Every year, between December and March, our chapter pauses its monthly membership meetings to accommodate the UFT Welfare Fund retiree benefits meetings. In that interval, I have some time to reflect on the state of the chapter and my experiences thus far as chapter leader.

I think we have a lot to be happy with. Our meetings are focused on debate of retiree issues — over health care, over City Council legislation to protect our health benefits and over our support of other labor unions. We’ve passed RTC resolutions opposing the imposition of Senior Care copays, affirming our opposition to any attempt by the Trump administration to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, and voicing our support for federal title programs that provide supplemental funding to schools.

These resolutions were brought to the floor by RTC members from across the UFT’s political spectrum, and we have found common ground on each of them.

Until I became chapter leader in 2024, any votes the chapter took were confined to the members in the room. With online voting and handheld clickers, we have expanded the voting process to also enfranchise RTC members who attend via Zoom.

The RTC resolution “No changes to UFT members’ health care without Delegate Assembly approval,” went to the Delegate Assembly in December and was approved overwhelmingly. In June, the UFT withdrew its support for a Medicare Advantage plan for city retirees. Retirees are making a difference!

Having thousands of eyes and ears watching and listening to every single RTC meeting is an awesome thing. We’re averaging about 300 in-person and over 2,000 online attendees at each meeting. When I retired in 2018, before the pandemic, we usually had a few hundred members at each meeting and no one attended remotely. For those who are hard of hearing, we have instituted closed captioning in Shanker Hall.

We’ve had technical glitches that we need to fix, and I am still grappling with running a large meeting consistent with Robert’s Rules of Order. I thank you for your patience while I learn and improve.

The pandemic brought big changes to all of us. We became COVID-19’s victims on many levels, succumbing to the virus itself as well as the alienating social distance it imposed on us. Apps like Zoom allowed us to maintain our social networks and opened new avenues for participation in events, but they also took something away — the personal connection.

Zoom allows us to reach many more UFT members at relatively low cost, but does it improve the quality of our union engagement?

Online attendance is wonderful for those who can’t attend meetings in person, but does it help us build the relationships that make our union stronger? Now that our annual benefits meetings are online only, we have reached more RTC members than ever before with valuable benefit information. Yet, when I talk with RTC section coordinators across the country, their No. 1 request is for in-person union meetings to resume. Our RTC members outside the New York metropolitan area haven’t truly reconnected with the union since the pandemic. They want personal contact with our union leaders and with one another.

We must surely keep Zoom connectivity, but I hope we can also find a way to get that personal UFT connection back.