Apologia

Steve Swieciki has no regerts

Like many of you who read Lyapoets post last night I thought I'd wake up to see that ABC Vice Presidential candidate for Academic High Schools Steve Swieciki apologized to Lyapoet. What he wrote could be construed as sexist, homophobic, or transphobic and harmful. These are the type of things that should not be normalized in the context of a teacher union officer election.

I expected him to post something to the effect of “I am sorry, I should not have written that, and I hope we can find some time to talk it out.” I went to bed after reading the post she wrote about being apologized to from Katie Anskat, Steve’s running mate and ABC candidate for Treasurer. While I wrote about my doubts about Katie’s qualifications for the office of UFT Treasurer, I can’t say in good conscience that I have doubts about her character. At least she had the common decency to say something that happened, something that was done by someone on the slate she is running on was wrong. I give her credit for having character, something Steve is obviously in deficit of.

In the middle of a post called Occam’s Razor I wrote a couple of paragraphs comparing the resume of the incumbent and exceptional UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Janella Hinds and her challenger from the ABC slate Steve Swieciki. I wrote the following about Steve:

“And running for Academic- High School Vice President against Janella on the ticket Amy is leading is Steve Swieciki. By all accounts he is a smart guy. A pm staffer in the grievance department; I don’t know of any notable cases that he won or movements that he led, but he is employed by the UFT. Not a single person I’ve spoken to ever used a superlative to describe him. “He’s alright” is about as high a mark as I heard him receive.”

Instead of reading about some positive outreach in the interest of understanding I read a Substack note he posted a little while ago where he wrote the following:

“Unity can’t defend or even explain to our membership their record of rolling over for the Mayor — accepting sub-inflationary raises, accepting Tier 6’s deterioration of our retirement, accepting mandated curricula that erodes our professional autonomy, and more — so they’re forced to rely on screenshots taken out of context, manufactured outrage, and even outright defamation. More often than not, the Unity hacks doing this employ anonymous troll accounts because for all their talk about how confident they are in Unity’s brand, the reality is deep down they suspect they’re going to lose this election and are hedging their bets.

Unlike Unity, A Better Contract is committed to running on real issues that impact UFT members. Not contrived nonsense or Internet drama.”

My first thought is to take back the part where I said he is smart, and alright. His response shows neither smarts or decency,

I would remind Steve that his presidential candidate Amy Arundell as UFT Personnel director, and then Queens Borough Rep was highly involved in the collective bargaining teams that led to the 2014, 2018, and 2023 contracts; Tier 6, and curriculum. She was also very involved in negotiating the Danielson rubric that has been so loudly complained about in blogs by Arthur among others for over a decade.

The response to all those concerns besides reminding him that when you point a finger that you have three fingers pointing back at you is that NYC teachers are the highest paid of any urban teachers, we have made tremendous strides towards reforming Tier 6, and that the UFT delivered the flexibility demanded by our teachers. This last work was led by VP of Education Mary Vaccaro and VP of Academic HS Janella Hinds; Steve’s direct competitor.

Yes, I am a social media troll, or goblin, or whatever. Yes, I am a true believer and partisan for Unity; if that makes me a hack, then so be it. But in case you’re wondering, I am not hedging at all. As each day passes I see more and more evidence that the initial rush of excitement of Amy’s candidacy is fading. She has successfully split the opposition, and consolidated Unity. That’s not to say it’ll be a cake walk by any means. No, not at all. There’s a tremendous amount of work to be done. People to talk to, and then talk to again and again, and again; social media to post, flyers to distribute, and ground game to put in action; IYKYK.

We have reached a place where the ABC slate is led by three people of questionable character. Amy, who deceived everyone who believed in her and justified it by saying she would lose her job. She didn’t lose her job, is still employed by the UFT and it looks like she lied for nothing. Paul who has a well known sordid past, and now Steve. I’d mention Leah too, and the immature dance tik tok she posted and talk about the lack of substance she presents but she’d just post another smug video with her trademark arrogant smirk.

Look, I am just one guy with a little social media platform giving opinions on UFT politics with a partisan point of view. I plan on doing more to highlight the differences between the exceptional candidates running for Unity and the lackluster opposition. But when an extraordinary moment happens; where the national zeitgeist seeps into our little world something has to be said. Steve took a page out of Trump’s playbook; and instead of being the bigger man he cast aspersions. Instead of admitting fault, he attacked and cried “fake news” and “alternative facts.”

I’ll leave you the reader to decide how to feel and what if anything the ABC slate should do in response. In the end it will be up to UFT members to decide if this is the type of leadership they want to lead the UFT. As for me you know I will mark the box to vote for the Unity slate.

Having written all of this I want to say sorry. Sorry If I wronged you, sorry if I haven’t done enough for you, sorry if I wasn’t a good enough friend to you. I ask for your forgiveness and promise to do better. -Teacher Guy-