The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) election of officers this May, though little covered in the media, has great political importance for the city, state and country. The UFT, which has around 200,000 New York City members, is an important player in city politics and in Albany, through the power it wields in the New York State teachers union as well as the 1.8 million member national union, the American Federation of Teachers. Current UFT president Michael Mulgrew, who has been in office for 16 years, heads the Unity Caucus slate. Unity has held power for over 60 years, since being formed by Albert Shanker. For more on the UFT’s history and the election’s implications, see here.  

In this interview, I speak with Olivia Swisher, an art teacher, rank-and-file activist and chapter leader at MS 821 Sunset Park Prep. Swisher is running for UFT president on the coalition slate ARISE, challenging Mulgrew and Unity.

From your work as an art teacher and successful chapter leader at your middle school in Sunset Park, what do we need to change to make our union fight hard for kids, the profession, and NYC schools? How can the UFT use its resources to help protect us from the Musk/Trump scorched-earth attack on public education and the communities we serve?

I am a proud third-generation teacher, and I firmly believe that all children have the right to a safe, culturally responsive, fully-funded public education, which is why I accepted the nomination to run for UFT President as part of the ARISE slate. As a school chapter leader, I’ve experienced how organized labor is an extraordinarily powerful force to stand up against those who try to bully educators, students and the communities we serve. 

For decades, both Democrats and Republicans have weakened public education by slashing funding for essential services, privatizing services, expanding charter schools, and controlling most of what we teach and what students learn with standardized curricula and tests. Now we face the Musk/Trump administration onslaught to destroy legislative and social improvements we have won with unconstitutional federal executive orders, directly harming the students we serve, their families, and communities. In my school community, the cuts will have a devastating impact on hiring needed educators, teachers and paraprofessionals, students with disabilities, and English Language Learners. Subjects not tested but essential to children’s development,  like art (my specialty), drama, music and physical education, have already diminished and will be cut further.

Every year, fewer UFT members can afford to live in New York City. The UFT has been complicit in this change by failing to mobilize members to protect, let alone improve, salary and benefits.  Our last contract gave us a pay cut in real dollars, failing to keep up with inflation and even average wage increases for non-union workers. As a result of the UFT’s deal with the city to force retirees into a grossly inferior (and privatized) Medicare Advantage plan, retired teachers organized successfully to oust the Unity Caucus in the Retired Teachers Chapter. In this election, retirees have joined with active members to run with ARISE.  

As a career teacher, I am proud to say the ARISE slate contains no candidates who as UFT staff and Unity members hold responsibility for the deterioration in pay and benefits of the last decade. 

The assault on public education and public sector workers is why we need a union leadership that is proactive and will fight back. As the UFT stands now, we are not as prepared as we must be for this political moment, and we have to get there. That will be my responsibility as UFT president. 

What we need is a union with mobilized strike-ready members who feel empowered to defend public education. Our current union leadership relies too heavily on politicians and not enough on us, the members. We cannot count on politicians or lawsuits to protect us against Trump/Musk. While they can be powerful instruments and we must use them, by the time there is a legal resolution, the damage is done, and those of us in the schools know that it can take years to undo harmful education cuts and policies.

What will protect public education is UFT members building power at the school level with the communities we serve. To fight back in this political climate, we need an aggressive labor strategy to protect and win the social and economic policies we need. 

What internal changes do you advocate to democratize the union? What’s the current role of members? Staff? What should it be? 

When ARISE is elected, we will introduce three major changes to democratize the UFT and empower UFT members, making our union stronger, more inclusive, and more democratic. 

1. Establishing an organizing department:

The UFT currently lacks a unified organizing strategy. Our chapters, school districts and boroughs are fragmented, leaving our members disconnected from our collective union power. Whether we are addressing a school-based issue, demanding the city meet our contract demands, or resisting attacks on public education, our strength lies in being organized. By creating an organizing department, we’ll encourage and support all members to engage in meaningful collective efforts as part of a strong and fighting union. Together, as organized members of the UFT, we will be able to solve any issue and confront anyone who tries to threaten our union and our schools. 

2. Opening up contract bargaining:

We will open up contract bargaining to make it transparent for all members, ensuring all members are informed about what is being negotiated and how the city is responding to our demands. In the 2023 contract negotiations, as a rank-and-file member on the committee, I was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, preventing me from sharing essential information about negotiations with UFT members. This practice has been eliminated in the teachers unions that have won the best contracts because when negotiations are closed off and members are kept in the dark about our demands, they lose the ability to inform our negotiations, and we lose their strength in applying pressure on the city and state to meet our needs. UFT contract negotiation teams must serve the membership, not the other way around.

3. Adopting proportional representation in UFT elections and electing district representatives:

Currently, the UFT elections follow a winner-takes-all system, leaving many voices unheard. By moving to proportional representation, we will create a more democratic process fostering a truly representative union. Furthermore, we will return to electing our district representatives, rather than allowing the union hierarchy to appoint them. UFT members deserve strong representation and a voice and vote in who their district representatives are.

You’re running with ARISE on a program to make the UFT defend social justice and equality, end school segregation, partner with communities, and defend immigrant students and families.  Some critics note the slate is predominantly white. Is that a contradiction?

I’m glad you asked this. Every campaign and slate has its challenges, and for ARISE, this is ours — a slate for the union’s administrative committee (AdCom) that is predominantly white. While our slate lacks the racial diversity we must develop, we are proud of our diversity in terms of gender, sexuality, age and religion.

Our platform is built on the belief that unions have the power to transform not only the lives of their members but also the communities in which those members live and work. This is why we are committed to a platform rooted in social and economic justice for all New Yorkers. We stand firmly in our dedication to ending school segregation, defending immigrant students and families, and organizing for single-payer health care for all. 

ARISE candidates have been instrumental in pushing the UFT to adopt a resolution condemning the murder of Trayvon Martin, supporting the BLM at Schools Week of Action, supporting immigrant students, and standing with the March for Our Lives movement, to name just a few examples. And during the strike against community-controlled schools, some of our most veteran retiree candidates helped to keep the schools open. 

Candidates on the ARISE slate have deep, meaningful relationships with community organizations and are embedded in the communities we serve — organizations such as BLM at Schools, NYCORE, Teachers Unite, The People’s Budget, among others. While anyone can include social and economic justice issues in a platform, it is our actions, our work and relationships, that demonstrate our unwavering commitment to a more just and anti-racist UFT, Department of Education and New York City. 

Let’s say you take an hour to enjoy the victory for ARISE after the results are announced. You’re now the President-elect of the largest teachers union local in the world! What are your first actions to carry out the platform?

I’ll make a shot of espresso and get straight to work, leading the team in building a member-led union ready to stand up and fight back. We’ll dig in to shift the UFT’s current structure and mindset from a service model union to a fighting union. Our public schools are under attack and so are public sector workers.

In that first hour, we will assemble teams to:

1. Begin the creation of an organizing department.
2. Start analyzing the UFT’s financial situation and develop a plan for budget transparency to share with the membership.
3. Develop a plan to implement the reforms to the UFT constitution outlined in our platform, which will help give members more voice in the union.

Over the next three years, ARISE will build a fighting union that represents our members and our communities. My personal goal is to be positioned to win big in the 2027 contract negotiations. Every second counts.

At the end of my term, I intend to return to my classroom and continue serving the students of Sunset Park, confident and proud that ARISE did what was necessary to transform the UFT into the union that members and students deserve.

Why should UFT members vote in this election? Why should they vote for you and ARISE? And how can they support this movement?

UFT members are among the smartest, toughest and most hardworking individuals I know. That’s why I firmly believe that every UFT member should vote for ARISE.

Voting for ARISE means voting for a slate that truly represents our collective interests as UFT members. We, like you, are current school workers or retirees who have dedicated our careers to serving the students of New York City. We are unique in being the only slate with an in-service member running for president, the only fully rank-and-file slate, the only slate that is not entrenched in the UFT bureaucracy, the only slate that is not complicit in the backroom deals that have been made for us, but without us, for decades. We are the only slate with a consistent track record of standing up to those who seek to destroy public education and undermine workers’ rights. We are the only slate with an aggressive, proactive strategy to confront the harmful policies of the current federal administration and rebuild member power from the school chapter upwards, to confront the city and win a better contract in 2027.

Voting for ARISE is voting for ourselves, educators who make up the UFT. Together, we can rebuild our union to serve its members, our communities, and the people we serve in New York City. 

Lois Weiner is a UFT retiree elected to the Delegate Assembly on the reform slate of the Retiree Advocate. She is Professor Emerita of education at New Jersey City University and a former career teacher who writes widely about teacher union reform, labor, and education politics. You can follow her on X (@drloisweiner) and find her work at https://loisweiner.net/.

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