NYSUT Legislative Department Files

New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) was created in 1972 by the merger of the New York State Teachers Association (NYSTA) and the United Teachers of New York (UTNY). NYSTA had been affiliated with the National Education Association (NEA), and UTNY with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). UTNY was the statewide organization whose United Federation of Teachers (UFT), led by Albert Shanker, was the predominant teachers' union in New York City. In joining with United Teachers and affiliating with the AFT, NYSUT also became a member union of the AFL-CIO.

In 1976, NYSUT voted to disaffiliate with the NEA. Some locals left NYSUT and created the NYEA (New York Educators Association), which became the state affiliate for the NEA. In the early 1980s, NYEA changed its name to NEA-NY.

NYEA/NEA- NY viewed association with the AFL-CIO's industrial unions as undermining the professional image and independence of teachers. The two organizations also differed strongly on aspects of the governance structure, particularly with respect to ethnic minority representation, with NYSUT opposed to mandatory minimums. The rivalry between NYSUT and NYEA/NEA-NY in organizing new locals expended a great deal of resources for both labor organizations.

While competition with NYEA/NEA-NY was a constant focus of NYSUT's organizing efforts for teachers, NYSUT was also organizing college faculty members, nurses, and other non-teaching personnel. Once members were organized, NYSUT continued to advocate for teachers' and other workers' rights through contract support and legal services at the local level and political involvement at the state and federal levels, supporting candidates and legislation that protected funding, due process, and working conditions.

NEA-N Y merged with NYSUT in 2006, by which time NYSUT had grown to more than half a million members, becoming the largest union in New York State.

NYSUT's Legislative Department, a relatively small unit composed of just about a dozen members, was the engine behind the political powerhouse NYSUT had become by the 1980s. Reporting to the executive vice president, the department coordinated with the Legal Department and the Division of Research and Educational Services to develop an annual Legislative Program for the union, and then to push it relentlessly though the state legislature, from finding a sponsor for it in the Assembly or Senate, until it was signed by the governor. In addition to initiating legislation, the department tracked bills proposed independently by legislators, including proposals it considered detrimental to NYSUT's interests. All bills -- typically, some 15,000 per session -- would be reviewed. Of those 15,000, the approximately 3,000 that were determined to have an impact on education or health care were tracked on a daily basis by the department's electronic monitoring system. Receiving especially careful scrutiny was the annual budget proposed by the governor, for its impact on state aid to public education, including higher education provided by the State University of New York (SUNY) and its community colleges, and the City University of New York (CUNY). NYSUT's affiliate, United University Professions (UUP), regularly coordinated lobbying efforts with the department on behalf of higher education funding. The Legislative Department's overall lobbying operation was carried out not only by its professional staff in one-on-one contacts with individual legislators, but by a large group of volunteers, including retirees, who comprised its Committee of 100. Appointed by local presidents throughout the state, these teachers, school bus drivers, cafeteria ladies (aka School-Related Personnel), community college local presidents, and nurses (though NYSUT's affiliate, Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals), converged on Albany at least once a year, like birds returning in spring, to visit their local legislators on targeted, high-priority pending legislation.

In addition to state legislation, federal initiatives were also on the radar of the Legislative Department. The department knew what laws were in the congressional pipeline and who was behind them, and let them know of NYSUT's interest. The Legislative Department's purview included recommending endorsements to the NYSUT Board of Directors -- for president, Congress, and statewide down to the Assembly district level -- and then working with NYSUT's political action committee, VOTE/COPE (Committee on Political Education), to elect (or reelect) those candidates through a massive effort including phonebanks to members, specially printed campaign literature, and direct financial contributions.

Areas of interest to NYSUT included not only specific funding formulas for school aid, but state taxation broadly, because it knew that any reduction in revenues could ultimately be taken out of education funding. Legislation could be as narrow as giving state retirement service credit for Korean War veterans to issues affecting all public employees, such as the permanent COLA (cost of living adjustment) for retirees and the Triborough amendment to the Taylor Law, governing contract agreements. Thus the Legislative Department maintained contacts with a wide array of organizations and was itself a resource to elected and appointed officials. Led in the 1980s and 1990s by director of legislation Ray Skuse, a former Republican member of Assembly, the department worked equally well with Republicans and Democrats. The successive NYSUT executive vice presidents to whom the department reported, Dan Sanders, Herb Magidson, and Alan Lubin, all rose from the ranks of NYSUT's affiliate in New York City, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the political proving ground headed by Albert Shanker.