Examining the 2023 UFT contract draft - a 'tentative' analysis

Time: Here is the pitch on time, the workday, and remote work. Our supposed game of chicken , if it wasn’t actually just a yes-vote tactic all along, is now over. 37.5 days of tutoring is now out, and we have a reconfigured version of the pilot workday, which will need to be reapproved each calendar year (or default back to 37.5). In most (single-session) schools, this will look like 60 minutes of PD on Mondays (down from 80), 40 minutes of OPW (up from 35), and 55 minutes of parent engagement time (up from 40). However, while we were promised teacher autonomy and less micromanagement, I'm not sure this new plan delivers.

• That PD is now 20 minutes shorter each week is a welcome surprise for many of us, including myself, but we need to pause around the provision that “[t]he DOE and the UFT Teacher Center will create a catalog of professional learning options aligned with DOE initiatives that will confer CTLE hours and other required PD credits, such as CEUs. These options may be used in PD time during the workday at the school’s discretion.” The word ‘may’ is far from ‘must,’ and we should expect that many schools will see absolutely ‘0’ CTLE credits conferred for any PDs at all.
• Moreover, 15 of the 20 converted PD minutes go to parent outreach time, not self-directed OPW. Now, the parent outreach can now occur on our own time at home, and that's a good thing. But, we should not take lightly that part of the remote PE will entail that "the employee will regularly record and submit documentation identifying the remote time and activities on a paper form unless the activity occurs on a school-approved digital system that tracks the time.” I expect that in some schools we will see a big shift to micromanagement of that time, something that a lot of hybrid workers have reported on time they work remotely.
• There are pre-approved SBOs available on the pitch page, but the decision to force this vote to happen at the last possible second and make SBOs ‘conditional on ratification’ means a lot of chapters will be scrambling right now to put together a vote in time for the deadline.
• 5 minutes of added OPW time is, to be frank, not much of a win, especially since that’s the only extra time that’s been granted to teachers to do things on their own time and at their own discretion. As a special education teacher, I’m particularly disappointed that I’ll only see a maximum of five extra minutes added to work on IEPs each week. On that note, it’s good that the DOE will issue “guidance that schools with professional-activity periods should, to the extent possible, prioritize assigning special education teachers to the following professional activity assignments: 1) performing student-assessment activities (including portfolios, IEPs, performance tests) and 2) common planning time.” But the language here sounds awfully tentative and easy to get around. We may still see schools where special education teachers are not given their much needed IEP time. In general, we need to be careful about words like “guidance,” “should,” and “extent possible,” especially when used in the same sentence. And I do worry that much of the new contract may be written in such a fashion.

Respect: In addition to time and money, respect was the big theme of our ‘fair contract’ campaign this year. There isn’t a dedicated section for that on the contract at a glance, but we can try to infer from the other things that are up there.

• The improvement to bereavement time is welcome. I lost two grandparents this year and the memorial was outside of the previous timeframe. We need to be able to use that time more flexibly, and the new language is an improvement.
• It’s a welcome improvement that two UFT members can now take 12 weeks of combined parental leave (up from 6). But, this does not change the extremely flawed cost structure of our parental leave program, which UFT members overpay into significantly. Moreover, we still don't get 12 weeks of parental leave individually, whereas most NY workers do.
• There are some improvements to the process/result when staff are injured in the line of duty.
• Teachers now need to be given a reason if they are extended for probation, although I’m not convinced this will make a big difference. I’m sure there are a host of ready-available reasons the DOE will have. And this does nothing to change the onerous and broken tenure process – which leaves teachers without due process for far too long relative to other unionized municipal professions.
• There is no language here on improvement to the evaluation process.
• There is no language to reduce class sizes, which experts believe will remain unaffected by the new state law due to DOE non-compliance. There is also no language to reduce caseloads for related service providers.
• Most oversight for issues like special education and assessments are going to come down to committees which may not have much teeth. The new school-based special education committees, for instance, will not have the express power to escalate issues through any dedicated process. While it’s good that meetings about compliance will be taking place, we need to ask whether committees without power will have much of an effect.

Therefore, in the final ‘tentative’ analysis, this potential contract, while possibly an improvement on that of 2018, fails to meet the 5 primary contract demands of United for Change. We can see that based purely on the materials the UFT has released with the intention of persuading us to vote yes. Imagine how much worse the deal will stack up once we see the fine print.

Nick Bacon is a co-chair of New Action/ UFT . He is a member of the UFT Executive Board, representing high school teachers, and served on the 500-member negotiating committee.