Toward social justice

“Not for ourselves alone are we born.”

Coined by Cicero, reiterated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, these words sum up NYSUT’s wide-ranging social justice mission. From its founding, NYSUT has been dedicated to solidarity with the poor, the powerless and the disenfranchised. Over 50 years that mission has grown to tackle endemic injustice along with the changing demands of the day. Successive generations of activists have expanded NYSUT’s mission guided by this simple mantra: Union work is social justice work.

“Some would say unions should focus only on our bread-and-butter issues,” noted J. Philippe Abraham, NYSUT secretary-treasurer, “but there is a bigger world out there … We must also do the work that unions have always done — fight for those who are less powerful.”

The NYSUT Civil and Human Rights Committee’s ongoing agenda includes combating poverty; fighting for equality, racial justice and LGBTQ rights; defending the union movement; speaking out against unfair immigration policies; and raising awareness about key environmental issues.

These sweeping goals find specific expression through state and local initiatives. Social justice campaigns feature coalitions of the like-minded. Through the union, an individual member can bring forward a cause and harness support and willing volunteers.

Education is one of the primary tools the union uses in its crusade against racial bias. Through posters, videos, town halls and celebrations of Black and Hispanic history, the union gives voice to multiple perspectives.

At a virtual history event, NYSUT Board member Wayne White, then a social studies teacher at Bellport Senior High School, noted the marginalization of Black history in American public schools. “When I was growing up, the history of people of color was a secondary story in grade school, and when it was taught it was through a Eurocentric model,” he said. “They taught about Dr. King, but omitted the race riots and segregation, and slavery focused on picking cotton, not the torture, rape and murder of enslaved people.”

In recognition of its leadership on social justice, NYSUT secured multiple grants to advance the union’s critical role in combatting racial bias. With its Amsterdam, Schenectady and Kingston locals, NYSUT created an expanded mentoring program to help early career educators better recognize and proactively address systemic injustice in schools. It was funded through a three-year $322,000 grant from the National Education Association. In-district professional learning sessions were provided by NYSUT’s Education & Learning Trust and UUP members.

NYSUT also won millions in state grants to provide training for educators to address implicit bias, microaggressions and stereotypes in classroom dynamics.

“I have deep gratitude for the pioneering women leaders who preceded me and who did so much to make our union great,” said Karen Magee, who was elected in 2014 as NYSUT’s first woman president. Aware that NYSUT’s membership is 76 percent female, with more than 900 serving as local presidents, she made it a priority to shine a spotlight on women’s issues. Magee initiated “Speak Up, Stand Up, Step Up,” the first NYSUT Women’s Conference; its success led to creation of a permanent NYSUT Women’s Committee. “Its focus on women’s priorities is an agenda that lifts up all of us: men, women and children,” Magee said.

NYSUT Executive Vice President Jolene DiBrango worked to expand the Women’s Committee and inspire local offshoots, which now number 30 across the state. “We’re living through a very real, very painful but transformative moment for women in this country,” said DiBrango, noting the #MeToo protest of sexual harassment and national marches for women’s rights. “I’m hoping this movement becomes a revolution where women, particularly labor women, lead the way.”

The NYSUT Women’s Committee goals are: encourage more locals to develop in-house women’s committees; educate women about the work of the union; highlight women-specific issues, including inequities in pay, health care and education; and involve more union women in leadership roles.

In 2014, the union launched the NYSUT LGBTQ Task Force, whose mission is to ensure union members feel safe and secure in their workplaces. It evolved from well-received LGBTQ Educator Appreciation events sponsored by NYSUT around the state.

NYSUT supports marriage equality, non-discrimination based on gender identity and expression, and a non-discriminatory workplace. A strong defender of our LGBTQ students, NYSUT supported the landmark Dignity for All Students Act in 2010 and secured amendments in 2019 that added protections against cyberbullying.

Under the aegis of NYSUT’s national affiliates, our activism extends to Congress and beyond. After Patty Bentley, a longtime leader in UUP and NYSUT, retired from SUNY Plattsburgh, her union advocacy only expanded. She picketed the U.S. Supreme Court in support of workers’ rights and marriage equality. When the court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, Bentley lofted a poster proclaiming “We Are One” with an LGBTQ rainbow and dozens of supporting signatures.

Her poster, at the request of a Library of Congress staffer, is now enshrined in the library’s collection. “As a librarian, that made my day,” she said.

At the LGBTQ Advocacy Day in 2016, the Gender Expression Non-discrimination Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression, was a key priority. In 2019, it became law.

NYSUT’s LGBTQ Committee includes teachers, SRPs, higher education faculty, retirees, school librarians and school psychologists. The committee aims to educate and to ensure that all LGBTQ members feel safe and welcome in their workplace. “We have to aim to make sure that we fight for those who are oppressed in every possible way that we can,” said Rich Ognibene, a member of the Fairport EA who was named NYS Teacher of the Year in 2008.

NYSUT vigorously advocates for expanding protections against discrimination toward LGBTQ members and ensuring members’ employment rights. In 2017, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York affirmed an argument put forward by NYSUT attorneys that the Civil Rights Act bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, an individual’s nonconformity with gender “stereotypes” or association with others who are non-conformists. This is one of many instances where NYSUT attorneys have weighed in on civil rights issues that benefit children.

In 2018, NYSUT joined AFT and NEA in support of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allowed those who entered illegally as children to attend college and work. Decades ago, when the Amityville school district was tracking children by race and denying children with disabilities access to subjects such as art and physical education, NYSUT attorneys successfully sued to stop the discriminatory practices.

The reach of NYSUT’s social justice mission includes sponsorship of forums and student activities and development of classroom materials. “If you see it, you can be it,” a truism for inspiring young people, finds expression in a series of NYSUT posters, free to members, that focus on those underrepresented in mainstream materials, including pivotal figures in Black, Hispanic, Native American, Women’s and LGBTQ history.

NYSUT from its beginning proudly affiliated with organized labor. The union takes a leadership role in the state AFL-CIO, recognizing its responsibility in supporting and lifting up our siblings in the labor movement, as well as the unorganized whose lives can be bettered through union membership. With close to 700,000 members, NYSUT is the largest union in New York state.

Paul Cole, one of NYSUT’s founding activists, is secretary-treasurer emeritus of the state AFL-CIO and heads the American Labor Studies Center. “Recent polling shows young people are increasingly positive about unions and the role they play supporting working families,” Cole said. NYSUT members can access center resources such as lesson plans, films and historic documents, to integrate the study of the American Labor Movement in classrooms.

In 1980, NYSUT was co-founder of the NYS Labor-Religion Coalition that solidified longstanding ties between organized labor and faith communities. In 2015, with the coalition and other allies, NYSUT was a vocal backer of the “Fight for $15,” amplifying the voices of workers in minimum wage occupations in support of a living wage. Though the struggle for equity is far from over, the campaign resulted in a significant increase in the minimum wage in New York state.

NYSUT fights for farmworkers and migrant rights and opposes sweatshop labor around the world. In 2019, with NYSUT’s support, a groundbreaking Fair Practice Act became law, granting farm laborers overtime pay, a day of rest each week, disability and unemployment benefits and other labor protections.

At the national level, NYSUT is a force for change working through the AFL-CIO, AFT and NEA.

“Unions improve wages and benefits for all workers, not just union members,” the Economic Policy Institute concluded. “They help reduce income inequality by making sure all Americans, and not just the wealthy elite, share in the benefits of their labor.

“Unions also reduce racial disparities in wages and raise women’s wages, helping to counteract disparate labor market outcomes by race and gender that result from occupational segregation, discrimination, and other labor market inequities related to structural racism and sexism.

“Finally, unions help win progressive policies at the federal, state, and local levels that benefit all workers … A strong labor movement protects workers, reduces disparities, and strengthens our democracy.”

The union is a force for good beyond its own members and the institutions they serve. The altruistic bent of NYSUT members gets full expression through the unions’ many philanthropies to make the world a better place.

First Book launched with the AFT in 2011 to put millions of free books into the hands of children in need. In 2016 alone, NYSUT distributed almost 300,000 books, with a market value of $2.6 million dollars, to children around the state. In New York City, the United Federation of Teachers qualified for three additional trucks, with each one carrying about 43,000 books.

In more than 20 years as a flagship sponsor of the American Cancer Society, NYSUT and its locals have raised more than $16 million in the fight against breast cancer. Each October, under NYSUT’s banner, fundraising walks take place in every region of New York state. NYSUT supports, and its members benefit from, ACS’s parallel mission to supply education and support to those battling breast cancer.

Social justice is an area where newer members can connect on causes dear to their hearts. NYSUT locals are active volunteers in their community, supporting everything from food drives to coats for kids to children’s theater to college scholarships to events for senior citizens.

The NYSUT Disaster Relief Fund has provided millions in grants to help members and their communities recover from disaster, natural or manmade. The fund relies on member donations and has been called into service in the wake of hurricanes, floods, blizzards, and the 9/11 attacks in New York City. Grants have been reinforced on many occasions by handy union volunteers who are able to hang sheet rock or help muck out a flooded basement.

Sometimes union philanthropy converges with members’ day jobs. In 2017, when Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, NYSUT donated $140,000 for recovery efforts as members went above and beyond to welcome displaced students to upstate communities. Nelson Rolando-Rodriguez, 8, who evacuated to the U.S. with his family, cycled through five different schools before they finally settled in Syracuse. “He lost a lot of time and he’s definitely struggled,” said Jesus Ortiz, a Syracuse TA member. “But he’s where he belongs now.” Nelson is one of thousands of Puerto Rican students who have enrolled in New York schools after they were displaced by disaster.

Social justice roots

Unions historically have never been immune to the forces of patriarchy or racial and gender bias — but forward thinking activists in each generation have pushed the union toward social justice.

Legendary suffragette Susan B. Anthony was a teacher in New Rochelle and Canajoharie in the mid-1800s when she discovered that male teachers made several times the salary of women. As a member of the New York State Teachers Association, one of NYSUT’s predecessor organizations, Anthony called for better pay for women and a role in union governance. Famous as a suffragette, Anthony also fought for worker rights, advocating for the eight-hour work day. In The Revolution, a women’s suffrage newspaper from the 1860s, she said: “Join the union, girls, and together say: ‘Equal pay for equal work.’”

The union’s social justice mission today remains all-encompassing. It says: “Our vision is to create a world where every person’s basic social, emotional, and economic needs are met. A world where every person can reach their fullest potential. A world where diversity is celebrated, equity is the norm, and oppression, in all forms, is eradicated. A world filled with love, respect, and empathy for everyone.”