UFT Solidarity Announces Candidacy in Joint Slate United for Change

Solidarity Caucus was founded by people who know what struggles teachers face because they have lived them. We are educators denied tenure despite excellent performance, harassed and abused by vindictive administrators, people in the ATR pool fighting to be placed. We have advised and supported educators fighting excessive paperwork, preparing for hearing with administrators investigating them on false charges, and we have joined and led the fight against contracts that have increased our copays and piled ever more on educators’ plates. We have lobbied for protections against workplace bullying and harassment at the Delegate Assembly and in Albany.

Solidarity’s core belief about changing the UFT can be found in our name and our slogan, “We’ve got your back.” Unlike the Unity Caucus that has run the UFT for 61 years, we are a caucus by and for rank and file educators. You don’t have to sign a loyalty oath to join us, we support anyone that needs our advice and help.

We envision a truly democratic teacher’s union in which the leadership serves those that pay the dues and do the work in classrooms, offices, hospitals, and daycare centers, not the other way around. We believe the union should spend more time listening to member concerns on contracts, working conditions, and job-related concerns, and less time lecturing the members that they serve defending backroom deals. In the last two years alone we have seen what the top-down unresponsive leadership of the current Unity caucus leads to. Educators died of COVID as the UFT was slow to respond to a call to close schools. We lost our Spring Break and still haven’t been paid for it. Our union’s leaders endorsed a mayoral candidate that has already promised to cut our pay. Retirees are threatened with privatization and cuts through Medicare Advantage. At this crucial moment, it is more important than ever to vote for change, for democracy, for a union of, by, and for the membership.

Join us in the United For Change Slate.