Friday, November 2, 2018

UFT Contract Vote Update - Large Turnout May Top 2014


2 PM, Nov. 2
As you can see I signed a non-disclosure agreement on the outcome but can blog about the process.
I’m here with people from the UFT - Yasmin Colon, Leroy Barr, Howie Schoor and Dave Hickey - who have been in and out.
I’m leaving here around 3:30 for the ICE meeting. I invited Leroy and Howie to come for a true unity meeting with multiple caucuses. They are tempted but can’t leave so I may send a care package of rice pudding.
A final day influx of schools and individual ballots came in at the last minute.
I’ve been here since 10:30 and they still haven’t begun the count but are about to begin. But we did get a fine lunch.
Here is what they had to do all day so far, mostly manually - there are about 30 people doing the work.
Open each school pack.
Manually check off each person who voted against their lists.
They also had loads of ballots sent in from non-school personnel who had to be checked off.
Then a machine slices open the outer envelope and then the inner envelopes get opened and the ballot removed by hand.
There are 14 contracts up for a vote - each one is color-coded.
The machines are able to distinguish between the colors.
Once the ballots are out and stacked they are fed into the counting machines. I was hoping to watch some of the results and make rough estimates but that won’t happen before I have to leave.
It’s freezing down here even with a jacket.

2:35 - still haven’t begun the count. I won’t have to undergo water torture to spill the beans since I will have no beans to spill.

4 comments:

Francesco Portelos said...

Thanks for the update. Wait, a lala minute batch arrived?

Weren't they due to AAA by October 30th?

ed notes online said...

Batches arrived at last day. But I would bet that if they came in Oct 31 or Nov 1 they weren’t tossed out. Imagine the screams if entire schools were tossed? Sort of like screams in UFT election when some groups didn’t come in on time with 40 candidates.

Francesco Portelos said...

What kind of remark was that Norm?

ed notes online said...

I'm assuming that they weren't strict on school or ballots that came in late but I can't say that for sure.