History
Two previous unions of New York schoolteachers, the Teachers Union, founded in 1916, and the Teachers Guild, founded in 1935, failed to gather widespread enrollment or support. Many of the early leaders were pacifists or socialists and so frequently met with clashes against more right-leaning newspapers and organizations of the time, as red-baiting was fairly common. The ethnically and ideologically diverse teachers associations of the city made the creation of a single organized body difficult, with each association continuing to vie for its own priorities irrespective of the others. [3]
The UFT was created on March 16, 1960, and grew rapidly. On November 7, 1960, the union organized a major strike. The strike largely failed in its main objectives but obtained some concessions, as well as bringing much popular attention to the union. After much further negotiation, the UFT was chosen as the collective bargaining organization for all city teachers in December 1961. [4]
Albert Shanker, a controversial but successful organizer was president of the UFT from 1964 until 1984. He held an overlapping tenure as president of the national American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to his death in 1997.
In 1968, the UFT went on strike and shut down the school system in May and then again from September to November to protest the decentralization plan that was being put in place to give more neighborhoods community control. The Ocean Hill-Brownsville strike focused on the Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn but, ironically, the schools in that area were among the few that were open in the entire city. The Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis is often described as a turning point in the history of unionism and of civil rights, as it created a rift between African-Americans and the Jewish communities, two groups that were previously viewed as allied. The two sides threw accusations of racism and anti-Semitism at each other.
Following the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis, some 14,000 teachers were laid off and class size soared. Another strike addressed some of these complaints and gave long-serving teachers longevity benefits.
Caucuses
The Unity Caucus, formed in 1962, predominates in the union, holding nearly every leadership position. New Action formed in the 1980s as an opposition caucus but, since 2003, it has cross-endorsed Unity candidates. [5] The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) is a relatively new caucus, formed in 2012. [6] The MORE Caucus has been accused of engaging in and encouraging antisemitism in the NYC public schools. [7]
In the spring of 2013, UFT election campaign, president Michael Mulgrew (Unity) refused repeated requests to debate his opponent, Julie Cavanagh (MORE). [8]
Current issues
The previous president of the UFT, Randi Weingarten, resigned in 2009 to lead the American Federation of Teachers. She has clashed repeatedly with the mayors of the city; in particular with former mayor Rudy Giuliani and mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg made student promotion to third, sixth and eighth grade contingent upon performance on standardized tests, which the UFT and the New York Board of Regents have criticized as being flawed.
The UFT opposes merit pay for teachers, opting for seniority-based pay, but joined in November 2007, with Mayor Bloomberg in agreeing to a voluntary incentive program for high-achieving schools with high-needs populations. The union does not support a proposed reform of the seniority-based LIFO (education) law. In July 2007, Weingarten collaborated with Mayor Bloomberg in supporting a modified merit pay program with bonuses to schools and additional bonuses targeted for specific teachers. [11]
The UFT strongly supports the reduction of class sizes for all subjects and grade levels in New York City public schools.
The UFT, under the leadership of presidents Weingarten and Mulgrew, has collaborated with tenets of the education reform movement, such as support for value-added modeling for teacher evaluation. [11] [12]
In 2023, the UFT sued New York City for school cuts. [13]
In 2023, the UFT negotiated with the City for a plan that would move UFT retirees and other retired New York City workers from traditional Medicare into a new, privately run Medicare Advantage plan. Large numbers of UFT retirees have complained about the proposed plan. [14] Retired UFT members and other New York City retirees have protested that the new plan falls short and organized opposition to the new plan. [15] [14] [16]
In 2024, the UFT sued to block congestion pricing in lower Manhattan. [17] The union argued that congestion pricing would worsen pollution and harm children. [18]
Lawsuit against school co-location
In May 2011, the UFT, along with the NAACP and others, filed a lawsuit against the New York City Department of Education to stop school closings and the co-location of schools. [19] [20] [21] In the lawsuit, the union charged that the Department of Education was improperly closing schools. [22] [23] The lawsuit also asked the court to stop school co-locations. [24] [25] [26] Before a court hearing on the suit in June 2011, parent groups held a news conference to thank the NAACP for fighting on behalf of all kids and to press for fairness and equity. [27] [28]
The New York City Parents Union filed its own lawsuit in June 2011 to stop co-locations and school closings, stating, “Despite inconsistent and uncertain results, the DOE continues to push public school parents into a privately managed school system where many charters perform worse than the public schools while failing to serve their fair share of students with special needs and English Language Learners.” [29]
Preventing layoffs
On Friday, June 24, 2011, UFT President Michael Mulgrew, along with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, announced that an agreement had been reached to prevent the layoff of 4,100 New York City teachers. [30] [31] The agreement came six months after Mayor Bloomberg had warned 21,000 layoffs were possible. [32] The union had opposed all layoffs with a strategy of leafleting, marches and rallies, [33] [34] [35] including a march on Wall Street on May 12, 2011, with 20,000 participants. [36] [37] [38]
Mark Joseph Green is an American author, former public official, public interest lawyer, and Democratic politician from New York City. Green was New York City Consumer Affairs Commissioner from 1990 to 1993 and New York City Public Advocate from 1994 to 2002.
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is the second largest teacher's labor union in America. The union was founded in Chicago. John Dewey and Margaret Haley were founders.
Albert Shanker was president of the United Federation of Teachers from 1964 to 1985 and president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) from 1974 to 1997.
Rhonda "Randi" Weingarten is an American labor leader, attorney, and educator. She has been president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) since 2008, and is a member of the AFL-CIO. She is the former president of the United Federation of Teachers.
Brian M. McLaughlin is a former American Democratic politician and labor leader from Flushing, Queens.
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Sandra Feldman was an American educator and labor leader who served as president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) from 1997 to 2004.
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is a labor union that represents teachers, paraprofessionals, and clinicians in the Chicago public school system. The union has advocated for improved pay, benefits, and job security for its members, and it has opposed efforts to vary teacher pay based on performance evaluations. It also called for improvements in the Chicago schools, and asserts that its activities benefit students as well as teachers.
The New York City teachers' strike of 1968 was a months-long confrontation between the new community-controlled school board in the largely black Ocean Hill–Brownsville neighborhoods of Brooklyn and New York City's United Federation of Teachers. It began with a one day walkout in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district. It escalated to a citywide strike in September of that year, shutting down the public schools for a total of 36 days and increasing racial tensions between Black and Jewish Americans.
Absent Teacher Reserve is a term referring to teachers who are no longer appointed to a specific school, but are reassigned to a school or number of schools within a school district or school system throughout the school year. It may also refer to assistant principals who are rotated from school to school in a similar fashion and there are also AGRs, a guidance counterpart.
William Colridge Thompson Jr. is an American politician who served as the 42nd Comptroller of New York City; sworn into office on January 1, 2002, he was reelected to serve a second term that began on January 1, 2006. He did not seek re-election in 2009. Instead he ran for mayor, and he was succeeded as comptroller by John Liu. On June 15, 2016, Thompson was appointed by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo as chairman of the board of trustees of The City University of New York; his term ended in June 2022.
Michael Mulgrew is the fifth president of the United Federation of Teachers, the trade union of teachers in New York City, New York. The union's executive board elected Mulgrew in July 2009. Prior to his current position, Michael was elected vice president for career and technical education (CTE) high schools in 2005 and became the union’s chief operating officer in 2008.
Charter schools in New York are independent, not-for-profit public schools operating under a different set of rules than the typical state-run schools, exempt from many requirements and regulations. Any student eligible for public schools can apply.
Charles Cogen was president of New York City's United Federation of Teachers (UFT) (1960–1964) and subsequently, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) (1964–1968). During Cogen's tenure the teachers' union demonstrated a militancy that had not previously been apparent, and was at odds with the image of the teacher as quiet civil servant. That strikes were technically illegal under the state's Condon-Wadlin Act did not deter Cogen from leading citywide walkouts that resulted in significant economic and professional advances for those he represented. To those who argued that striking teachers set a poor example for students, Cogen responded that such teachers were models of courageous citizenship. Similarly, Cogen scoffed at efforts to characterize teacher walkouts as subverting the public interest: "Who is to say what the public interest is?"
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Mona Davids is an American activist who is the founder and president of the New York Charter Parents Association and the New York City Parents Union.
The New York City Parents Union is a student rights advocacy organization, formed in 2011 by President Mona Davids. According to its mission statement, the group seeks to make high-quality public education available to the children of New York, through "empowering parents, supporting school choice, advocacy, legislation and lawsuits." It has been at the center of a number of high-profile lawsuits, most notably the case now known as Davids v. New York, which was closely patterned after a similar case, Vergara v. California. Davids v. New York was eventually consolidated with a similar suit known as Wright v. New York that fellow school reformer Campbell Brown, head of Partnership for Educational Justice, had announced she would file on behalf of seven New York parents. The Davids v. New York lawsuit aims to invalidate New York State teacher-tenure laws, but has since stalled after a California Court of Appeal ruled in April 2016 that "plaintiffs failed to establish that the state's tenure laws violate students' constitutional rights to equal protection".
Adrienne Eadie Adams is an American politician serving as Speaker of the New York City Council. A Democrat, Adams represents the 28th district, and is the first woman elected to the district.
Eric Dinowitz is an American teacher and politician. Dinowitz represents the 11th district of the New York City Council. Dinowitz is a registered Democrat. Dinowitz was elected in a special election held on March 23, 2021, after the resignation of Andrew Cohen, who was elected to the New York Supreme Court. Dinowitz assumed office on April 15, 2021 after weeks of the New York City Board of Elections counting ranked-choice voting ballots which were instituted for municipal elections beginning in 2021.
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