UFT election figures for New Action Over the Years

New Action Goes CURR
The non-Unity active membership has declared New Action a CURR (Caucus Under Registration Review). In dropping from 31 to 21% of the vote in 10 years ( a 32% decline) New Action has clearly failed to meet the standards. If there is no improvement in the next election, New Action will be closed and reorganized into a debating society.- ED NOTES, MAY, 2001

Wow. Call me Nostradamus or what?

I found some interesting stuff in the 1999 and 2001 election issues of Ed Notes.

Here are pages of the May 1999 edition of Ed Notes, along with the April and May 2001 issues, which contained Marian Swedlow's election analysis and comments and a report card from me on New Action. OK, I was pretty critical of them even at that time for the way they didn't seem to be building an opposition. (Click on images to enlarge.)

In 1999, New Action received 11,400 votes – 1700 coming from retirees, 1900 from non-classroom functionals, 2463 from elem, 1710 from middle schools and 3000 from high schools. (There was another opposition caucus that ran and got just over 1000 votes.) They won all 6 high school exec bd seats.

In 2001, the totals for New Action were pretty much the same but Unity went up as more people voted. The drop for NA from 1991 when they were getting about a third of the vote to around 21% was behind their move to become a house opposition under the control of Unity. How has that worked out for them?

Ed Notes, April 2001

In 2007, New Action received a TOTAL of 3520 votes: 1600 from retirees, 543 funct. 562 in elem., 273 in middle schools and 521 in high schools. With Unity endorsement, they received 3 high school EB seats and 5 at large seats for a total of 8. Thus, in the undemocratic UFT, you can lose 75% of your support in the schools and actually end up with more Executive Board seats.

Look at these numbers over a 6 year period from 2001 to 2007:

A drop from 3000 to 521 in the high schools, from 1700 to 273 in MS and from 2463 to 562 in elem. over 8 years. While they stayed consistent with the retirees, New Action's loss of support with working UFT members was awesome.

What will the 2010 numbers show for New Action?
Unless New Action makes a comeback this time, Randi Weingarten's brilliant legacy may turn out to be her destruction of the long-term opposition in the UFT.

You can see our spreadsheet comparing the 04 and 07 elections here.

Ed Notes New Action report card, May 2001.