NYC Educator: Who Does Your Chapter Leader Represent?

NYC Educator: Who Does Your Chapter Leader Represent?:

Who Does Your Chapter Leader Represent?

It should be clear that your UFT chapter leader needs to represent you when you have issues with administration. Sometimes, people tell me their chapter leader says things like, "I can't take sides," and that's inappropriate. Your chapter leader needs to take your side, particularly when there is a contractual violation.

Of course not everything is a contractual violation. If you're on a crusade to paint the walls hot pink, it will be tough to find language in the contract to back you up. Your CL may advise you against this grievance, but ultimately you can make it if you so desire.

In fact, you never know. If you can muster a particularly persuasive argument for the pink walls, if the principal agrees it's necessary at Step 1, and finds a way to manage the paint and labor, congratulations.

It's different when you're assigned to go to a meeting during your lunch period. There are some principals who'd just as soon let you starve rather than have you miss a lecture on how to execute a better bulletin board, and the contract protects you from such nonsense. In that case, things ought to be a lot easier. It's time for your chapter leader to take a side.

But what about when a contract shows up that eviscerates seniority rights? Let's say, for example, the contract, rather than placing teachers whose schools close, proposes to render you a substitute teacher without classes of your own? What if it makes you patrol lunchrooms and