A UFT Executive Board Meeting is wrapping. I’m not sure when. Not in the last two years. I’d disagreed with Mulgrew. Or Weingarten. Or Michael Mendel (I miss Michael). Or maybe a DR meeting, and I had spoken sharply.
Whatever. The meeting is over, and a slight figure, smiling, comes over, to explain that I spoke well, but that there really was no disagreement. Well-intentioned. So well-intentioned that it was tempting to overlook that he was wrong about the disagreement. Winston Slivera.
Winston was warm and friendly. He thought people should get along. I never saw him cross or angry or even annoyed. I often saw him at citywide meetings and Bronx meetings. Always smiling. I think the last I spoke to him he was saying it was a shame that I was no longer on the Executive Board (this from a member of Unity Caucus).
Winston had been a science teacher at Truman High School in the Bronx, a chapter leader, and in retirement a staffer in the Bronx office. Here’s more about him.
A year ago today Winston died of COVID-19.