I am one of the thousands of teachers who walked the picket lines in the UFT’s early decades, knowing each day that I would lose two days’ pay for each day I was on strike or that I could be fired.
These were hard choices for those of us who had families to support. We even lost dues’ check-off for a while after these strikes, a threat we face in the Janus case but for a very different reason.
It’s important to remember that all the rights and benefits we enjoy as UFT members today didn’t magically materialize out of thin air. We fought hard for them, often on picket lines.
I began teaching at PS 184 in 1966. When I later became the school’s chapter leader, I worked to instill a spirit of unionism in my members and an understanding that whatever we sacrificed would pay off in the future. And it has.
Ninety percent of the members of my school’s chapter walked out for five days in 1975 over swelling class sizes after the city laid off 18,000 teachers and other school employees during the fiscal crisis. The UFT was fined and lost dues check-off, and we lost 10 days’ pay.
While it took years to make up for our two-for-one salary losses for striking in 1975, our union solidarity established the growing political clout we needed at the bargaining table.
I taught at PS 184 for 34 years, until my retirement in 2000, and I passed my pride in being a union member on to my children. One son is now the UFT chapter leader at his school.
When I look back, I realize we held together because we understood what was at stake. I hope we can do that again now to meet the threats we face today.
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