Medical Mandates Finally Enter the UFT Teacher Union Election in NYC

As Michael Mulgrew and his Unity Caucus face the potential of a historic election loss, the ABC Slate adds medical mandates to their platform.

Amy Arundell and Michael Mulgrew

There are thousands of Teachers for Choice (TFC) members and supporters who are currently UFT members, and the NYC teachers union is about to have a historic election this May. Ballots will begin to be mailed out to membership in less than 30 days.

The main slate challenging the current UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, and his Unity Caucus (aka the mafia that has always run UFT) is the ABC Slate headed by Amy Arundell.

About a week ago

Katie Anskat

, who is running for UFT Treasurer on the ABC Slate, reached out to me to discuss the issues that are most critical to TFC. This led to a meeting Katie helped arrange between the TFC steering committee, herself, and Amy Arundell that occurred via Zoom this past Friday.

No one else running for election in UFT on any slate has tried to reach out to TFC in any fashion. We greatly appreciate ABC taking the time to engage us, especially Katie’s engagement and efforts.

Our steering committee was not thrilled with the way the meeting transpired. We left feeling Arundell sits in a much different space than us, especially in terms of reinstating fired and displaced unvaccinated workers.

However on Sunday, just two days after we met, Arundell extended an olive branch.

After speaking for over 90 minutes with Arundell on Friday night I gave her a suggestion via email on Sunday morning based off what she had said at the meeting. I wrote the following:

Here is a suggestion. To your platform, add this:

If medical mandates are ever brought by the city to our membership again, we will ensure that full collective bargaining occurs to protect the interests and jobs of all of our members, as opposed to closed-door negotiations that block the voices of all of our members

They instantly took this suggestion.

They added this policy (I believe verbatim) to their platform within hours. Katie Anskat informed me of this via email, writing:

Hey Mike,

It is the 3rd bullet point under Social Contract

Our Finalized ABC-UFT Platform: Forged by All of Us, Together

This is the first time anyone at UFT with any form of power has made any statement that the union dropped the ball during COVID. While this is nowhere near enough to heal the damage that has been done, and the ABC Slate has still not addressed other core issues for TFC members and supporters, this is an important step in the right direction.

Some other positive notes from our conversation with Arundell included:

• Arundell is opposed to problem codes on unvaccinated educators

• Arundell appears opposed to legal waivers for unvaccinated educators to return to NYC DOE

However neither of these positions are in writing from ABC at this time. I hope to see both of these positions - and more - in writing from ABC in the near future (as the election is now rapidly approaching).

I don’t know if ABC realizes that beyond unvaccinated educators, there are tens of thousands of UFT members who are extremely angry that they were forced to inject a medical product to keep their jobs. It's not just those of us who were fired who take major issue with this. (So much for “My Body My Choice!”)

If ABC chooses to tap into this constituency in a more powerful way I am sure they will win a resounding victory in this election, but it is unclear to me if they have the capacity to be so bold.

A little history

Back in September of 2022, TFC and NY Worker for Choice marched in the Labor Day Parade. When we came down 47th St. where UFT was staging their float we shouted “END ALL MANDATES! LET US WORK!” repeatedly and the crowd of hundreds of UFT members screamed in raucous support of us!

Randi Weingarten took notice of this, and after I confronted her and published the footage of this she agreed to come on my CHD TV show. She came on for 30 minutes with me and said, plain as day, she would not change one thing that was done during COVID and she would do it all again.

Watch my interview of Randi here.

Michael Mulgrew, who is a spineless coward, has never engaged me.

He only lied to me when I confronted him at the Labor Day Parade in NYC the following year in 2023. Mulgrew said he would talk to me about the legal waiver we were required to sign to get back to work after the vaccine mandate was lifted.

Watch me confront Mulgrew here:

Instead of talking to me he as he said he would on the streets of Manhattan, he sent Beth Norton my way: UFT’s General Counsel.

Beth and I spoke for nearly an hour. I wrote a detailed Substack on that conversation and published it, where she confirmed that NYC DOE requires a legal waiver for unvaccinated workers to come back to any job in the DOE.

Read that here:

Everyone involved in NYC education needs to pay attention to this election. The ABC Slate is not where they need to be on our issues, but they have reached out to us, engaged us, and they have placed medical mandates into their platform. No one else has done anything even remotely comparable to that.

If you are a UFT voting member, please reach out to me so we can discuss the best way to engage ABC to ensure our voices and issues will be heard in this election. This may be a once in a lifetime opportunity in terms of union politics for NYC educators opposed to forced medical mandates to maintain employment.

nyteachersforchoice@gmail.com