learn how we at the UFT are here to support you.
UFT Providers
The UFT is the ONLY union representing New York City’s family child care providers. We’ve negotiated important rights and benefits for our members and will always continue to fight for the dignity and respect we deserve. Learn more about our chapter...
Federation of Nurses/UFT files notification of potential strike at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn
The Federation of Nurses/ UFT sent a 10-day strike notification to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn on Tuesday night, Feb. 18. The Federation of Nurses/UFT's contract with NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn ends at midnight on Friday, Feb. 28, 2025.
Provider vision care
Annual eye examinations from providers across the five boroughs plus allowances for glasses or contact lenses and discounts on regular glasses, as well as prescription and non-prescription sunglasses.
Provider Telemedicine
With Provider Telemedicine, you get unlimited access for you and your family to a network of board-certified doctors and pediatricians who can diagnose, treat, and prescribe medication for a variety of everyday health issues at any time.
Provider mental health services
Free access to the UFT's 24/7 confidential helpline provided by Vibrant Emotional Health. Support, guidance, crisis intervention, and referrals from a licensed mental health counselor. Any time. Any language.
Provider dental coverage
We are pleased to be able to offer our members access to the Preferred Premier Dental Plan from EmblemHealth absolutely free. This plan provides access to EmblemHealth's network of over 10,000 Preferred dentists and specialists in New York and New...
Do members remain on regular DOE payroll during a UFT parental leave?
No, you’ll receive a lump-sum payment equivalent to your regular compensation from the UFT Welfare Fund. The payment will be issued as a check and sent to the address of your choice.
Fired nurses get their jobs back
Nine Federation of Nurses/UFT members who were unfairly stripped of their livelihoods have won back their jobs at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn in one of the biggest arbitration victories that the UFT has ever achieved for unlawful terminations
Immigration & Customs Enforcement
The repercussions on families of stepped-up deportations.
A ‘social’ experiment
A school counselor and social worker at IS 206 in the Bronx developed an innovative way to address their students' social-emotional needs following the pandemic: a student lounge complete with music, games and items meant to encourage socialization...
Scrap lengthy lesson plans
I am in my 20th year with the DOE. Increasingly, we have assigned curricula for each subject. I am fine with teaching curricula chosen by my district, but it has to be sound and doable. One serious problem with many of these curricula is the...
Focus on character education
In Japanese schools, character instruction comes before or with academic training. As an example, students must clean up after themselves as there are no janitors. This sense of academic and social responsibility transcends the rush to impose...
UFT college scholarship saved my life
While sitting around the table with my family this past Thanksgiving, we took turns telling each other what we were most thankful for. Well, I forgot to thank the United Federation of Teachers for your $4,000 Albert Shanker college scholarship.
All students deserve a place to Nest
This is a fantastic program and partnership with NYU. We need more programs and availability for our students on the autism spectrum. The DOE also needs to provide more in-person training for teachers and staff to support our kids not only within the...
Increased death benefit provides more protection for families
The UFT Welfare Fund has increased the dollar amount of its death benefit for UFT members who die while still working for the DOE or the city to a flat payment of $50,000 regardless of age.
Your health benefits as a new educator
The city of New York's health plan and the UFT Welfare Fund-provided supplemental health benefits are among a UFT member's most valuable assets. Learn about what both plans provide so that you and your eligible dependents can access these benefits...
How I overcame a ‘frightful’ day
A new high school teacher shares her inner thoughts about the day teaching Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" sparked fear in her heart -- until she switched things up and helped her ELA students make modern connections to the old text.
Brooklyn teacher dresses up like historical figures
During Black History Month and Women's History Month, this 2nd-grade teacher dresses up each day as a historical figure and teaches her students about that person.
Lending an ear to new teachers
Retired music teacher Emy Vanderpool wasn't ready to leave the world of education when health concerns forced her to step down. The UFT's Partners Through Experience program has offered a way for Vanderpool and other recnt retirees to stay connected...
No RTC event invitations?
Are you not receiving invitations to the RTC monthly membership meetings? Email is now the primary way that the union communicates about events and news. It takes only a few minutes to subscribe or resubscribe to UFT mail.
Don’t be fooled by financial fraudsters
Scammers more often target retirees because they're more likely to have savings, good credit and less experience with technology. But retirees can sniff out whether a scammer is at work if they take heed of “the four p’s,” authorities say. Scammers...
The state of our chapter
We have a lot to be happy with regarding the state of the RTC chapter. We have debates of retiree issues and an enhanced voting process. But I am concerned that Zoom is hurting the quality of our union engagement.
Giving a world of learning
Retired high school math teacher Mark Grashow supports the education of thousands of students in rural communities throughout Africa and the Middle East through the nonprofit he founded after retirement, the US-Africa Children's Fellowship.
Getting all jazzed up in Harlem
A group of 2nd-graders at Manhattan's PS 163 take a trip through musical history at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, learning history, culture and how to scat sing like musical icons Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington.
Adrianna DeAngelis, special education teacher
Adrianna DeAngelis has taught a pre-K class at Birch Family Services for the past 14 years. She is one of 200 educators and support staff across Birch's four early childhood centers and schools represented by the UFT.
National test results show little progress
Reading scores dropped to a new low on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress while math scores were stagnant for 8th-graders and up slightly for 4th-graders.
Trump guts national labor board
The National Labor Relations Board is at a standstill after President Donald Trump fired board chair Gwynne Wilcox, a Democratic appointee, leaving a total of three vacancies on the five-member panel and ensuring it does not have a quorum to conduct...
Federal workforce under attack
In the latest salvo in its bid to control and reduce the size of the federal workforce, the Trump administration has decreed that union contract provisions permitting telework for federal employees are invalid because they conflict with management...
Manhattan new member event
More than two dozen new members from Manhattan schools turned out for some food, fun and fellowship on Jan. 24 at the UFT's new member event at a Manhattan bowling lounge.