With voting underway within the election for United Federation of Academics management, longtime president Michael Mulgrew is dealing with rebel challenges at a time when staff broadly have been keen to jettison veteran leaders — most lately 1199 SEIU president George Gresham.
Mulgrew and two different candidates are looking for to move the second-largest public-sector union within the metropolis, which represents not simply town’s lecturers and different skilled faculty employees but in addition tons of of nurses in some non-public hospitals.
Whoever wins could have affect that extends far past the union’s almost 200,000 members, together with retirees. Underneath the weighted voting system of town Municipal Labor Committee (MLC), the UFT wields affect on points impacting all metropolis authorities staff in New York, together with within the ongoing battle over the tried shift of retiree well being protection to Medicare Benefit.
The Medicare Benefit showdown — and Mulgrew’s function in serving to concoct the cost-savings idea a decade in the past in change for long-sought raises for metropolis staff — is on the coronary heart of this yr’s election. Each opposition slates vow to protect retirees’ present advantages and cancel the Medicare Benefit change, they usually’re pushing for better transparency throughout the group.
Mulgrew himself circled and opposed the change final yr, amid fierce opposition from retirees. Retired staff are a couple of third of the union’s membership and have a vote in elections.
The Medicare Benefit reversal confirmed “a real vulnerability” in Mulgrew’s management, mentioned Joshua Freeman, a labor historian and professor emeritus at Queens School. If the extra militant wing of the union achieves an upset, “they would be quite a transformative force,” he mentioned.
In an interview with THE CITY, Mulgrew defended his file of securing decreased class sizes, paid parental go away and a collective bargaining settlement after former Mayor Michael Bloomberg refused to cut price with the UFT or another unions throughout his ultimate time period. He struck that settlement with former Mayor Invoice de Blasio in bargaining premised on the UFT and different unions cooperating in realizing billions of {dollars} in well being care financial savings.
“Democracy should prevail at all times,” Mulgrew mentioned of the election problem. “My main thing right now is finishing up the state budget, moving then into the city budget, and also constantly dealing with all the attacks we get from the federal government.”
Main the opposition is Sundown Park center faculty artwork instructor Olivia Swisher, who’s working on the ARISE — Alliance of Retired and In-Service Educators — slate, a reform platform centered on enhancing union democracy and preserving retirees and energetic members’ present well being care and advantages.
“Our current leadership feels more pressure to comply with the city than they do to members, and so we would flip that,” Swisher instructed THE CITY. “When we have a leadership that is just not interested in centering members, or listening to members, or even creating spaces for members to share what their lived experience is, they should be put on notice that members are then going to work together to try to unseat you.”
UFT employee Amy Arundell is difficult union president Michael Mulgrew, Could 8, 2025. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Additionally working on a reform slate is UFT consultant Amy Arundell, who was reassigned from a Queens management place in 2023 quickly after she posted criticism of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 assaults by Hamas; her supporters say the switch was an act of censorship. Arundell is working on the ABC (A Higher Contract) caucus line.
“What we’re finding now is lots and lots of people are hungry for change in our union, because there has just been a stagnation of wages and a deterioration of working conditions and benefits,” Arundell mentioned. “And in our profession and our membership there hasn’t been any advancement — and we basically have a leadership telling us, ‘you’re wrong.’ And people don’t accept that anymore.”
Searching for Sixth Time period
Mulgrew has headed the union since 2009 and was re-elected to a fifth time period in 2022, getting 66% of the vote — a commanding win however 20 factors under his 2019 margin of victory and his lowest since taking workplace.
Two years later, an opposition group that campaigned on blocking the well being care change trounced the Mulgrew-backed Unity slate in retiree chapter elections for the primary time within the chapter’s 40-year historical past. That very same group endorsed Swisher and the remainder of the ARISE slate, as did the Motion of Rank and File Educators, one of many UFT’s largest and most militant caucuses, which focuses on social justice points.
Swisher is fast to level out that she is the one on-duty public faculty instructor vying for the presidency: “If you were not working in a school during COVID, in my opinion, you should not be running for UFT president — and that includes both of the people that I’m running against.”
Brooklyn artwork instructor Olivia Swisher is difficult UFT President Michael Mulgrew in an upcoming union election, Could 8, 2025. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
However the ongoing saga over the destiny of the Medicare Benefit change is on the coronary heart of this yr’s elections. Not one of the candidates help the changeover, which is paused throughout a protracted court docket problem. On the identical time, none advised how the UFT or different unions may alternatively obtain the billions in well being care price financial savings they dedicated to beneath previous bargaining.
Mulgrew, in an interview with THE CITY on Thursday, mentioned he regrets supporting the switchover for so long as he did.
“I regret the rollout and the information of that plan, and now, knowing where it actually ended and the anxiety it caused — we should face that, and we should have gotten out of it earlier,” he mentioned.
Time is working out to provide you with an answer. With the destiny of the deal tied up within the courts, the well being price reserves it was meant to run has gone dry.
The MLC filed a lawsuit in opposition to town final week associated to the well being care change, exposing a long-simmering battle between the unions and town over which facet is answerable for securing billions of {dollars} in well being care financial savings. Town is looking for arbitration, demanding as a lot as $4 billion from the unions to make up for the lacking financial savings. The unions argue that Mayor Eric Adams’ failure to ship on the agreed-to Medicare Benefit transition isn’t their fault.
And in one other twist, the MLC’s longtime chief, Harry Nespoli, lately introduced that he’s retiring, leaving the way forward for the plan within the arms of a yet-to-be-determined successor.
One factor all three candidates agree on is their competition that the unions shouldn’t be on the hook for billions of {dollars} in well being care financial savings
“They’re full of crap,” Mulgrew mentioned of town.
Searching for Transparency
Additionally driving the renewed efforts to oust longtime management is the opposition’s want for better transparency and accountability throughout the union.
The union’s practical chapters — the teams representing totally different job titles, from paraprofessionals to occupational therapists, educators and retirees — ought to have better latitude for his or her inside enterprise and points that have an effect on them instantly, Arundell mentioned.
Swisher mentioned she’d create an organizing division on day one, each to start out the 2027 contract marketing campaign however to empower the rank-and-file to have a say in main selections, like Medicare Benefit or, in one other main challenge of the election, higher pay for paraprofessionals. She additionally mentioned she desires bargaining classes to be public.
Each Arundell and Swisher described the well being care financial savings settlement as emblematic of the back-room dealing inside their group that they want to finish, with Swisher declaring the non-disclosure agreements that negotiating committee members are certain to as a situation for taking part in contract talks.
“When we operate behind closed doors, we’re not only leaving out our members in the process, we’re also leaving out our greatest allies, which are the communities that we serve,” mentioned Swisher.
“When the communities that we serve and our members don’t see how we are responded to by the Department of Education when we try to advocate for things like better heating and cooling in our schools so that kids don’t get nosebleeds, and they tell us, ‘No, we can’t do that’ — families need to hear what the DOE says no to us over and over and over again, so that we can put real political pressure on the mayor,” she added.
Freeman, the labor historian, famous that the UFT has lengthy had dissident teams throughout the union, and youthful members have a extra militant bent fueled not solely by nationwide pro-union headwinds however native points like Tier VI, a controversial retirement reform effort led by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo that set decrease requirements for brand new hires.
In 2019, the union was amongst labor teams singled out in a extensively circulated memo from the New York Metropolis chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America that known as on the group’s personal members to grow to be extra energetic of their unions with a purpose to advance causes of the left.
Mulgrew slammed what he described because the affect of an “outside group,” although many UFT members are additionally DSA members. Actually, there are DSA members working on all three slates on the poll, mentioned Ryan Bluckenthal, a particular schooling instructor in Manhattan who’s working for the union’s govt board on the ARISE slate.
“We each are slates or caucuses or factions of our larger organization, and we all believe in strengthening the UFT, and we all believe in protecting and expanding public education,” mentioned Bluckenthal, who can be a DSA member. “At the end of the day, whoever wins on May 29, the important thing is that we continue to build the UFT in defense of public education and against the attacks coming from the Trump administration.”
Town’s largest public sector union, District Council 37, can be experiencing a revolt amongst its ranks on problems with inside democracy. Dissident members of Native 3005, which represents well being division scientists and researchers, are vying to unseat incumbent management in that native’s elections later this month.
The thirst for better militancy from younger union members can’t be divorced from the forces which have reinvigorated the labor motion in recent times, Freeman mentioned, although he famous that the three-way race may assist Mulgrew prevail in the long run.
Ballots had been despatched out to eligible dues-paying members on Could Day, and ballots should be returned no later than Could 28, to be counted on the UFT headquarters on Could 29. Greater than a dozen union management and delegate positions on the metropolis’s second-largest union are on the road, and the winners will begin their three-year phrases on July 1.
Associated
