UFT Election Committee Sets Election Dates, Drops Non-Profit AAA for Wall St. Holding Company, Queens HS Dist Rep blog - LOL

Did a desperate Unity leadership hire a fly by night Wall St Holding company to run the UFT election? 

Does it surprise you that the UFT/Unity leadership, tied to the corporate/donor class controlled Democratic Party, a leadership that tried to shift us from non-profit Medicare to corporate controlled MedAdv, would go the same route for an inexperienced, in debt, for profit for this crucial UFT election? And the data of every UFT member will be in the hands of this company. 

Who do you trust to help Unity cheat? The longstanding, respected non-profit American Arbitration Association or a Wall Street holding company.... Comment 

What - me worry?

Unity blamed AAA for sending out the Unity retiree flyer instead of the Unity para flyer with the Para ballot. Fix Para Pay ended up with 75% of the vote. It couldn't be due to the poor para pay that they won. Unity blames the AAA for sending out the wrong flyer when the story is the Unity hierarchy made the mistake in giving the AAA the wrong flyer. This is a pretty flimsy excuse but we sat there and were helpless to oppose or knew what questions to ask. Someone should go to the next UFT Exec Bd meeting and raise questions.

 

UFT Election committee did not review the RFPs but were told by the Election Committee Chair that a selection had already been made. It will be rubber stamped at next UFT exec board meeting. This process might cause problems. GES was used by a DC 37 local to run a controversial rerun election … there was a complaint that they were not legally hired. The complaint was dismissed because the arbitrator said that the RFPs were brought to the election committee and exec board.

In our case, the RFPs were NOT brought to the election committee or the exec bd.

Thanks to Daniel Alicea for the in-depth research. See his tweet down below.

AAA OUT:

 

The other story is Unity opposes electronic voting because they don't want more people to vote -- you know, the 80% of in-service people who don't vote. They are viewed as a threat. In the past Unity could rely on the 40% return of retirees. Now what? I pointed this out at the meeting - since Unity can no longer rely on retiree votes their best chance in the election is to increase in-service. Did I detect a note of panic on some faces?

 

Happy Thanksgiving - November 28, 2024

 

I attended the UFT Election meeting Tuesday along with 6 other oppo reps and and double the gaggle of Unity reps, all on the clock 'till 6. They made sure the meeting ended by 5:30 despite my best attempts. I rate the snacks, other than the fruit cups, as low-grade. How about a sandwich?

 

We raised a number of issues at the meeting but first here is the skinny on the dates, all to be ratified at the next UFT Exec Bd meeting.

• Ballots mailed May 1, 2025, counted May 29.
• Petitions available at the Feb.12 DA and must be returned by Monday, March 17 - wait, isn't that St. Patrick's Day? I hope the returnees don't make a pit stop on the way in with petitions. They added a requirement that every candidate must sign their name to every petition their name is on.

Boy am I glad I won't be involved with petitions this year. In 2021 I devoted almost 2 months of my life to the petition campaign. My basement was covered with petitions folders. This year I'm doing jigsaw puzzles in the basement.

The BIG News: AAA out, GES in to manage election

The big news is that the UFT is dropping the AAA and using a new vendor, GES - Global Election Services. That should be a fun experiment. They used a mistake by AAA in not sending out election materials for a para candidate as the reason and inside baseball people said the error was due to a higher up in the Unity chain. A flimsy reason and a suspect replacement? Why am I not confident? Imagine the oppo wins and Unity calls for another election due to "irregularities"?

 

Does this change meet the sniff test? 

 

See below for some GES history, only 9 years old. AAA is tied to hundreds of certified arbitrators…GES has far from a similar record. 

 

Does it surprise you that the corporate tinged tied to donor class of the Dem party would shift to a Wall St controlled company?

 

The shift to GES slipped by us as we had no real information, not that we could have stopped it. If we came up with all this data below at the meeting, every Unity clone would have voted us down. 

 

Candidate debate, protections for those stuffing mail boxes

At the meeting John Lawhead repping Solidarity,  raised the idea of a candidate debate and referred to the debates Randi held in 1999 and 2001 elections, where she did not fare very well. Maybe why they canceled them.

 

Bobby Greenberg (RA rep) pushed for increased protection for those who stuff mailboxes, not only from principals but from chapter leaders. Stuffing boxes is another chore I won't be doing this time because I believe it does little good in getting out the vote - though I did get sucked into doing it last time. Bobby also wants the oppo reps to have the same access as LeRoy who double dips as UFT and Unity when he talked to AAA in past elections without us being there.

Christina Gavin (EONYC Rep), who filed a 70 page complaint last time, pushed on the idea of UFT officials using time on clock to engage in campaigning. 

I revisited the push I made 3 years ago for school data on turnout rates, pointing to the low turnout deserts and how the union would benefit from this info - last time Unity turned that down but did go for district results (UFT Election 2022 Results - Districts).

I pushed hard for an electronic voting option but naturally there are loads of roadblocks. This time they came up with the constitution wrinkle - some language in the constitution that says you have to use written ballots. Christina Gavin pointed out that written can also mean electronic.

Anyway, I pointed out the low vote totals for previous elections and handed out the ugly story on a chart. Like less than 20% of actives voted while 40% of retirees votes. After all the reasons we couldn't do electronic voting were pointed out I said I had raised this same reso 3 years ago and they promised to look into the issue but did nothing so we are back to ground zero.

 

I also pointed out that in previous elections the leadership could count on the retiree vote to carry them through, now with that vote in potential jeopardy, the leadership should want very much to increase in-service vote for their own protection. But don't expect any creative ideas to come from the moribund leadership. They looked like turtles turned on their backs. 

The best they could come up with was Queens District Rep James Vasquez with a reso to form a task force to "study" the issue. He also placed blame on the oppo people over the past 3 years for not bringing up the issue during that time. Duhhhh, James -- we know you guys never want electronic voting and you will forget all about your task force.

But Vasquez did not lose the opportunity to put out a dumb blog post attacking the opposition and blaming them for his own party's failures. That attack can be termed, "I'm scared shit we will lose and I will have to go back to the classroom and teach a full load instead of my one or two periods a day - and lose my second pension." 

Arthur will address the story on Friday and I will chip in a separate post in case Arthur misses something.

But here are a few comments on the Vasquez post from the RA listserve:

Ill-informed. The NLRB doesn’t even oversee UFT.

Hohohohohohoho! This is too rich for words!

Among the gems: 

"Back in 2021, members of the MORE, ICE, New Action, Solidarity and Retiree Advocate caucuses proposed and voted for a motion for the Election Committee to add the word "electronic" to the election notice....These caucuses decided to take no action on this issue whatsoever over the past three years. This pattern of inaction has become all too familiar. These groups prioritize their political gain over the well-being" of UFT members

The caucuses were supposed to take action?  I thought resolutions passed at the Delegate Assembly were instructions for the UFT leadership to take action! If this comment on their part were not so stupid, it would be pathetic. Ok, so it's both.  What actually galls me is that Unity in their broadside below is trying to get out from under the pressure that is building currently and historically underway to move to a more modern and more easily accessible voting system being proposed by opposition groups.

They acknowledge that it was already proposed in 2021 and they didn't do a thing about it. Now they are suddenly waking up, in light of their defeat in the Retiree election, and realizing that they need to actually do something about demands they thought previously they could discount and ignore. And they blame the very groups that brought this matter up for their inaction!

 So after 3 years of inertia , they now insist that decisions about the feasibility of such a system are still years away. What happened to the 3 years they decided to waste? 

And Unity still has the chutzpah to declare, essentially, "Well, let's not be hasty!"Retired Sheila

James Vasquez calls us irresponsible for asking for electronic voting. He certainly didn't  say that to our faces at the Election meeting.

 

Background on GES

John S. Matthews
Chairman of GES from its inception in 2015, where he has supervised the development of elections software and hardware applications covering registration, tabulation and reporting.

He has a history: Global Arena Capital Corporation Owner Token Suspension for Private Securities Transactions

 

John S.
Matthews is currently the Chairman, CEO, CFO & Controller at Global Arena Holding, Inc. since 2016. He is also the Chairman at Global Election Services, Inc. since 2015, the Director at GAHI Acquisition Corp. since 2015, and the Director at Tidewater Energy Group, Inc. since 2019. In the past, Mr. Matthews served as the Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Weatherly Securities Corp. from 1996 to 2000. He was also the Chief Executive Officer & Director at China Stationery & Office Supply, Inc. from 2010 to 2011, the Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Global Arena Capital Corp. from 2007 to 2014, the Chairman at JSM Capital Holding Corp. in 2003, the Chairman at Ehrenkranz King Nussbaum from 2001 to 2003, and the President at Clark Dodge & Co., Inc. in 2006.

 

Parent company is partially owned by Bacardi:

 

What’s the biggest election GES has handled … even if mail-in ballots?

 

Lots of chatter in this forum about him being a scammer:

 

From SEC filing about the parent company:

The Company has generated recurring losses from operations and cash flow deficits from its operations since inception and has had to continually borrow to continue operating. In addition, certain of the Company’s debt is in default as of December 31, 2022. These factors raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern. The continued operations of the Company are dependent upon its ability to raise additional capital, obtain additional financing and/or acquire or develop a business that generates sufficient positive cash flows from operations. The Company continues to raise funds from the issuance of additional convertible promissory note. Management is hopeful that with their ability to raise additional funds that the Company should be able to continue as a going concern.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1138724/000175612523000686/R7.htm

A holding company:

 

 

 

Do you trust your data with this guy:

 

 

 

Read through to the end for Daniel's tweets for more.

EONYC Tweet on GES:

Educators of NYC

@educatorsofnyc

Emerging Election Scandal —  

 

This past Tuesday @UFTUnity used its outsized power on the @UFT election committee to say that they were changing vendors for the monitoring and election balloting of the UFT’s 2025 citywide election.  This came as a surprise to many union insiders as for years non-profit arbitration stalwart @ADRorg AAA has monitored their elections as they for most of the major NYC unions. 

 

They announced that a 9 year old Wall Street holding company, General Election Services, Inc would now be in charge of the mail in balloting process for the UFT’s  nearly 200k members. There was talk that @UFTUnity was upset with AAA for allegedly messing up the para chapter election when a Unity caucus retiree flyer was sent out with the mail-in ballots, instead of their Unity para flyer. 

 

Fix Para Pay, the opponent caucus’ flyer was mailed out and we all know that FPP trounced Unity garnering 75% of the vote. They announced that a 9 year old Wall Street holding company, General Election Services, Inc would now be in charge of the mail in balloting process for the UFT’s  nearly 200k members. 

 

There was talk at the Tuesday election committee meeting that @UFTUnity was upset with AAA for allegedly messing up the para chapter election when a Unity caucus retiree flyer was sent out with the mail-in ballots, instead of their Unity para flyer. 

 

Fix Para Pay, the opponent caucus’ flyer was mailed out and we all know that FPP trounced Unity garnering 75% of the vote. It’s unclear if the snafu was AAA’s or a mistake by the Unity caucus leader and UFT secretary, LeRoy Barr

 

So who is General Election Services and their chairman, John S. Matthews? … take a look at their shady website, first.  Then their parent company’s, Global Arena Holding Inc, SEC history. Deep dive incoming---

General Election Services has limited experience in running mostly paper ballot elections for organizations, owned by Global Arena Holding, Inc. It claims 40 years “combined experience” in elections, the truth it’s been around since 2015...  

The GES chairman is John S Matthews, who has a controlling interest in several other companies, including its parent company, Global Arena Holding Inc. GES and Global Arena board of shareholders includes Barcadi owner, Facundo Bacardi and former NBA player, Kiki VanDeWeghe. Matthews has been fined and suspended from in the past for his past business dealings: “John S. Matthews of New York, New York, the former owner of Global Arena Capital Corporation, was fined $25,000 and suspended for six months from association with any Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) member after consenting to findings that he engaged in unauthorized private securities transactions.” And the 2022 SEC filing for the parent company and related holdings sounds an alarm about the viability of this entire enterprise: The accompanying consolidated financial statements have been prepared in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America, which contemplates the continuation of the Company as a going concern. The Company has generated recurring losses from operations and cash flow deficits from its operations since inception and has had to continually borrow to continue operating. In addition, certain of the Company’s debt is in default as of December 31, 2022. These factors raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern. The continued operations of the Company are dependent upon its ability to raise additional capital, obtain additional financing and/or acquire or develop a business that generates sufficient positive cash flows from operations. The Company continues to raise funds from the issuance of additional convertible promissory note. Management is hopeful that with their ability to raise additional funds that the Company should be able to continue as a going concern.”

GES’ claim to fame is handling the logistics 2020 North Dakota democratic primary election in which on 14k North Dakotans voted. It’s unclear if GES has ever handled a union election for over 200k members with its hundreds of candidates, like the

@UFT

Who should UFT members trust more to handle a fair and honest election…? 1. AAA — The not-for-profit American Arbitration Association® (AAA®)-International Centre for Dispute Resolution® (ICDR®) who is the largest private global provider of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services in the world. Whose arbitrators and reputation are legal experts. 2. A fly by night Wall Street holding company that is in default for debt?

@UFTUnity

wants us to trust them to entrust GES and Global Arena. Bizarre.