UFT applies pressure on Council to reject budget cuts

At a City Hall rally prior to a Dec. 11 budget hearing, UFT Vice President Janella Hinds, alongside other UFT activists, education advocates and members of the City Council's Progressive Caucus, called on the rest of the City Council to reject the mayor's 5% cuts to education and other critical city services. In his testimony before the Council's Finance Committee, UFT President Michael Mulgrew blasted the Adams administration for two successive years of budget cuts to schools. He pointed out the city was slashing education funding while state and federal governments have increased their support for public schools. For the first time in a decade, the city cut its own contribution to schools by $400 million even though it is sitting on $8 billion in reserves, nearly $1.5 billion of which must be used this year, as officials at the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget conceded in their testimony at the hearing. Mulgrew acknowledged the influx of asylum seekers poses a fiscal challenge for New York City, but he said it has not caused the fiscal emergency the administration claims. He made a similar point in a New York Daily News op-ed published the same day.

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Victoria Lee elected UFT treasurer

Victoria Lee was elected by the UFT Executive Board on Dec. 4 to complete the remainder of Debra Penny’s term as UFT treasurer. Last February, Lee was elected to complete Penny’s term as one of the three teacher-member trustees on the Teachers’ Retirement System board. Penny is retiring after more than 30 years of service. Lee began her career in New York City public schools in 1997 as a teacher at PS 143 in Corona, Queens. Two years later, she moved to a neighboring school, PS 16, and was elected its chapter leader in 2009. The following year, she trained to become a pension consultant for the Queens UFT borough office even as she continued teaching. After becoming a UFT pension representative in 2016, the union soon had Lee running pension clinics and workshops throughout the city. Lee’s term as treasurer runs through 2025.

Defend children’s right to shelter

Ask your members to sign our petition calling on Mayor Adams to reverse his decision to evict families from shelters after 60 days. Requiring newcomer families to reapply for shelter or find alternative housing will have serious educational consequences for our students who will be uprooted.  UFT Vice President Karen Alford will lead the UFT contingent at the Children's March for Our Schools on Tuesday, Dec. 19, from 3:45 to 5 p.m. The march, organized by the New York Immigration Coalition, will call on the mayor to end the 60-day shelter rule and support our families. We will meet at the corner of Broadway and Murray Street (on the west side of City Hall) at 3:45 p.m. Share this march flier (in English, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian) with your school community.

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Federation of Nurses/UFT score arbitration victory on short staffing

Federation of Nurses/UFT members employed by NYU Langone Hospital–Brooklyn won a significant victory in their long-running battle with the Sunset Park hospital over short staffing when an independent arbitrator on Dec. 1 ruled that the hospital must compensate nurses who work on short-staffed shifts. For each understaffed shift in a four-month period in 2022, the arbitrator ruled that for each missing nurse, the hospital must split the average salary of a nurse for a shift among the nurses who worked that shift. With this precedent-setting ruling, NYU Langone now has a strong incentive to maintain appropriate staffing levels since it will no longer save money by understaffing. NYU Langone argued that contract language spelling out appropriate nurse-to-patient ratios was not binding. The arbitrator, however, agreed with the union that the “guidelines are not a wish list, or merely desirable, but mandatory,” said UFT Vice President Anne Goldman, the head of the Federation of Nurses/UFT. The staff-to-patient ratios in the contract, she said, are a careful calculation of what staffing is required to provide adequate patient care. “This decision is an amazing finding that the contract and the staffing needs are real and essential,” Goldman said. “They’re patient protection.”

Don’t miss our all-member town hall on Dec. 19

Encourage your members to register for the virtual town hall on Tuesday, Dec. 19, at 4:30 p.m. UFT President Michael Mulgrew will answer members' questions about the mayor’s budget cuts, our new campaign to fix Tier 6, health care and other important topics. UFT members received their email invitation to the town hall on Monday. The registration link in each email is unique to that member, so it should not be forwarded.

Members can call the UFT during the winter break

Make sure your members know they can call the union at 212-331-6311 with questions about their rights and benefits, including their UFT Welfare Fund benefits, during the last two weeks of December. Members can call from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., through Friday, Dec. 22, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Tuesday, Dec. 26, to Friday, Dec. 29. The union's offices will be closed on Monday, Dec. 25, and Monday, Jan. 1.