Over the years I was told by union officials that they had no say on the DOE's use of school based fair student funding. While that is true the fair student funding would never have been implemented had our union President, Randi Weingarten, had not agreed to eliminate the seniority transfer and bumping provisions in the infamous 2005 contract.
School based fair student funding discriminates against veteran teachers, especially senior teachers. Since the school budget is based on the school demographics and principals are more inclined to hire inexpensive staff, in particular, teachers. The DOE gave principals total control of the hiring process as a result of the 2005 contract so they"hired the cheapest and not the best teachers"for their school.
Moreover, since the union agreed to eliminate seniority transfer and bumping, this allowed the DOE to follow through on their plan to change the hiring process.
Did the union know this would result in the ATR crisis? The answer is yes. Just read my post of October 17, 2017 and the UFT report of June 2008 clearly shows the union warned the DOE that the new contract will result in an explosion of ATRs and discriminate against senior teachers. Yet the union still signed the infamous 2005 contract.
The bottom line the union leadership under President Randi Weingaarten knew full well the consequences of signing the infamous 2005 contract but signed it anyway.