NOTE - this blog post represents only my views and not those of ABC. But I am pissed off!

It's very simple and we can still do this: All ARISE has to do is say YES to allowing its AFT candidates to run with ABC.

So, why did ARISE put a roadblock on its candidates who want to run on the ABC slate, giving the Unity leadership an excuse to prevent these candidates from winning? Why did Unity agree with ARISE? ABC has agreed publicly to allow ARISE candidates to run. Why won't ARISE do the same? The say they want a formal agreement as New Action had with Unity for over a decade. Should we wear tuxedos?

March 22, 2025

I've been too busy the past week to address the important issue of how Unity and ARISE united to keep people from running on multiple slates, an increasing level of ARISE focusing its attacks on ABC.  Petitions were due last Monday, RTC Meeting Tuesday, DA Wednesday, R&R Thursday. Finally, I've had room to breathe. 

Back in December I offered a leader of MORE an idea of how to run two slates and win a control of the exec bd and adcom. Cross endorse enough candidates (not all so as to leave room for organizing new people) - all AFT, 3 each for Adcom which would give us 6 out of 12, a majority of the divisional and at large exec bd. The idea was turned down because if we won how would we govern the UFT? I said we'd figure it out -- let's win first. But I question whether elements of the ARISE coalition really want to win and are focused on not letting ABC win. 

My backup plan was to encourage AFT candidates to run on both slates. 

I spoke to a few candidates who did sign up for both slates and if forced to choose they say they will choose ABC.

Here is a detailed account on how Unity Caucus and ARISE united in a way to help Unity maintain their monopoly of AFT delegate seats. 

First a brief date by date summary:

Note the alliance between Unity and ARISE to throw a monkey wrench into the possibility of AFT candidates running on both ARISE and ABC slates and possibly winning some non-Unity AFT seats for the first time ever if Unity gets less than 50% of the vote. This only makes sense for Unity. So what is the motivation of ARISE other than to try to reduce the ABC number of candidates and vote? Yes Virginia, ARISE is clearly not running against Unity but against ABC, which is running against Unity and to win.

The focus of attacks from ARISE leading lights, led by the New Action faction, has been on ABC with a lean to Unity. Is there some kind of back door post-election deal in the works? After all, New Action, one of the 3 components of ARISE, has a long history of back room deals with Unity going back to 2003 through 2016. Do you remember when they ran Michael Mulgrew as their presidential candidate in the 2010 and 2013 UFT election, an interesting year that followed the 2012 Unity/NA sellout on Cuomo's Tier 6 bill and the 2014 Mulgrew sellout on retiree healthcare when he raided the stabilization fund. Imagine if I claimed NAC backed the Tier 6 and destabilization changes? No worries. I won't.

Now before I go on, let me state that neither I nor ABC is saying that someone can force a caucus to run candidates they don't want. But ABC is saying right up front it has no objection to any ARISE candidate running with ABC. So why won't ARISE make the same declaration instead of clinging to "formal meeting" which ABC interprets as a meeting with the dreaded ARISE steering committee which is sure to report a distorted account of the meeting.

What we hear from ARISE is an attempt to blame ABC for not being willing to meet with them to come to some agreement, as New Action did in its back room deals with Randi and Mulgrew that led to NA candidates running on the Unity slate. I'd like to see that agreement, since NAC is claiming that agreement as a precedent. Don't hold your breath.

New Action has led the assault on ABC with a number of bogus arguments and distorted reporting. Nick's NAC Attacks on ABC compared to mild treatment of Unity are notable. Nick suffers from ABC PTSD - like a jilted lover - in this case ABC's ultimate rejection of his steering committee plan which divided the UFT election pie into fourths -- one each to New Action, MORE and Retiree Advocate - representing all together less than 1% of UFT membership and one fourth to everyone else - the 99% - which ABC has been aiming to reach. ARISE had to divide the spoils into thirds while ABC went out and organized a slate of almost 560 people to run while the ARISE gang had been mocking ABC as being 7 people.

Let's compare Nick's report of the March 17 Exec Bd. meeting where I made a statement about the election manipulation by Unity, at no time claiming that someone can run without caucus approval.

What a shame. I used to read Nick's Notes religiously. Note how Nick gratuitously added something I did not say: Norm’s contention was that allowing members to run on multiple slates (without the consent of those slates) - All I said was that ABC gave its consent and questioned why ARISE would not do the same.

Now note the UFT Official more accurate minutes of the same meeting:

Norman Scott, a RTC Executive Board member, raised concerns regarding

• The upcoming UFT elections and the issue of candidates running on multiple slates. He cited historical precedents, specifically the 2007, 2010, and 2013 elections where individuals ran on both the New Action and Unity slates.

• He highlighted the recent ruling by the Election Committee Chair, Carl Cambria, which initially permitted candidates to run on multiple slates and accrue votes from each. He insinuated that Unity, realizing the potential loss of UFT convention seats, pressured the Election Committee (note that Mr. Scott himself is a member of the election committee) to reverse its decision. He specifically criticized Michael Schulman and a Unity member for supporting this reversal, which occurred shortly before the petition deadline.

• Scott then stated that the ABC openly allows its members to run on multiple slates, emphasizing their commitment to providing candidates with the opportunity to win UFT seats and challenge the unity. He asserted that ABC would not prevent anyone from running on another slate.

Michael Schulman requested a point of personal privilege to address what he termed the “perverted version of history” presented by the previous speaker.

• He defended Carl Cambria’s consistency, clarifying that while Cambria ruled candidates could run on multiple slates, past instances of dual-slate participation were based on mutual agreement between the slates involved. He stated that that no such agreement exists between ABC and Arise. Schulman emphasized his role in past elections, specifically his support for Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew, which were based on agreements between the slates. He stated he wished to correct the misinformation Scott provided. He offered to discuss the issue further with any interested Executive Board members after the meeting.

 Wow, who ever thunk that Unity would give a more accurate account that a so-called opposition person?

Below is the correspondence

March 10, 2025

Michael,

I received your attached note, and I have Bcc’d the entire Election Committee here with my response.

Each slate sends a designee with its petitions in person to the Election Coordinator who signs the receipt we discussed at our first election committee, that will establish the petitions submitted for each slate. If the UFT separately receives petitions in which individual candidates designate a slate, the Election Coordinator will confirm with the slate designee whether or not that individual should be included in that slate. The determination of that conversation will be communicated to that individual and shall be considered final. If it is determined that the individual is not permitted to run on the slate indicated, that individual may run as an independent, provided they are not running with another slate.

Sincerely,

Carl Cambria

Executive Director of Negotiations

United Federation of Teachers

March 13, 2025

Dear Carl,

I am writing to you on behalf of the Unity slate in response to your email from Monday at 5:24pm "RE: Candidates Running on Multiple Slates".

Unity agrees with ARISE that there is no agreement for a candidate to run on more than one slate.

Marcus Escobar

March 14, 2025

Election Committee Members,

I received the attached email from Marcus Escobar on behalf of Unity.  Since Unity and ARISE have both stated there is no agreement for candidates to run under more than one slate, candidates will not be permitted to do so.  Therefore, the UFT is modifying the response below as follows:

Each slate sends a designee with its petitions in person to the Election Coordinator who signs the receipt we discussed at our first election committee, that will establish the petitions submitted for each slate. If more than one slate submits a petition for the same individual, the UFT will confirm with the slates to determine which slate the individual should run under. The determination of the slates shall be communicated to the individual and shall be considered final. If the slates are unable to reach a determination, the UFT will reach out to the individual to determine which slate the individual is running under.  At that point, the determination of the individual will be communicated to the slates and shall be considered final. Moreover, if the UFT separately receives petitions in which individual candidates designate an additional slate to the one submitted by the slate designee, that petition will not be accepted.

Sincerely,

Carl Cambria

Executive Director of Negotiations

United Federation of Teachers

You will never see Mulgrew doing this. This meeting is also open to any UFT member - but focus will be on retiree issues up front.

Listen to Amy on retirees: https://abettercontract.org/p/podcast-listen-to-amy-speak-about

Arthur is hosting and I am running shotgun backup.

Hi retirees,

We are holding a Zoom meeting this coming Tuesday, March 11th, from 7 to 8 PM. Amy will be joining us. 

We very much hope you will not only attend, but also tell your friends to come. 

Thank you again for your activism and dedication. We very much appreciate it. 

Arthur

 

 

I kept getting asked the same question by some people who want to run on more than one slate. ABC has been open to anyone who wants to run for AFT/NYSUT Delegate on the ABC even if running on another slate. I don't get why there was ambivalence over that issue -- in fact I put that idea forth months ago to a leader of MORE as a way to run two slates against Unity and still win but there was little interest. But anyone who wants to take a shot at possibly winning as an AFT/NYSUT convention delegate and break the Unity monopoly, try to sign up to run with ABC and any other slate you are running on.

When I was asked I kept pointing to the years that New Action candidates were elected to the UFT Exec Bd by running on the Unity slate and their own slate. But for some reason, this history seems to have disappeared from the memory banks because members of their coalition are told they are not sure. 

At Thursday's UFT Election Committee meeting it was reaffirmed that you can run on more than one slate and reap the total votes you get on all slates. Go to this link and fill it out. And if you do, email me to let me know as I have to send you a blank petition for you to sign and return to me. [email protected]. 

Don't worry about getting the required 100 signatures as ABC has been and will be holding petition signing parties this week. Here is the Wednesday Brooklyn link: tinyurl.com/abc-2025-03-05. Friday Bayside link: tinyurl.com/abc-03-07-2025.

 Convention Delegate Form

This is a classic save-now, pay-later scheme - Ever Upward Blog

Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025

Pension stuff gives me a headache. My only interest in pensions is cashing the check but this seems to be a warning sign, especially that the governor and Mulgrew agree. We remember how Mulgrew and Adams agreed on taking away Medicare?

I didn't write the info below but received it in an email chain. There is a retired teacher chapter meeting on March 18 and a UFT DA in March 19 - expect some controversy at both on this issue.  

Kathy Hochul is putting an addendum to a bill that would basically borrow money from the NYC civil servant pension funds (EXCEPT the police firefighters would be left alone). This measure acts almost like a home equity line of credit, taking from the pension with a pledge to repay it at a later time. By doing so, this stands to underfund the pension system and compromise its solvency. This could affect both future retirees and current ones who are already receiving their monthly allow and stand to have it lowered.  

The proposition to borrow from the funds is also likely driven by the presidents of DC37 and the UFT, Mike Mulgrew and Henry Garrido. Just as bad is the fact that this proposal was done through back end doors with no transparency and no informing of other smaller unions. Am I supposed to think that Mulgrew is looking for something to take because he's getting nervous about repaying this annual $600 million dollars back to the NYC? This is tied to the Medicare Advantage plan and using healthcare savings from retirees benefits (by diminishing them) to pay for raises of current active educators. If he can't get from one source, he might be brokering deals with the governor to get the money from another source. This is an election year for Mulgrew. 

Here is a copy of the bill:

https://www.budget.ny.gov/pubs/archive/fy26/ex/30day/ppgg-artvii-newpartff.pdf

Here is an article about it:

https://ejmcmahon.substack.com/p/nyc-pension-gimmick-alert?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true&fbclid=IwY2xjawIrErlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHSbLlJ6-MaqpEU-O5EPciMwEBrigwarvq5SnrhS5_OV7rrsr6M0aH3Cs8A_aem_QTPJ9Ev-IRTGlMZVWfqrzA

And Here is further information about it:

https://www.facebook.com/100001388949749/videos/556969404066466

https://arthurgoldstein.substack.com/p/buy-now-pay-later

an interview that unpacks and breaks down the mechanisms of this addendum by Hochul. 

It appears to me  that the school system does not have to pay as much into the pension system as it has is obliged to, and that gap will be paid back at a later time and future year(s). The concern is that the mayor, city council, and union bosses will be out of office by then, and the newbie officials and younger teachers will have to inherit this dangerous risk. It is reprehensible that any union would cooperate with this. And it would not be surprising if Mulgrew and Garrido have lobbied for this. I also would not be shocked, even if speculative, if any of this has Randi's behind-the-scenes counsel on it, as she knows how these systems work and is a master at playing many ends against the middle. 

This is an interview that explains all as we know it now. 

 

Here is the interview:

Marianne Pizzitola Interview

Here is the Mcmahon article in full.

On the day she announced a half-baked plan to sort-of, kind-of undermine and stigmatize Mayor Eric Adams rather than either (a) remove him from office, or (b) leave him alone, Governor Kathy Hochul quietly did the mayor a big fiscal favor (at least in the short term, maybe). Then again, maybe the mayor isn’t the only beneficiary she has in mind.

Late Thursday, Hochul’s 30-day state budget bill amendments included a technically complicated piece of legislation designed to reduce city pension costs by $1.3 billion this fiscal year and next, and by another $9.6 billion over the following six years. The change would affect the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS), which has $90 billion in assets and covers 350,000 active and retired employees; the New York City Teachers’ Retirement System (NYCTRS), which has $285 billion in assets covering 200,000 active and retired employees; and the much smaller Board of Education Retirement System (BERS), which has 58,000 active and retired members and $6.3 billion in assets.1

As depicted below, total savings under this proposal are projected at $11 billion through fiscal 2032. But after that, it will be time for payback—a big payback. From fiscal 2033 through 2044, pension costs will rise nearly $18 billion higher than the levels that would be projected under current standards.2 In other words, this is a classic save-now, pay-later scheme.

In the past, statutory changes to city pension fund assumptions were introduced by the chairs of the relevant Assembly and Senate committees, passed with little or no debate, and were quickly signed into law. This kind of thing has never previously been embedded among a governor’s Article 7 budget bills, where it doesn’t belong.

Borrow now, pay later

The last time New York officials monkeyed with pension amortization to reduce short-term employer contributions was in 2010 via the Contribution Stabilization Program, which gave the state government and local municipalities the option of paying only a portion of their annual pension contributions to the Fund when due, spreading the rest over time with interest. Danny Hakim of The New York Times described it as “classic budgetary sleight-of-hand”—since employers would in effect be borrowing from the pension fund itself with a promise to repay the loan later. “Call it what you will,” said then-Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch, “it’s taking money from future budgets to help solve this year’s budget.” As it happened, the state lucked out: the risky “stabilization” program didn’t leave fiscal scars because the stock market strongly recovered in the years that followed.

The circumstances now are much different. Adams’ FY 2026 financial plan projects modest growth in pension costs, from $10 billion this year to $11.8 billion in fiscal 2028, thereafter dropping to $11.3 billion in fiscal 2029. All of this assumes, of course, that the fund hits its targeted 7 percent rate of return on investments. Meanwhile, as shown below, since the end of the Great Recession both NYCERS and NYCTRS have made progress toward fully funded status. Assuming the financial markets and economy don’t go into a prolonged slump, these pension funds are still several years away from getting back to 100 percent.

This gets back to the question of why. With key metrics headed (if slowly) in the right direction, why mess with pension financing now?

Look for the union label

Hochul’s amortization proposal is of strong interest to the two largest unions whose members belong to the pension funds in question—District Council 37 of AFSCME and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). Indeed, it’s safe to assume nothing like this would see the light of day if Henry Garrido and Michael Mulgrew weren’t supporting it—assuming they aren’t, in fact, actively lobbying for it.

A few more pension basics: for purposes of calculating the annual contribution due from employers (i.e., taxpayers), pension liabilities (the total retirement payments promised to all employees vested in the system) are discounted at a rate matching the system’s expected annual return on its investments. A higher assumed investment return equates to a higher discount rate—and the higher the discount rate, the less the employer needs to contribute each year to cover newly accrued benefits for current employees.

In the 1990s, the discount rates of public pension funds across the country peaked at more than 8 percent, which proved to be excessively optimistic once the tech bubble burst in 2000, followed by the 2002 stock market downturn, and finally the financial crisis and Great Recession of 2007-09. (Private pension plans also invest in the volatile equities market, as well as other assets, but are required by federal law to calculate employer contributions based on lower (and hence more prudent) discount rates, benchmarked to Treasury bills and highly rated corporate bonds.)

In early 2013, the Legislature passed and then-Governor Cuomo signed a bill reducing the city pension funds’ assumed rate of return at 7 percent. With no further change to pension actuarial assumptions, this would have created a larger unfunded accrued liability, or UAL, which in turn would have required an immediate and sizable increase in taxpayer-funded employer pension contributions. To cushion the blow, the law (Ch. 3 of 2013) provided that the additional cost of the lower discount rate would be “amortized” over 22 fiscal years, based on the UAL as calculated in 2010. In each of those 22 years, employer contributions would include an extra amount representing 3 percent of the UAL. The amortization period is due to end in 2032.

The bill Hochul backs would extend this existing amortization period out to 2044 for the NYCERS, NYCTRS, and BERS. But why bother? What’s the pressing need here?

As noted above, in contrast to fiscal and economic conditions prevailing in the wake of the Great Recession, pension costs aren’t skyrocketing. Both NYCERS and TRS have come close to hitting their 7 percent targets over the last 10 years, most recently earning a 10 percent return in fiscal 2024. If the stock market continues to perform well, pension costs will continue to decline. Of course, there’s always a very real risk that the markets will tank, in which case costs will rise again. But even under that scenario, the scheduled end of the current UAL amortization period will provide some added relief in seven years. The proposed amortization extension would wipe that out.

If the Legislature approves Hochul’s proposal, the money saved by the city is most likely to be spent on salary increases. The DC 37 contract expires in November 2026, and the UFT contract a year after that; in the meantime, despite falling public school enrollment, the city must hire and pay thousands of additional teachers to comply with a class-size reduction mandate signed into law by Hochul in 2022.

So far, neither Hochul nor Adams has publicly explained or offered any justification for this maneuver. In the meantime, the late Dick Ravitch’s words bear repeating: “Call it what you will, it’s taking money from future budgets to help solve this year’s budget.” *

*After this was initially posted, Governor Hochul’s office released this concerning the pension proposal:

“At the request of New York City, this proposal is an extension of the timeframe to fully account for unfunded obligations within the New York City pension system which were first recognized in 2010. This proposal will have no impact on the State financial plan, fully supports the NYC pension system, and will mitigate volatility by extending the period of recognizing these costs.”