NEW YORK CITY, October 16 – The retired teachers chapter of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT)—70,000 retirees—scored an unprecedented victory in June when we overthrew the leadership of the chapter for the first time in its over 60-year history. The pset came as a result of a several-years-long struggle against privatizing cutbacks in our health insurance, a result of backroom deals between the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC), where the UFT is a dominant force, and the city.
The election victory brought national American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten to New York to tell retirees: “We hear you. We will respond.” Only days later, the UFT withdrew its support for the program, Medicare (Dis)Advantage, that they themselves engineered! Why the sudden retreat? Weingarten and co. are terrified they might lose control of the union in the union-wide election scheduled for this coming spring. Communists and allies in the union have a crucial role to play in exposing the unions, and working inside them to build a multiracial movement for communist revolution and workers’ power.
Unions are part of the capitalist apparatus
As part of a deal with the City bosses in 2018 to help fund the teachers’ contract, the MLC agreed to find $600 million in additional healthcare savings each year!
Instead of organizing workers to fight for our needs, the union helped city bosses pass the costs onto the working class, resulting in this attack on retiree healthcare. That is the role of unions under capitalism: provide the appearance of fighting for workers while actually undermining our interests. For this reason, many workers are disgusted with unions, knowing they are frauds. But not uniting with other workers and fighting back is itself a fatal error.
We gotta be in it to win it! The muck and mire of organizing
The only reason retirees got this far is because we have united with other workers and organized class struggle inside these unions. Members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have played a key role in this struggle, introducing communist concepts of antiracism, class consciousness, and workers’ unity. The struggle is long-range, so we must have a long-range outlook. And we have to shed many illusions.
One illusion is that winning this election will “take back control of our union.” It’s true: pro-worker leadership can give workers a voice inside the union. We can begin a real mobilization around our common interests, like improved healthcare and pension benefits, and confronting the school system’s racist segregation. But the ruling class is not about to allow workers to control unions.
Just this past February, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) removed its entire elected NYC leadership because they had been fighting for their workers’ needs. The AFT/UFT have been comfortably in the pocket of Democratic Party bosses for years, churning out votes and deceiving workers into supporting capitalism, while Democratic politicians without exception have presided over deteriorating conditions for workers’ standard of living and rising fascism, as they prioritize defending the declining U.S. empire as it gets increasingly outmaneuvered by rising imperialists China, Russia, and Iran.
Another dangerous illusion is that the courts will save us. It’s true that several court decisions have supported the retirees’ fight to maintain their present Medicare plans, based on promises enshrined in city law (laws that workers fought for!), but that will not stop City bosses—who are already appealing the latest decision—from going after workers’ healthcare benefits. Like the unions, the courts are controlled by the same capitalist bosses that EVERY SINGLE TIME will put bosses’ profits ahead of workers’ needs.
Build a base in the working class
As this new leadership gets its footing, and as the coming union-wide election builds steam, communists in PLP and their allies are fighting for ideological leadership inside this growing movement. We are fighting for antiracism, antisexism, and multiracial unity, mobilizing long-marginalized paraprofessionals (who are more likely Black and Latin), forging bonds with in-service educators to fight for the needs of the students (the main targets of school bosses’ attacks).
We are building solidarity with workers in other city unions, who have seen through this healthcare struggle that we have common interests. We are struggling with workers to see that, at its root, it’s not just the privatization of our healthcare that is our enemy, it’s the capitalist system itself. Using CHALLENGE, study groups, and ties of friendship, we are building a base with these workers, trust forged in struggle for the future of our class, for our children and grandchildren, for workers power and a communist world.
