The 2-page WECU spread is a violation of the terms of the election as laid out at the first committee meeting. We (the election committee) approved written documents with a vote. The documents state:
I've often maintained that if you scratch you will find E4E/WECU and Unity align on many issues.
I should have gotten 5 other guys named Norm and run a NORM Caucus slate and get two full pages in the NY Teacher. Damn, I missed my chance. But E4E/WECU did exactly that and Unity helped them - and ignored election committee rules.
"In my small school at least 5 people didn't get a ballot." - A CL
The confusion about getting ballot replacements is another Unity scam to suppress the vote as the deadline was 5 PM yesterday. Unity using AAA excuse about mail delivery is a phony vote suppression scheme. See Election BallotUFT/Unity Sqeezes People Into Tight Deadline
#UFTElection2022 - Unity doesn't want Turnout, Tur...
ICEUFT Blog: UNITY'S VOTER SUPPRESSION CONTINUES - The Unity dominated UFT Election Committee rejected electronic voting or in-school balloting early in the election process for this year's UFT election. This is despite the fact that the Union uses electronic voting for SBO and Chapter Leader and Delegate elections. In addition, the UFT uses in-school balloting for contract votes.
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Call them the Unity Caucus scams of the 2022 UFT elections.
Faux ballot replacement deadline
I wrote about the massive use of people who work for the UFT being paid by our dues using their positions to promote Unity. UFT Election 2022: Unity Caucus Theft of Service .... Example: Teacher goes for pension consulation and receives a Unity flyer from the consultant.
And of course the faux deadline imposed supposedly by the AAA over the deadline for getting replacement ballots. I'm going to demand we get access to AAA lists of whose ballots were actually received by AAA. I'd bet thousands have been disenfranchised. A UFC rep went into a school to stuff boxes yesterday and spoke with the secretary who had not received a ballot. This was 3 PM. She told her to call me and get the number before 5 PM but I never heard from her. AAA is allowing people to get ballots in person at 120 Broadway on April 28, 29. Sure, tell her to go down from Washington Hts. The more I look over the years, the more I see AAA working as employees of UFT/Unity. After all, if UFC wins who knows? They may hire a different firm for future elections.
More from Eterno at the ICE blog: Mulgrew as Mitch McConnel
In the latest round of UFT voter suppression, Unity again acts like the Republican Party which tries to make it more difficult to vote in state and national elections. For Unity, it wants to make it harder to vote in this UFT election. To add to the cumbersome mail-in ballot process, Unity today rejected a request from one of its candidates to delay the date when members can get a ballot if they had not yet received one by April 25. This came up tonight at the Executive Board when Mike Schirtzer asked about an extension to request a ballot. Ballots are not due back in the mail at the American Arbitration Association until May 9, 2022. Today is April 25 so that leaves two weeks to get a piece of mail from the AAA to a member's home and back if they have not received a ballot yet or if they were given an incorrect ballot or threw it out by accident. Is that enough time? Let's go to the numbers provided by the United States Postal Service: The United States Postal Service reported new delivery performance metrics showing the average time to deliver a mailpiece across the postal network continues is 2.7 days.
How did the UFT do in the past on this issue? In 2016 a member could call for a ballot up to one week before the ballots were going to be counted. This is what we wrote in 2016 at election time on May 17 when ballots were due on May 25 to be counted May 26:
Tomorrow is the last day to call AAA at 1 800 529-5218 to get a duplicate ballot.
The UFT gave you up until one week before the election deadline in 2016 to request a ballot if you didn't get one but this year they need two weeks. That makes no sense as we have already shown the Postal service numbers.
There is only one possible explanation for the UFT making the deadline two weeks before ballots are counted to call for a ballot: Voter Suppression.
In my view, the UFT feels a low turnout helps Unity Caucus, which is their major (really only) concern.
For those who want read the Unity party line, here is Mike Schirtzer's Question about the deadline from Executive Board tonight. This is from a report from Nick Bacon of New Action who sat in and took minutes:
On election: UFT election. Mulgrew refuses to answer, says any questions on election must be sent to Carl Cambria (Unity Election Committee Chair).
Carl comes up. Mike asks: why is it 2 weeks before deadline this year to get a ballot delivered if it wasn’t sent to your house this year? It was 1 week before the deadline last election. Not to mention there wasn’t the spring break issue last time. Members who just got back from vacation and were told they have to go in person to AAA to get ballots in person. Is there anything we can do to extend that deadline?
Carl Cambria: AAA can’t guarantee extending deadline will allow ballots to get back in time. What we have done is allow teachers to go to AAA in person this Thursday Friday between 9 and 5 and submit ballots in person. Post office isn’t working at the same pace as last year, which is why we landed where we landed.
Only the most committed of voters would go down to lower Manhattan (unless they work in that area) to get a ballot. Imagine if you live way out of town as a retiree. Forget about it. Blaming AAA or the Post Office for this is rather lame and statistically wrong as the USPS reports a close to 90% on-time record. Unity is engaging in flat-out voter suppression.
By the way -- this is why I want Mike Schirtzer on the Ex Bd even if he is running on the Unity line - if UFC doesn't win any seats we at least have Mike there to ask questions, the only one we can rely on. And if UFC wins a partial victory by winning the high schools, Mike will at the very least be a partial ally.
E4E/WECU Scam
Educators for Excellence, the corporate funded anti-union 5th column* in the UFT, creates a faux caucus called WECU (We Exemplify Corporate Unionism - my interpretation).
They can't get the 40 people to run as a slate, so they come up with 6 candidates and get 100 signatures each to get on the ballot for Exec Bd at large positions.
UFC on the other hand has 400 candidates with an army of people going out to get signatures which takes weeks and weeks of work. So go open up the current editions of the NY Teacher and low and behold find that E4E - er WECU - gets two full pages equal to UFC.
I'm on the election committee and we drew lots for the two official slates' positioning in the NY Teacher ads. UFC drew second place in the ad positioning - meaning we get the last word. But in the NY Teacher it is WECU that gets the last word and UFC is in the middle. No consultation with the election committee but a unilateral decision by someone in the UFT/Unity hierarchy with the obvious intent of drawing votes away from UFC.
Take this to the logical next step. In the next election I am running the NORM Caucus with 6 guys named Norm and get two pages in the NY Teacher. I also recruit 6 Bobs and 6 Mikes and 6 Jeans and we get 8 pages in the NY Teacher. All we need is to get 100 signatures for each of our slates.
*A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine.
As we catalogue a list of election missteps designed to favor Unity, this one will be near the top of the list.These are not stop the steal issues if we lose but an attempt to shine a light on the misdeeds - something I should have added to my list of "what's different this election." We are publicly calling them out.
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