Here we go again. Our disconnected union leadership ia apparently secretly negotiating with the DOE on changes to the ATR pool without reaching out to those affected, This time with Randy Asher and his staff at the DOE, Of course, the negotiations are top secret and there has been no leaks coming out of the DOE or UFT about what's on the table. However, every time the UFT leadership negotiates with the DOE, the ATRs end up with the short end of the stick. Let's see how our disconnected union leadership has hurt the ATRs since 2005.
First, it was the terrible 2005 contract that our union agreed to let the DOE eliminate seniority transfers and bumping, which then resulted in the ATR pool., that started the ATR crisis.
Second, this was soon followed up later in the year by the school-based "Fair Student Funding"that penalized schools financially that hired veteran teachers and also allowed schools to offload teachers from their budget after 60 days if they filed 3020-a charges, no matter how frivolous the charges are. The result was a massive influx of reassigned veteran teachers that reached 800 by 2007 Moreover, the UFT allowed the DOE to assign all teachers who won their 3020-a hearing or took a deal to be dumped into the ATR pool. Even an arbitrator award of "a letter to the file" resulted in the teacher losing their position in the school.
Third, It was the UFT Vice President, Michael Mandel who brought up the idea of rotating ATRs from school to school and the DOE jumped at the suggestion and in 2011 the DOE and UFT implemented the ATR rotation that made ATRs "a stranger in a strange land". Did Michael Mandel or Leo Casey, the two members of the joint DOE/UFT ATR committee ever talk to the ATRs? Of course not. Thankfully Michael Mandel retired and Leo Casey is now with theAFT and both cannot do anymore harm to the ATRs.
Fourth, our great negotiator, UFT President Michael Mulgrew negotiated his first contract that don't make members whole until 2020 and allowed the DOE to make ATRs "second class citizens" with reduced "due process" rights and made ATRs who won their 3020-a termination hearings "untouchables". Even after the UFT wisely allowed the 2014 contract provisions to sunset in 2016, the DOE still has two lists of ATRs. One list is for ATRs who were simply excessed from their school and the other who survived their 3020-a hearing. Guess which list the DOE refuses to hire from?
Presently, I have little faith in our disconnected union leadership making our life better. They will stick to their"no time limit" for ATRs but beyond that, look for the union to agree to make our lives more difficult and lie to us that we have your back. More like being stabbed in the back as the DOE tries different ways to fire us. Why else will the union not reach out to the ATRs and have a representative or two to be involved in these delicate negotiations. To me the answer is obvious. They secretly wouldn't mind seeing us fired by any means possible.