Union President Weighs in on Tentative Teachers Contract Deal

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. With us now, the president of the UFT, the United Federation of Teachers. That's Michael Mulgrew, who just completed a tentative five-year contract agreement with the Adam's administration last week, and now, of course, wants the 115,000 union members to vote to ratify the contract. Judging from things I've been reading, and from our callers to yesterday's show, rank-and-file ratification might not be automatic.

The agreement includes a starting salary increase for teachers, from the current $61,000 a year to $72,000 a year. It cuts in half the time it takes to reach $100,000 a year. Teachers will now get there with eight years of service. In addition, the contract has annual raises in the 3% range. There are remote learning provisions for certain situations, and more. If you were listening yesterday, when we took teacher calls on the contract, on the day off from school, our board was flooded with teachers planning to vote no, for reasons we'll go over with Mr. Mulgrew.

In fairness to him, I did say yesterday that you cannot judge public opinion by who calls a talk show. It's usually people unhappy about something who are motivated to call, so what we do here is thoroughly unscientific in that way. We certainly acknowledge that, but it does start conversations and raise issues to be discussed, which is vital, and that definitely happened here yesterday, so we will follow up today on some of what we heard.

Michael Mulgrew has been the UFT President since 2009, when he succeeded Randi Weingarten, who went on then to become president of the National Union. Besides his work in the union, Mulgrew was a high school teacher in Brooklyn for about a decade. Started out by going to CUNY, at the College of Staten Island, where he majored in English literature and special ED. Michael, we always appreciate when you come on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Michael Mulgrew: Oh, thank you, Brian. I hope everything's well.

Brian Lehrer: I didn't even have to give out the phone number before, most of our lines are lit, but I will give it out right now, for those of you who don't have us on your speed dial, 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. I don't know if you got briefed about our call in yesterday, but it surprised me, because reaction to the tentative contract was only one of the things we invited when we said teachers could call in on the school day off, about various school issues.

The phones wound up being completely dominated by teachers in your union planning to vote no. Do you consider this contract a hard sell?

Michael Mulgrew: No, Brian, we're proud of the contract. The 500-member negotiating team did a great job. We have close to 100 new agreements. It's the most we've ever negotiated in a single contract. Then there's new opportunities in terms of virtual learning, which-- It's always a good thing when you can get a creative piece inside of a contract for people, if they want to consider it, they can go ahead and consider those things.

More importantly, it was, at the end, to finally get the agreement done, the recognition that we need to do something, in terms of getting teachers to $100,000 in the first eight years. Then, also making sure that we're doing something for all of the people who work in the schools. It's been a very tough three to four years in our schools. Every challenge that has come at us, the folks in the schools have continued, always, to be there and meet the challenges head-on.

It was important that-- The mayor said, in the end, he was like, "You know what, I like the idea of this $100,000 retention bonus, or thank you bonus, and that will go on in perpetuity, as long as you're working for the school system." That was a big piece for this. Then, of course, since then, we've had a lot of interaction with the members, but we're a big union with a lot of diverse opinions.

Brian Lehrer: Let me go down a list of a few specific things that came up yesterday. We'll let callers do some of this, depending on what people call in with. Here's part of a call we got from Marnie, in Jackson Heights, on the health insurance benefits in the tentative contract.

Marnie: When he was having town hall with members, what he said is, in disagreement, there are no changes to healthcare, but the important thing for members to know is that in our 2018 contract, there were agreements about healthcare that are still in effect. That is-- The union will find $600 million per year, and give back to the city, on our healthcare. They'll find healthcare savings some way, that's not going to be negotiated until the fall.

Basically, Mulgrew gets to decide what that'll be, without asking members' input. In some way, we'll still have premium free healthcare, but we may end up, in some way, paying more, that would basically negate any raises that we're getting. We just don't know what it's going to be. Since Mulgrew's not being transparent about this, I am planning to vote no.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, to focus this, the caller's main issue, it sounds to me, is-- You agreed, in your last contract, to save the city $600 million on your members' healthcare costs.

Michael Mulgrew: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: Without the members getting to vote on what those cuts would be, as part of the contract, why should they trust that they'll be well taken care of, if that's the case?

Michael Mulgrew: The cost of $600 million has already been met by the MLC. Remember, the Municipal Labor Council, that's all of the unions, negotiate together for healthcare. It's not just the United Federation of Teachers. I'm very proud of the work we do on healthcare here. Unlike the rest of the country, that just basically take it on the chin between the insurance companies, the hospitals, between the medical providers, New York has the highest rate of inflation on hospitalization in the entire country.

The rest of the country, for the last 10 years, went up 40%, and New York City went up 70%. Instead of just passing those costs on to the workers, what we've decided to do is get very aggressive with our negotiating strategies. I tell the insurance companies, "We are paying you, so we're the client. If we want to be involved in negotiations, we're involved with the negotiations," and that is not something that has been done, historically, anywhere.

I think people in this country should wake up to the whole healthcare debacle, because the insurance company gets a huge increase from a hospital chain. They'll fight about it for a little bit, but in the end, they pass it all onto the clients, who are the patients. We've said no to that. We've said, "No, we're going to change this dynamic." In the last 12 years, we've saved over $2 billion in healthcare. All of that money we saved has gone back into the healthcare, for all New York City employees.

That is the deal we have with the city, that as long as we do this work together, all of the savings go back into the healthcare program. In saving that $2 billion, we have not diminished anyone's benefits. I think it's really a model for the rest of the country.

Brian Lehrer: There are some people whose benefits are being diminished, and that is the retirees from the UFT, and of the city--

Michael Mulgrew: I disagree with statement. I disagree with that statement.

Brian Lehrer: We get calls all the time, from people who are feeling that way, and very much object to what's going on now, moving them into a Medicare Advantage plan, from traditional Medicare. Let me let a caller set this one up, because frankly, we have so many callers on the board who want to, and we're going to let Kathy, in Bellerose, do it. Kathy, you're on WNYC, with Michael Mulgrew, president of the UFT. Hello.

Kathy: Thank you. I would like to ask Michael--

Michael Mulgrew: Hello.

Kathy: Yes, Michael. I would like to ask you how we get a better program than what we already have when our cost out of pocket is next to nothing. Even Brad, the comptroller, refused to acknowledge that this was a contract that was worthwhile. He refused to sign it. We had no vote, as retirees, on whether or not we wanted it. You just go and do it. Well, union paying people dues, we should have a vote on what it is.

Take a vote of the retirees, and you will see that probably 75% of us do not want it. Why do we have to accept it? Why don't you negotiate for us rather than for the city?

Brian Lehrer: Kathy, thank you.

Michael Mulgrew: We did negotiate. We have negotiated. We have negotiated a plan that does not exist anywhere in this country. Our plan is specifically different. I'm sorry, it had to be called Medicare Advantage, because that's what the federal government required it to be called. You name me one plan, anywhere in the country, where the patients, the patients, not the insurance company, the patients, have a committee that has a legal standing, that they can go automatically to, an expedited arbitration, and fine the insurance company $500,000 at a clip.

There is no such thing, anywhere. That plan has more benefits in it than our current existing plan, and we have built those assurances in. I keep telling everyone the same thing. In a year from now, after everybody's been in the plan, they will see that they are in the best Medicare Advantage plan in the entire country, because it does not exist anywhere, and we did negotiate that. This is tough stuff, Brian. You can't get around the fact that this is very difficult stuff. Healthcare is really important.

I'm going to be in that plan. My family's going to be in that plan. We have built-in every provision you could imagine, besides increasing the number of benefits.

Brian Lehrer: Let me go one step further down that road, because you were on All Things Considered, on the station, in March, as you may recall, and you said, "We have performance guarantees with financial penalties if the company doesn't get everyone, meaning doctors, I think, to either be in the plan or accept the billing. On a monthly basis, all of this information and data goes to a committee, of which we're a part of.

We can go to an arbitrator quickly for what's known as an expedited arbitration if we feel that something's being denied wrongly." Michael, the response we got from critics at that time was-- That's a creaky structure, because it doesn't promise that all the doctors who take Medicare will be in the managed care plan. It assumes you'll have some fights on your hands because of that. All you've gotten in return is, you can go to an arbitrator, who will hear both sides. That struck people as very vague and squishy as a contract provision. Your response?

Michael Mulgrew: It escalates. If there is a real problem, it escalates quickly, and those fines will become very, very heavy. That is how we set this provision up. Right now, I can say we monitor it on a daily basis. We are now at the place where almost all of the doctors are in the plan. We still have a couple more to do. The majority of them, we just cannot find, they have billed in the last three years, but we cannot find them at this moment.

We are going to continue to do everything that we've said our retirees deserve, and we are going to make sure it's safeguarded, and take care of it. I know people are uncomfortable, at times, with change, but this is our way of making sure that we are continuing to provide high-quality, premium-free health insurance, just as we need to do. We are doing the same type of things with our in-service healthcare. We're going after certain hospitals, or we're pushing certain plans, so that people get preventative care.

These are the things that make a difference. It's not easy stuff. It's not easy stuff for people to understand, because of how the healthcare system works, but we are going to keep doing the work of ensuring everyone gets their high quality, premium, free healthcare.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to go on to other aspects of the contract in a minute, but just one follow up--

Michael Mulgrew: I want to be clear here, Brian, I just want to be clear. There is not a single provision on healthcare in this contract, and the last contract's provisions have already been met. I just want the record clear on that.

Brian Lehrer: Right. The retirees case is still in court, and as the caller noted, the comptroller, Brad Lander, just refused to certify it,-

Michael Mulgrew: Did nothing.

Brian Lehrer: -which didn't affect anything, because it is still in court. He was also making a statement on behalf of the retirees who are unhappy. What ties together the caller who was a current teacher yesterday, and the caller who was a retiree just now, is that neither of them understand why you can't negotiate the specifics of whatever the givebacks or provisions are going to be, with respect to healthcare, before you put it to the rank and file for a vote, rather than after.

Michael Mulgrew: Brian, again, I have to keep saying, on the healthcare issues, this all goes to the Municipal Labor Committee, where it's a representative body. The representative body then votes on behalf of their union. I think we're familiar with that style of governance. It's called the United States Government.

Brian Lehrer: Representatives elect us. We trust you. Some things are in the contract, and the rank and file votes on provision ABCDEFG, but not these very controversial health insurance changes.

Michael Mulgrew: Again, I'm going to say this over and over. I am telling you, a year from now, everyone's going to understand that we actually did a phenomenal job in taking care of our retirees. That is a sacred thing to us, here at the UFT, because our retirees are treated a little bit differently than everybody else's. I understand the calls you get, and that's fine. I will say the proof is in the pudding.

Brian Lehrer: Laura, in East New York, you're on WNYC, with UFT president, Michael Mulgrew. Hi, Laura.

Michael Mulgrew: Laura?

Brian Lehrer: Laura, listen to your phone. Not the radio. The radio's on a delay.

Laura: Okay.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Turn your radio off, so we don't have two sound streams. Thank you. Hi.

Laura: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Hello.

Michael Mulgrew: Hello.

Laura: Yes. Oh, I'm going to ask a question. I'm an occupational therapist. I know we're a small chapter within the DOE. I just feel that we constantly get-- I don't know, shafted. We have BERS, which has a lower retirement system than the TRS. We work [unintelligible 00:15:20] 15% versus 18%. Salary upgrades are so much less than the teachers. We have to work 15 years to even make $100000. Most of us work second jobs just to be keep up with inflation.

I don't understand why the longevity, why the pay increases. Why do we always get shafted?

Brian Lehrer: Why do you feel shafted, Laura? Do you want to give a specific number? A top salary, or something like that?

Laura: Top salary for an OT-- 15 years is only $100,000.

Brian Lehrer: Is that your main complaint, is it pay?

Laura: Salary, longevity. In fact, even we get professional development. We get this number, we get $1,700 at professional development, within the year. Most of us can't even use $1,700. What happens to that money? We're lucky if we use $1,200 of it, lucky, if we use $1,200 of it. Then, what happens? We don't get that.

Brian Lehrer: Laura, hang on. We're going to get your response. Mr. Mulgrew.

Michael Mulgrew: We always want to try to get as much money as we can, for everyone. All right? Let's [unintelligible 00:16:37], as far as I'm concerned, the people who work in our schools all need to be paid a hell of a lot more. Every time there's a National Educators week, I watch all the TV that says, "This is horrible how we treat the people who work in the schools in the United States." Then nobody does anything about it. The unions go in and we bang out different deals in different times, and the city has their position on certain issues.

The city has their position. In terms of specific titles, we have to go through what is known as the-- What is the market rate for the area, for that title. That's really what our frustration is at times, because I don't believe that an OT and a PT, in a school, does the same exact job as an OT and a PT in a medical setting. We are supporting the legislation to move them out of BERS. In fact, that legislation is alive and well in Albany right now.

The city's position is always going to be-- What is the market rate, and compare them to the OTs and PTs in the school districts surrounding us. That is what they base their position on at all times, because if we ever land up in front of an arbitrator, to try to finalize a contract, that is the evidence that is presented at that point. Yes, it's frustrating.

Brian Lehrer: That's an example that a lot of our listeners may not have known of, of a person other than an actual teacher, who is covered by UFT contracts, occupational therapists, and physical therapists. Another issue for another category that a caller brought up yesterday was what he called poverty wages for paraprofessionals in the new contract agreement. Tell me if the numbers he cites in this clip here, as we replay part of that call, are accurate. The caller was Frank, in Brooklyn.

Jack: I'm a middle school teacher in Brooklyn. I've been teaching for 10 years in New York City public schools. I'm voting no on this contract for a number of reasons. It's being rushed, but the most important reason, for me, is-- It's a non-starter that paraprofessionals are continuing to be left out of a living wage with this contract. The highest salary that a paraprofessional can make is $57,000 with this contract, and that's after working 15 years.

A number of paraprofessionals don't even make it that far. That's because they start out so low, in the $30,000 range.

Brian Lehrer: I said Frank in Brooklyn, it's actually-- Jack was the name of that caller in Brooklyn. Michael, do paras who work with special ed students and do other vital things, really start in the 30s and top out around $57,000 after 15 years of service?

Michael Mulgrew: The major piece with the paraprofessional is what we consider to be the title we have to continue to do work on. This would be the third contract in a row where the paras will get the biggest value out of the contract. The last two, the rest of the union, all the other titles, have devoted in to give the professional more money in what is known as their base. The DOE has agreed with that, because they see the same issues that we're seeing.

For this year, I'm trying to look up exactly where we're at with the paras, because I don't want to give you the wrong number, but what we've done this year is, right now, a starting paraprofessional, in their first five years-- People don't understand that paraprofessionals, some of them come in without any sort of diploma except for a high school diploma, that they can do their 15 credits in college per year for the first five years, and they can raise their starting salary, 70%, which we never had before.

Which is really one of the big deals that we are trying to continue to do more and more for the paraprofessionals, because of the role they play, and the thousand dollar retention bonus is one that amounts for everybody in the union. It's for everyone, throughout the union. They will see there's a lot of things in here for the paraprofessionals, but again, this is where--

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] What would the top salary for a para be, after 15 years of service?

Michael Mulgrew: I'm trying to look it up for the new contract right now, as we're on the phone.

Brian Lehrer: Is it roughly in the-

Michael Mulgrew: [crosstalk] We have 30-something.

Brian Lehrer: -high 50s?

Michael Mulgrew: [crosstalk] I think it's-- We have 30-something titles.

Brian Lehrer: We registered that--

Michael Mulgrew: [unintelligible 00:21:07]. When I get to it, I'll tell you.

Brian Lehrer: One other issue I want to cite before we run out of time, is the expansion of remote learning in this contract. You agreed to expand online learning, and some people say the pandemic showed that virtual was largely unsuccessful and that there may be victims here, specifically kids on the margins, and that the UFT caved to pressure to save money in this respect by allowing more remote learning.

It's lower-income kids, it's kids with special needs who, perhaps, might find themselves shunted off into this kind of thing, and have even more trouble graduating, eventually, than they're having now. That's who the data shows, so far, is having the most trouble, post-pandemic.

Michael Mulgrew: Yes. What we did learn during the pandemic is what is good virtual learning and what is bad virtual learning. It's basically an instructional strategy. The people who just thought it should be like an online college course, where you just put a camera in front of a teacher and let them teach, show a screen, that's the stuff that failed miserably. That's the stuff that we said we would not agree to moving forward with virtual learning, if it doesn't work.

More importantly, what we were trying to do is try to meet our students where they're at. This starts in the high schools, and one thing that started in the pandemic, that has now continued, is-- We have more and more high school students who are working. They're not going to finish school if we don't give them different options where they can get the credits that they need. There's three different ways we think that this will be utilized.

The first one will be for people who want to accelerate. Now, we have [unintelligible 00:23:06] always have had the acceleration, so students who want to accelerate, they can go to school in the evening or on Saturdays, then they'll be students who--

Brian Lehrer: For example, if there are AP classes that are not offered at a particular high school, they can be set up with remote learning, AP chemistry, whatever?

Michael Mulgrew: Right. A lot of schools don't have that ability right now, because those teachers are not easy to come by, and when they do have them, they usually only have two or three classes in the school. That's the virtual learning we've been doing since before the pandemic, is to give that equity option for all students, so we'll want to grow that. The other one is, we know that the students who don't have 10 credits by the end of 9th grade, if we can get them back to 15 credits by the middle of their sophomore year, their success rate goes up dramatically.

We'll be working with guidance counselors and schools themselves, so people understand that that is a significant point, that we have to really have a program around, and use these virtual learning to make that happen.

Brian Lehrer: Let me follow up on exactly that, because the concern that I've heard expressed by some people is that-- It's this cohort at the most risk for not graduating, those kids who need in-person connections and resources the most. Who gets redirected into these programs? Will the Department of Education pick off the lowest performing or poorly behaving kids that they've effectively given up on? Those are concerns that people have about what you were just saying, I think.

Michael Mulgrew: That's one of our concerns, that's why there is a labor-management committee that sets up all the criteria. The last thing we want to do is the things you were just speaking about. We're not saying that a student going into 10th grade with 6 credits instead of 10-- We're not saying they're not getting their services at the school, and that's what I mean by a coordinated program. They can go to their regular day school and get all of the services, the remediation, and different things that they might need.

We leave that to the professionals at the school building, but they also then can take classes on Saturdays or in the evening, so they can get up to the 15 credits. I'm really excited about this piece. We have to be careful about how it's done. Anyone who wishes to do this has to take a class on the instructional strategies that we found successful during COVID. It really will give an option for our students, which is-- We got to change, here's the school building, and it's open from 8:00 to 3:00.

That doesn't work for the students of today. It just doesn't. I think this is [unintelligible 00:25:53]--

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] The one other thing about this, that I've heard expressed as a concern, is that this is voluntary for teachers. How does the DOE ensure that you get quality teachers into this program, who are taking advantage of this, I guess, opportunity for overtime?

Michael Mulgrew: It's a posting. There'll be a citywide posting. We'll agree to the posting. Anyone who wishes to do the posting has to agree to take the class on the instructional strategies of virtual learning. It's much different than in-class teaching. That's what we've learned. It's basically-- There's a lot of time you have, where the teacher will be teaching to small groups of students virtually, and we move towards what is known as a project-based learning strategy.

Students will be working on their projects while the teacher's working with groups of four and five. You get much more targeted instruction, and that's what we found out really did work during COVID. Again, the bad stuff, putting the camera in a room or in a classroom and having a teacher just teach the screens, that did not work. It just did not work. The final salary for the paras is $56,761.

Brian Lehrer: It is still $57,000 for paras. You want to make a closing statement here? I know you got to go.

Michael Mulgrew: Look, we're very proud of this contract, and again, I love this union, and I love that we have whole sets of opinions at all times. What we did here, I'm really proud of the negotiating committee with over 500 people doing this work, I'm very proud that all these different titles inside of our union, that worked in the schools, all negotiated themselves across the table from the Department of Education.

Of course, we had support people there in different things, but we really wanted to make changes that teachers and everybody in the school is like-- We don't have time anymore, and we don't want to be micromanaged through paperwork. Those are the other things that are in this contract. Taking care of that, giving people time back to do the work that they need to do, not ridiculous paperwork being driven at us from a bureaucracy.

Again, I think it's really important that the committee voted that instead of prorating the bonus every year, they said, "No, we're all in one union, we are all in this together. Everyone gets $100,000. We're equal." I was very proud of that moment.

Brian Lehrer: UFT President Michael Mulgrew, thank you so much for joining us and taking these questions.

Michael Mulgrew: Thank you so much. Have a great day.

 

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