United Federation of Teachers - History

History

Two previous unions of New York schoolteachers, the Teachers Union, founded in 1916, and the Teachers Guild, formed in 1935 failed to gather widespread enrollment or support. Many of the early leaders were pacifists. Many were socialists that frequently met with clashes against more right leaning newspapers and organizations of the time as red-baiting was fairly common. The ethnically and ideologically diverse teachers associations of the city made the creation of a single organized body difficult since each association continued vying for their own priorities irrespective of the others.

The UFT was founded in 1960, largely in response to perceived unfairness in the educational system's treatment of teachers. Pensions only were awarded to retired teachers over 65 or with 35 years of service. Female teachers faced two years of mandatory unpaid maternity leave after giving birth. Principals could discipline or fire teachers with almost no oversight. The schools, experiencing a massive influx of Baby Boomer students, often were on double or triple session. Despite being college-educated professionals, often holding advanced master's degrees, teachers drew a salary of $66 per week – in 2005 dollars, the equivalent of $21,000 a year.

The UFT was created on March 16, 1960, and grew rapidly. On November 7, 1960, the union organized a major strike. The strike largely failed in its main objectives but obtained some concessions, as well as bringing much popular attention to the union. After much further negotiation, the UFT was chosen as the collective bargaining organization for all City teachers in December 1961.

Albert Shanker, a controversial but successful organizer was president of the UFT from 1964 until 1984. He held an overlapping tenure as president of the national AFT, from 1974 to his death in 1997.

In 1968, the UFT went on strike and shut down the school system in May and then again from September to November to protest the decentralization plan that was being put in place to give more neighborhoods community control. The Ocean Hill-Brownsville strike focused on the Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn but, ironically, the schools in that area were among the few that were open in the entire city. The Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis is often described as a turning point in the history of unionism and of civil rights as it created a rift between African-Americans and the Jewish communities, two groups that were previously viewed as allied. The two sides threw accusations of racism and anti-Semitism at each other.

The 1970s were a time of fiscal crisis for New York City. In 1975, some 14,000 teachers were laid off and class size soared. Another strike addressed some of these complaints and gave long-serving teachers longevity benefits.