By Joe Williams, DFER Executive Director
There is a famous picture of legendary teachers’ union leader Al Shanker leading a crowd of city teachers in a solidarity march across the Brooklyn Bridge. The picture is symbolic of a time when labor bosses like Shanker could credibly claim to speak collectively on behalf of what was then an important voting bloc in city politics. It is remarkable how much has changed.
This week, when the once-powerful United Federation of Teachers meets to pick its favorite candidate for mayor, union boss Mike Mulgrew will struggle to convince his candidate of choice that the teachers’ formal nod means as much as it did back in the good old Shanker days. In 2013, as the union continues to struggle for relevance, the UFT needs a good candidate way more than a good candidate needs the UFT.
It wasn’t always this way. Back when the UFT was a serious player in city politics, city teachers were united in a social justice battle for better pay, benefits, and working conditions. They fought hard and they fought together, because the benefits of doing so were obvious. Today’s teachers have different needs and wants, and new organizations like Educators for Excellence are increasingly giving voice to teachers who have a totally different lens for social justice.
To be sure, the old guard is still holding on strong. The men and women who made the UFT, now retired, still serve as the most active voting bloc within the union. (Retirees are allowed to vote in UFT elections.) The problem is: most of them left NYC long ago, for warmer environs down south and a lower cost of living.
In fact, on the same day that the UFT delegates will meet to make their mayoral endorsement, the union is scheduled to launch a task force to find out why more than four out of five active classroom teachers are completely disconnected from the once-proud union. In elections this spring, only 18% of the city’s teaching force cared enough about what the UFT was doing that they even bothered to vote. (And of the 18% of active teachers who actually voted, one out of five of those teachers voted for someone other than Mulgrew.)
Mulgrew boldly declared recently that the UFT is not going to pick a mayor, it’s going to “make” a mayor. Unless he is talking about “making” the mayor of Boca Raton, that’s unlikely to happen this year.
Where Shanker could claim to be the voice of thousands of city residents who marched with him across the East River, Mulgrew, essentially, speaks mainly for the washed-up UFT activists who are more likely to be headed for the buffet line at an early bird special somewhere in Florida than the election booth in Gotham this year.
This is one of the reasons the UFT hasn’t endorsed a winning candidate for mayor in nearly a quarter century, since David Dinkins first run in 1990. Once considered a prime jewel for those aspiring to live in Gracie Mansion, today the UFT’s endorsement is more show horse than work horse.
Like much of organized labor, the UFT is working to confront some changing realities in its rank-and-file. I actually believe the union will find its new voice and forge a novel new connection with the city’s teachers at some point, out of necessity. The UFT endorsement will once again be one that truly matters in New York City. Just not this year.