To: Michael Mulgrew, UFT president

Petition the UFT for a mass meeting to explain the contract's impact on ATRs

Victory! The creator of this petition declared the campaign a success. You can still sign the petition to show support.

We ask you for a mass meeting at UFT headquarters, in the delegate assembly hall, to accommodate all members of the Absent Counselor Reserve (ACRs), the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATRs), other excessed staff or other concerned UFT members, for the purpose of fully airing how the tentative UFT contract will affect excessed staff.
The ATR part of the contract is a fundamental violation of due process and tenure. We are troubled that there is an expedited discipline and termination process that applies only to ATRs and not to non-excessed teachers. By agreeing to this expedited process you appear to be conceding to the myth that ATRs are all bad teachers instead of educators caught up in school closings and co-locations.
Principal among our concerns, we wish to have a full enumeration of all actions that would constitute "problematic behavior".
We are very troubled by your statement, reported in the May 12, 2014 “Wall Street Journal”, that some unnamed panel of hearing officers would solidify the definition of "problematic". How can we be considered as breaking the law if there is no written law or statute? You are trying get people to agree to a contract whose terms are not yet really defined. We expect more of our union president.

Why is this important?

How can one be considered as breaking the law if there is not yet a written law? Should the fate of teachers' careers rest on undefined legal concepts?