Why I’m Running with ARISE for a New UFT
Why I’m Running with ARISE for a New UFT
The students of New York City public schools deserve so much more. As members of the United Federation of Teachers we have a great responsibility to use our positions, our organization, our power to secure better living and learning conditions for all of our students - because those learning conditions are our working conditions.
I am Frank Marino. I’m running with the Alliance of Retired and In-Service Educators campaign for UFT leadership elections this May. If elected I’d serve as a member of the executive board representing middle schools. I’d work to help transform our union into a more democratic union that’s willing to fight like hell for what we and our students and their families deserve: a city where all of us can live and learn and work and grow old with dignity.
Every single student and teacher and para and secretary and therapist and school based worker should be able to learn and work in a beautiful, modern, safe, clean, and well-funded public school.
All of our schools should be buzzing neighborhood hubs, centers where community is cared for, cultivated for years and years. All of our schools should be places where students love going to every day because they get to play, to be curious, to grow deep friendships, to develop their artistic and academic talents, to read real books and puzzle through compelling math, to eat real nourishing food!
Our schools should be places where all children are treated with love and dignity, where their identity is affirmed and their genius is cultivated.
The health and wellness of our city’s children must be our priority.
Our students deserve schools where they are excited to grow up in. Where their teachers stay around for decades, made possible to do in this city because the profession of educating our children is dignified with thriving wages and autonomy and true participation in their workplace.
We can build this better public school system with a fighting union, one that actively supports schools at the chapter level to tackle the workplace problems creatively and in community with parents and families.
I dream of a union where chapters of NYC school workers use the leverage of their collective labor to transform each and every school into a beautiful, clean, joyous, democratic place of learning, bursting with joy and creativity and love for children and their families.
An ARISE UFT would support chapters in developing campaigns that turn up the heat to win critical improvements in the lives of their students and all workers in our city schools.
My colleagues and I did just that with the support of organizing training I and a few of my colleagues received as members of the MORE caucus (Movement of Rank and File Educators). Many of us at our school were inspired to join by a MORE organizing call during the pandemic. We were tired of watching our city and our union collaborate in ways that harmed our community.
Two days before winter break, during the Omicron wave of the pandemic, almost 70% of our school community was under partial quarantine. 25% of school staff members were home sick, either infected by COVID-19 themselves or caring for their sick child. It was clear to our chapter that any more time spent in the school building would guarantee increased spread of disease. We held an emergency chapter meeting on zoom during our lunch period to discuss what we would do.
Our chapter debated if we should stage a sick out, forcing the school to pivot to remote learning. When a colleague pointed out that per diem workers would lose a day’s pay and they couldn’t afford it, our chapter immediately started a solidarity fund and raised enough money to cover the entire days wages for every per diem worker in our chapter. We held a vote and it was unanimous: we would all send an email to our administration at the same time stating that we were sick and would stay home the following day.
By 8pm, our principal had sent an email alerting all staff, students and families that our school would be closed the following day and transition to remote learning. The building would be open with PTA volunteers and an administrator to help support families with any needs that came up as a result of the sudden change.
This action was possible because of solidarity and strength built by having a chapter organized through a bottom-up approach. Our chapter has open communication channels and collaborative structures where any member can post to our listserv, where we have multiple group chats and committees with diverse title representation, and a chapter leader that shares power.
This type of organizing is a sharp contrast to many chapters led by UNITY chapter leaders. UNITY chapter leaders often maintain one-way communication, requiring everything to go through them. When issues come up, they rely on strategies like filing grievance paperwork, or having a side chat with the administration. These are the strategies they’re coached to do by their UNITY-selected district representatives. It’s a model of unionism called service unionism. Bureaucracy thrives with this type of slow paced, power hoarding approach but our schools suffer.
If our chapter had done things the UNITY way, we would have left our school community in harms way. Instead, we used the strongest tool in a workers tool belt: we threatened to withhold our labor. In times of crisis, we must have that tool available.
Yes, job actions like this are risky. Yes, the right to strike was taken away from us in New York State. But we must do everything we can to win that right back. Our students lives depend on it. The future of our city depends on it.
A union is an organization we build with our coworkers, not a service we receive. We are only going to survive the destruction of our public institutions by combatting the forces of privatization with an equal opposing force: true working class solidarity.
With active participation from each and every member of the union AND our students and their families we can protect our schools and our workplaces and our children from harm.
We are in fascist times and it means we must act boldly and safely- which means together.
I’m a New Yorker, I grew up on Staten Island, I attended our public schools. I am from a family of city workers, of immigrants. I love this city and I love our union. This love is what drives me and my involvement in the ARISE campaign and would underline my work on the UFT Executive Board.
I believe that with a strong and united labor movement we can guarantee a society where all people belong, all people participate, and all people can live in safety and dignity. We need to move from a place of love for every one of our city’s children and not just fight for our own.
These are dark times indeed. Vote ARISE for a new dawn, for new leadership at the UFT, for stronger democracy in our schools, and together we will build a fighting union.