School Scope: UFT
Election Votes Will Be Counted April 17
By Norm Scott
I’ve been getting emails from
UFT members asking me for suggestions on how to vote in the UFT elections and
ballots must be received by April 16. They ask because they are aware that I’ve
been deeply involved in internal UFT politics for decades and know all the
players. In the past I would recommend the slate I was working with. This year
I have no such recommendation for the first time in decades.
Two hundred thousand (a rough
estimate) UFT members began receiving election ballots the week of March 24. In my 52 years of UFT membership, 49 of them
part of active minority parties, I can’t remember four parties (caucuses)
running independent campaigns. Unity Caucus has run the UFT since its inception
in the early 60s and due to the divisions among the three minority parties is
guaranteed to win every single position, thus making the election outcome a
foregone conclusion. The overwhelming majority of members (75%) toss the ballot
away. The 60,000 retirees can vote for the majority of positions, including all
officers and three quarters of the Executive Board and 750 delegates to the
state and national conventions.
Retirees have the highest
return rate (they have the time) and also vote Unity by 85% (they are the
happiest people in the UFT). The winning slate, which will be Unity because the
other three slates will split the anti-Unity vote, will serve a three year
term. The other slates are New Action, Solidarity, and MORE. If you are a UFT
member and still have your ballot, is very easy to vote for a slate – just put
an X in the box on the front page, tear it off and mail it in. I am not doing
that but am voting for individuals from all four slates, a tedious affair as I
have to wade through pages of candidates.
Let me explain.
The reasons I am no longer voting
for a slate are convoluted. In order to have a chance to win any of the all
three parties needed to unite and run a massive campaign with hundreds of
candidates. Despite entreaties to do so, it didn’t happen and each of the three
opposition slates are running limited campaigns with less than 50 candidates
each. A losing proposition and from my perspective a total waste of time,
energy and money. I don’t have the space here to define the differences between
the groups but do so on my blog. I’m fundamentally sitting this election out
for the first time since 2001.
As a founder of the MORE
caucus in 2012 I was very active in the 2013 and 2016 elections and helped
engineer a narrow victory for the seven high school executive board seats – a
drop in the bucket, given there are over 90 seats controlled by Unity. The reason
we won was due to an alliance MORE made with the New Action caucus. Solidarity
did not get on the ballot last time due to not reaching the required 40
candidates for slate status. This time Solidarity is on the ballot, thus
creating the four ballot lines.
I am no longer associated
with the MORE caucus because MORE refused to work with anyone else or run a
serious campaign, thus helping strengthen Unity Caucus’ control of the UFT. I
am now a free agent in the UFT political scene, free to alienate everyone. I
have been thinking of getting involved in other political work, especially
locally. There is standard Democratic Party politics – both the machine and the
progressive Dems, community board work and some intriguing work with the
current hot item on the left – the Democratic Socialists (DSA) of AOC fame who
so terrorizes Republicans and centrist democrats. I have been going to some
South Brooklyn DSA meetings, which I will report on in the future.
You can read about Norm’s
choices for candidates at his blog, ednotesonline.com.
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