Teachers' Washington Trip Produces Happy Returns

The Chief-Leader/David Sims A LESSON FOR CONGRESS: A delegation of city Teachers joined United Federation of Teachers Chief Executive Officer Michael Mulgrew (left) in taking buses down to Washington, D.C. Feb. 10 to lobby their representatives to include significant aid to education in the Federal stimulus package. Enough money was provided in that area and others that benefit the city that Mayor Bloomberg said a day later he thought Teacher layoffs could be avoided.

As the U.S. Senate passed its version of the President's national stimulus package and Congress convened to find a compromise on the bill Feb. 10, more than 100 city Teachers descended on the nation's capital to urge their representatives to fight for money for education, with the Mayor's threat of 15,000 layoffs looming large in their minds.

The next day, after Congress and President Obama agreed on a $789- billion plan, Mayor Bloomberg returned from Washington to announce that "our major objectives have been achieved," and that as long as the money came to the city as he thought it would, he didn't foresee any layoffs. "Although the details are still being worked out...there's good reason to be optimistic," he said.

The Chief-Leader/David Sims A PARTISAN ARGUMENT: U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner tells United Federation of Teachers representatives that Republicans opposing the stimulus bill were making the same mistake their party ancestors had in voting against the creation of the Social Security Administration more than 70 years ago.

Long Trip for Short Visits

The United Federation of Teachers effort began before dawn, with Teachers from schools across the city boarding buses at 6 a.m. to make the trip to Washington D.C. Bundled into small groups according to school districts, they took the nine-hour round trip to spend just 15 minutes with their representatives to lobby for stimulus money.

"You've all done my commute now," said UFT President Randi Weingarten, who is also the president of the American Federation of Teachers, and whose top aide, Michael Mulgrew, lobbied Congress personally with Mayor Bloomberg the next day. "Your timing could not have been more exquisite or more important. . . we need the New Yorkers to bring it home."

The effort was launched along with the UFT's state counterpart, so that representatives of Teachers for every congressional district could make their case to the entire state delegation. The goal was achieved, which Mr. Mulgrew, who coordinated the UFT's effort in Washington, said was miraculous.

"It was an idea to hit every single Congressperson in the city and the state, but to actually pull it off, you don't think you can," he said. "To see so many of them personally, you can see the tension in them … when they hear from their members saying, 'please, do the right thing, push for it, push for it,' I saw a difference in them."

Mr. Mulgrew was part of the delegation that visited Anthony Weiner, the Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens in New York's Ninth District. Although Mr. Weiner stressed that he was on the Teachers' side, he said he could make no promises to restore the extra education money in the House's stimulus bill that the Senate had stripped away that very morning.

"If it's the Senate numbers or nothing, what do you take?" he asked. "The question is whether we're going to be able to get them to go along with our numbers … they picked this thing to pieces, but they're not out there every day doing what you're doing."

Takes Bite Out of Mayor

Mr. Weiner, who is mounting a run for Mayor, did not miss an opportunity to blame Mr. Bloomberg's running of the Department of Education for the city's financial woes. "My ability to make the case is hurt by how much money the Mayor's wasting. On consultants, on non-classroom things, on the fancy things, the leadership academies," he said. "My colleagues spoke to me and said, we understand your fight to get every single dollar that you can get, but you can see it's like a laboratory for everything but Teachers back in New York."

Congressman Weiner was bullish about taking on Republicans in the Senate, who used the threat of a filibuster to alter the stimulus package with more tax cuts and less direct spending, compromises that made it into the final bill.

"When Social Security was passed in the 1930s, it didn't get a single Republican vote. No one remembers that now, but I think we may have to do it again," he said. "Let the image be, these Republicans standing up one by one and saying, 'I'm in opposition to this.' "

'Take It to the People'

Bronx and Westchester Congressman Eliot Engel, who noted that he was a former Teacher who had been a seven-year member of the UFT, agreed with Mr. Weiner. "[President Obama] should have said, if you want to filibuster, you can filibuster, and I'll take it to the American people," he told Mr. Mulgrew. "Once a member, always a member … whatever I can do for you, seriously."

Carolyn B. Maloney, who represents the Upper East Side and Astoria, said that she particularly objected to the Senate's removal of capital funds for school construction and modification projects. "Schools in my district aren't wired for computers," she told UFT members. "The house leadership will be working to restore the efforts of our bill…it's the best investment you could make."

The rapid nature of the meetings meant that UFT members had to get their points across succinctly, and they were briefed on key points to make at AFT headquarters before going to the Capitol. Along with Teachers, parent representatives, home day-care providers and even students were part of the union's delegations to Congress.

"This is going to get ugly," Mr. Mulgrew had predicted to his members before they left the bus. "This weekend will get cantankerous, to say the least." But on the way back to New York, he seemed pleased with the progress they'd made. "You saw these people, you saw how engaged they were. This is as grassroots as it gets," he said.

But he also knew that this was just the first step in a long battle, as the city budget is wrangled over by the Mayor, the City Council, and the Department of Education. "We're going to do massive phone-banking. We'll do phone banks, we'll do robo-calls, then we're planning on doing a rally in downtown," Mr. Mulgrew said. "Even with that, we're still looking at a massive deficit at the state level. We're still going to have to push for revenues at the state, a progressive revenue package."

Also Pressuring Albany

Ms. Weingarten and other union leaders have been pushing Albany to pass a "millionaire's tax" to raise revenues instead of cutting services, which Governor Paterson's first pass at the budget proposed.

"We have small teams going to all the community boards, precinct meetings, the Community Education Councils, we're hitting anything we possibly can," Mr. Mulgrew said. "We'll rally, and then hopefully we can get those revenues. But at the end it's still going to come down to the city, and there is going to be pain."