Guided by the theme “The dream still demands,” the 16th annual UFT African Heritage Committee Awards Dinner was both a celebration of the gains made and a reflection on the work still to be done for civil rights causes including racial equality and education equity.

The next big challenge for the UFT and the nonprofit Eleanor’s Legacy is to make sure “the New York City Council accurately represents the 4 million women and girls who live in the city,” said Brette McSweeney, the executive director of Eleanor’s Legacy, at a pre-Women’s March breakfast forum on Jan. 19.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew and other union officers gathered at the Corning Tower Observation Deck in Albany on Jan. 28 to discuss the union’s 2019 legislative priorities with state lawmakers.

With the special election for New York City Public Advocate set for Tuesday, Feb. 26, nine of the candidates vying for the post attended a UFT forum at the union’s Brooklyn borough office on Jan. 10 in the last in a series of four town halls around the city.

It was a day of wonder and thrills, a chance to fist-bump with the mighty Bumble Bee Transformer and dance with the Black Panther. But it was Santa Claus who won the hearts of the 120 children from homeless shelters across the city who lined up to whisper in his ear at the UFT’s annual holiday party, organized with the help of the Coalition for the Homeless, on Dec. 15.


UFT members packed public advocate town halls at the union’s Queens borough office on Dec. 13 and at union headquarters on Dec. 18 to meet and ask questions of the candidates vying to succeed Leticia James as the New York City public advocate.