The UFT held its first negotiating session with the city and the Department of Education on Oct. 13. Subcommittees of the UFT Negotiating Committee have been meeting with the city and the DOE this fall to discuss union demands specific to a functional chapter or a school division. The prior DOE-UFT contract expired on Sept. 13. The following FAQ answers some commonly asked questions about contract negotiations.

How do contract negotiations work?

Bargaining is a give-and-take process. The UFT makes a series of demands that reflect the membership’s priorities and the city responds to those demands and submits its counter-demands. Eventually, the bargaining is narrowed down to the most essential issues for each side. The two sides continue to talk until they reach agreement on all topics on the table, including length of contract, size of wage increases and any changes to working conditions or terms of employment. The tentative agreement is taken to the Delegate Assembly for approval before it is sent to the membership for a ratification vote. If a majority of the members vote to approve the tentative agreement, the contract takes effect.

How does the UFT develop its demands?

The union sent a contract survey in the spring to every DOE and city employee in the union’s various bargaining units. Priorities expressed in the survey were given to the 500-member UFT Negotiating Committee and its subcommittees. The subcommittees then formulate demands specific to their topic, functional chapter or division and present them to the city. The UFT Negotiating Committee as a whole is also drawing on the survey results to formulate its broader demands.

What topics can be discussed in contract negotiations?

The UFT may negotiate on pay, working conditions, evaluation and observation, contract enforcement, career ladder positions and the configuration of the workday.

What topics are prohibited by law?

The union cannot negotiate changes to pension or tenure (both governed by state law), matters of student discipline (a DOE prerogative) or school funding.

What about health care?

Health care benefits for UFT members are not part of the DOE-UFT contract negotiations. Instead, the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC), the umbrella group of more than 100 municipal labor unions including the UFT, negotiates with the city on the health care benefits for all city employees. But specific contract agreements might require a certain amount of health care savings, since there is a finite pot of money for employee pay and benefits as a whole. City officials told the UFT at the first bargaining session that before pay raises could be finalized, the city and the unions would need to be on the path to a health care agreement that offers major savings.

What does a bargaining session look like?

Nearly all 500 members of the UFT Negotiating Committee, led by UFT President Michael Mulgrew and the union’s chief negotiator, Carl Cambria, attended the initial negotiation session on Oct. 13. Officials from the city Office of Labor Relations and the Office of Management and Budget, along with top DOE officials, were present for the other side.

In November and December, smaller subcommittees for each functional chapter and division met or are meeting with the DOE and the city to pre-sent and discuss their specific demands. Those subcommittees report back on their progress and seek input from the larger negotiating committee.

What is the role of the 500-member UFT Negotiating Committee?

The large committee — made up mostly of rank-and-file members — drives negotiations. Its participation is invaluable because rank-and-file members understand what it is like to deal with inflexible supervisors, onerous work rules and all of the other challenges UFT members face in schools. The sheer number of rank-and-file members involved also can have an impact on the city negotiators by showing the union’s strength and unity. It is a signal that hundreds of union members are invested in a process that demands serious attention.

UFT Negotiating Committee members can’t openly discuss the content of negotiations because negotiations are confidential. However, in their committee meetings, all UFT Negotiating Committee members can pass on ideas and suggestions from their colleagues to help shape union strategies and priorities.

How can other rank-and-file members get involved?

Rank-and-file members can demonstrate the union’s strength and unity by participating on their school’s Contract Action Team. These teams will help organize and promote future school-based actions and activities in support of negotiations, starting with a contract teach-in in early 2023, and will keep members informed about where the union is in the bargaining process.

What is meant by “pattern bargaining” and how does it work?

New York City has a long practice of negotiating a contract with one union that sets a wage pattern for all other contracts in the same round of contract bargaining. The city looks to reach a deal with a union that is both large enough and respected enough that its Office of Labor Relations can then use that contract as a benchmark that all agreements within that round are expected to match in terms of cost. Four unions have begun negotiations with the city, but as of Dec. 12, no union had reached an agreement.

Can unions ever get more than what the pattern establishes?

Almost never. Once the initial bargaining pattern is established, it becomes an enormous challenge to get the city to grant significantly better terms to another union.

What role does the DOE play in contract negotiations?

The DOE is mostly concerned with educational issues and special initiatives and programs embraced by the schools chancellor. The DOE generally does not get involved in negotiating financial issues, unless they concern paying educators more in return for taking on new duties. Otherwise, monetary items are primarily the concern of the mayor, his budget director and his labor negotiators, who try to adhere to the bargaining pattern.

What happens when a contract expires? Can public employees go on strike?

Under the Public Employees’ Fair Employment Act (the Taylor Law), which was enacted in 1967, the terms of the old contract remain in effect until a new agreement is ratified by members.

The Taylor Law granted public employees in New York State the right to collectively bargain but it also barred them from striking. The penalties for an illegal strike include a loss of pay for each day the employee is on strike plus a fine of an additional day’s pay for every day on strike and potential discipline for misconduct.

Before the Taylor Law, public employees in New York had no collective bargaining rights. Under the Condon-Wadlin Act, a 1947 law that the Taylor Law replaced, striking public employees were penalized by being fired.

Are public employees entitled to retroactive pay if there is a delay in reaching a contract?

The concept of retroactive pay — the principle that no matter how long a delay there is in reaching a successor contract, the affected workers will receive retroactive pay for portions of the wage increase that date back to the end of the old pact — is almost always carried out for public employees by mutual agreement between the unions and the city.

The one time the city sought to ignore that understanding came during Michael Bloomberg’s third term as mayor when he insisted any contracts he negotiated would not include retroactive wages. That position prompted the municipal unions to refuse to negotiate with him. The first agreement reached under Bloomberg’s successor, Bill de Blasio, was with the UFT, and it included retroactive pay for the 54 months during which UFT members had been working under an expired contract — including the final 50 months of Bloomberg’s tenure.