Showing posts with label MORE/UFT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MORE/UFT. Show all posts

Monday, July 26, 2021

UFT Elections (Part 1) - Historical Analysis - Comparing the 2016 success and the 2019 disaster

UFT Slate Ballot 2016                   
    UNITY
    MORE/New Action  
 
UFT Slate Ballot 2019
    UNITY
    Solidarity
    MORE
    New Action
The real losers in all of this Norm is the active teacher base... Comment on Ed Notes 2019 UFT election report, May 23, 2019
As we approach another UFT general election cycle in the spring of 2022, I've been looking back at the various coalitions and where I've stood. 

I've always been ambivalent about the election process, though until the last election in 2019, I had thrown myself deeply into the battle since 2004. A group of independents, unhappy with the then state of the caucuses, formed a new caucus, ICE/UFT, specifically to run in that election, mainly because the predominant caucus, New Action, had made a deal with Randi that enraged the other anti-Unity forces. TJC was already out there but many felt they were a closed box, undemocratic and dominated by a few voices with a narrow agenda. People were upset at both TJC and NA.

The creation of a new caucus went against my normal grain. When I began Education Notes in 1997 I tried to make it a unifying force and in fact soon after the 2001 UFT elections I called a meeting of all interest groups and independents in the UFT to unite for the next elections, but also to begin working together instead of in separate silos inside the UFT, especially at Delegate Assemblies. After an almost fist fight at the second meeting I have up and instead began to drift toward bringing people together around some of the principle issues I was addressing in Ed Notes, which led to the formation of ICE a few years later.

Generally I have always been in favor of caucuses uniting, either permanently as in 1995, when New Action emerge out of the merger of New Directions and Teachers Action Caucus and in 2012 when ICE and Teachers for a Just Contract merged into MORE (along with other groups). 

At the time, MORE looked like it could unite most of the anti-Unity forces and form one umbrella opposition caucus - a big tent. Unfortunately, within a few short years divisions opened up and the alliance of ICE and TJC proved to have weak bonds -- MORE is now controlled by many of the original TJCC people while ICE is out in the cold.

I've taken various positions regarding UFT elections in 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, at times advocating a boycott and using the election as a means to pointing out how it is rigged in Unity's favor. But few agreed with me, their juices running at the very thought of an election, even if the process occupies months of time where organizing actually doesn't take place -- I base this on the outcomes of previous elections where some people not in the opposition literati get active briefly with the expectation we could win and then when the reality of seeing Mulgrew get 80-85% of the vote, fade into the woodwork.

I changed my mind in 2016 when New Action left its alliance with Unity and joined with MORE in an election coalition and we knew we could win the 7 high school seats. And we did win those seats. Barely, but we won. I remember arguing with some of the resisters in MORE who liked to run only if they wouldn't win anything that winning even 7% of the Ex Bd offered hope to the anti-Unity rank and file. And our electeds did yeoman duty - holding open pre-ex bd meetings and bringing a wide range of  people to advocate for their causes at the meetings.

That model of winning even 7% of the Ex Bd - as opposed to the outcome of 2019 where Unity won 100% - is a prime motivating factor in an attempt to bring all groups together to win those seats -- and hopefully some others in the middle and elementary schools. If all three teacher divisions were won, that would be 23% of the Ex Bd.

Outside the internal literati of the UFT, the average UFT member doesn't have much of a clue as to the differences between the various caucuses -- or even give a much of a shit. Fundamentally they often ask, "Why can't you guys get together? You are asking us to vote for you instead of Unity and even small groups like you can't come together?" Don't forget, 70% of UFT members don't vote, even higher in the teacher divisions. A non-vote is in essence a rejection of Unity and the opposition. And I believe that multiple caucuses running against Unity suppresses the vote further.

In 2019, after a successful 2016 campaign by a coalition of MORE and New Action, MORE inexplicably decided to break that alliance and run a lone campaign that was designed to purposely NOT win anything. 

In my last months in MORE I was taking part in these debates and offered two options -- either run as a united front with other caucuses and indepenents so voters face a clearly defined choice between Unity and an opposition, or don't run at all and use the election to focus on issues. Both ideas were rejected and eventually I was forced out of MORE for writing about the debate.

The outcome was a disaster from the point of electoral politics as MORE finished third behind Solidarity which had not even been able to have enough candidates to get rccognized as a slate in 2016. 

A big question on the minds of the usual suspects thinking ahead to the 2022 elections is will MORE make the same mistake, a mistake that the caucus has not been open about -- or even informed its many new members, some of whom have been in touch asking what happened?

In 2016 MORE/New Action had about 10,600 votes and a non-slate candidate for president had 1400. That was 12,000 votes against Unity, a number matching some of the better outcomes for the opposition over history. 

The total vote of three opposition caucuses running independently in 2019 was less than 7,000. How did such a disastrous outcome occur over a 3 year period? See theEd Notes Election report

The only way to challenge Unity is to have one slate go head to head, not a smorgasbord of opposition groups that only confuse the membership.

I've been hearing from people who listened to my discussion with Leo Casey and Daniel Alicea of UFT history in its early decades on the "Talk Out of School" WBAI broadcast last Saturday. 

Some have pointed to our not getting to the issue of opposition groups in the union that were opposed to Unity Caucus since 1962. And there have been quite a few such groups over the decades. I've helped found three or four (depending on how you classify them) since the 70s.

Having a clean choice of Unity vs one opposition is important for the average, non-involved in UFT internal politics voter - or non-voter.

UFT Slate Ballot 2016                   
    UNITY
    MORE/New Action                        
*Solidarity did not have the required 40 to be listed as a slate, but did run as individuals.  
 
Outcome: MORE/NA received almost 11,000 votes and the Solidarity presidential candidate 1400 votes. MORE/NA also won the 7 high school Ex Bd. seats
 
UFT Slate Ballot 2019
    UNITY
    Solidarity
    MORE
    New Action                                                                                              

Outcome: No ex bd seats - total of all opposition groups less than 8000.

The 2019 UFT election with 3 opposition slates on the ballot was an absolute disaster to have slid back so far after the gains of 2016.

So with elections coming up next year, here we are with the same situation,

I have examined my thinking over the years and firmly believe that I and many of my colleagues from back to the early 70s have tried to bring the opposition forces together for UFT elections and in other areas, like the Delegate Assembly.

The caucus system has often interfered with thee goals. Every small pond must have its big cheeses. But let's agree that there will always be one of more opposition caucus in the UFT, as there has been since the 1960s. The most successful outcomes have come when caucuses came together for general elections -- and of course I don't mean actually winning the election since Unity has had control since the inception of the UFT in 1960 - but in vote totals and winning some seats on the Ex Bd.

One of the most successful coming together elections was in 1981 when three competing caucuses - New Directions (ND), Teachers Action Caucus (TAC), Coalition of School Workers (CSW) - plus independents -  joined to form New Action Coalition - taking one word from the name of each caucus. (In 1995 New Directions and TAC merged to form the current New Action.) We signed up a full slate of 800 people to run - see photo below. And we held large petition signing events attended by hundreds who also picked up literature to distribute in their schools. That election coalition lasted though the 90s and won the high school VP position in 1985 and high school and middle school ex bd seats in the 90s - in fact has continuously won the high schools on the whole -- until 2019.

We truly all didn't get along very well but put aside the rancor of the 70s and even if it took years, this coalition began to make some headway, culminating in winning the HS VEEP in 1985 and 13 Ex Bd seats in 1991.

Many of us believe we are in a unique moment in UFT history, with signs there may be some slippage in the retiree vote and Unity fumbling on a host of issues, putting the high school and middle school ex bd seats in play. And some signs of elementary school disaffection. 

With so many teachers not voting in the past, a GOTV campaign using the many retirees who have become activated and working through the Retiree Advocate group, which itself has cross caucus people from New Action, ICE, a few former MOREs and independents might offer a change to make a dent in Unity, even if winning the whole thing may not be in the cards.

Election lit, 1981:



Tuesday, May 26, 2020

UFT Update: Which Came First - the leadership or the membership? Are teachers in LA and Chicago different than NYC?

I keep wondering if there is a major difference in the kinds of people who go into teaching in NYC vs Chicago and LA -- the three biggest cities. Since 2010, Chicago and then LA have elected left wing leaderships that have led strikes with the support of the overwhelming majority of members.

Here in NYC in the UFT we don't see anything even close. So is it the memberships of these cities that is different? Or is it the differences in the leadership?

In the endless back and forth we hear about the failures of the Unity Caucus leadership we hear their response: It's the members, stupid - or the stupid members.
I'm taking a short break from my posts on the 1975 crisis with Part 4 still being worked on -- I'm going back to 1968 after the weekend death of Rhody McCoy to link 68 to the failures of 75. Check them out:
People inside the UFT leadership often blame a conservative leaning centrist membership that they see as less progressive than they are and that trying to move them in a more militant direction is useless and even dangerous for them -- at one point they were resisting using Trump's name in some reso so as not to alienate the Trump backers in the UFT - of which there are surprising number - I know them on FB.

So is the leadership correct? That the teachers in NYC are not as militant or active as Chicago and LA - or is it the nature of the leadership itself that doesn't even attempt to create a more active and militant union?

Thursday, October 17, 2019

MORE Slammed for Undemocratic Actions - Education Notes

I am publishing this excerpt from Arthur's blog in the hard copy of Ed Notes which I distribute at Delegate Assemblies. I didn't agree with his entire blog post and will comment on those aspects in the future. But I agree totally with his analysis of MORE and myself was the victim of undemocratic acts when I was suspended for 6 months for daring to repeat something that happened at a MORE meeting. My suspension is supposedly over but I'm not going back to that hot mess.
Former Member Slams MORE on Undemocratic Actions

By Arthur Goldstein, CL Francis Lewis HS, Ex Bd Member

I've been observing union and union leadership pretty closely for a few years now. No one's perfect, and there are flaws in every organization. There are some UFT employees I like more than others. MORE, though, has crossed lines in ways that go far beyond the pale. A group of us worked very hard to have our voices heard within the UFT. We planned and schemed, and then we put our plans and schemes into action. We won Ex. Bd. seats. This was remarkable.

However, a group within MORE considered our victory "a disaster." I've seen them refer to us as "right-wingers" in writing. Evidently, that's what you are if you don't subscribe to their particular philosophy, whatever on earth that may be. They were horrified when I brought a resolution supporting smaller class sizes to the UFT Executive Board. Why didn't I run it by the Steering Committee, which they controlled?

When this small, self-important steering committee found themselves term-limited, they took a page from Michael Bloomberg and tried to remove the limits. For whatever reason, they failed in that effort. Once they were replaced, they moved to dump all their replacements. They couldn't be bothered with their own by-laws or anything, did whatever they wanted, and managed to lose 80% of their support in the next UFT election. I'm very comfortable determining they don't appear to believe in democracy. They fractured opposition so decisively I determined it to be a waste of time.

I saw a real vision in what was left of MORE, and the vision was this--we do whatever we want, however we want, whenever we want, and if we lose elections by a landslide because we alienate the overwhelming majority of our former supporters, we're good with that. Hey, if they only want to mix with people who buy their particular brand of socialism, or whatever they call it, that's fine. But if you want to reach UFT members, if you want to organize and change things for working teachers, you need to be willing to talk to everyone. You need to be willing to have conversations with people who aren't limited to your particular ideology, whatever it may be.

I'd argue that people who can't tolerate opposing points of view, who won't mix with those who have differing points of view, who blindly condemn those with whom they likely have more in common than not are fanatics. A lack of tolerance like that is not likely to accomplish a whole lot. I'd rather work with people who can and will make change. In 2019, on this astral plane, that's the UFT leadership. In fact, as opposition, the only way I ever got anything done was by working with leadership.



Friday, August 9, 2019

The 2019 DSA Convention: Showdown at the Caucus Corral - Bread and Roses Caucus and MORE

It’s true that Bread & Roses doesn’t make any pretense about having more than a couple overarching goals for the organization, citing the limited capacity of DSA as a whole. These priorities include a commitment to a rank-and-file labor strategy, the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, and fostering mass political movements around large policy objectives, such as Medicare For All and the Green New Deal. But it would be a mischaracterization to say that Bread & Roses is opposed to political activity outside its stated, centralized priorities. Above all, above even its ideological convictions, Bread & Roses has a commitment to democracy. .... Current Affairs
I've been following and compiling stories on the Democratic Socialists (DSA), of which I am a fringe member. 
See my post the other day: Democratic Socialist Convention Update: If Not Bernie, What?

I view the rise of DSA which has grown 10x in two years is one of the most significant events as they have the potential to become an alternate space for the left in the Democratic Party and have begun to operate as a quasi caucus inside the Dem Party. But DSA is still a big tent socialist group and is threatened internally by some of the same sectarian politics that have so divided the left over the past century. Bread and Roses caucus has the potential to create a dividing line. 
This is what democracy means, to Bread and Roses: majority rule....
.... rather than bulldoze minority viewpoints, Build [caucus] prefers to work with them, incorporating those other viewpoints in a holistic way. “What ties us together is a commitment to working across our differences, so that we can come to something that works for everybody,”.....CA  
If that is what democracy means, then the suppression of the minority point of view to the point of purging is the opposite of democracy. Which is what happened inside MORE by some of the very people associated with the Bread and Roses caucus. I would say the ICE people in MORE would have been somewhat aligned with the Build caucus by trying to find consensus.

They say all politics are local and in the various factions of DSA I see echoes of the faction battles in MORE where the ISO faction recruited enough people out of DSA to be able to overturn the democratic structure of MORE and push people out who did not agree with them -- call it banishing the minority view, not uncommon among certain branches of socialism. So it is not an accident that many of the same MOREs are involved in the NYC DSA Labor contingent and have ties to the Bread and Roses caucus in DSA.

One of their key planks, which passed narrowly at the convention last week, was the boiler plate rank and file strategy advocated by Kim Moody/ Labor Notes and others associated with the Trotsky wing of socialism. The MOREs used this same issue to create a red line inside MORE - either go along or get out. It was not that many of us in ICE disagreed with the strategy but the sneaky undemocratic way the faction went about it and the hard line they took -- actually they had to suspend the steering committee and throw out the MORE by-laws in order to assure it got passed -- not a good ad for the "democratic" in democratic socialism.


In other words will be see the same type of actions by some of the same people who divided MORE, and in the supreme irony killed rank and file organizing inside the UFT where the biggest instrument of so-called "business unionism" resides, Unity Caucus - has been enormously strengthened - which means even greater control over the AFT which has collaborated with so much ed deform.

So this article from Current Affairs, a non-left wing view is interesting. In a follow-up tomorrow I will print a harder left view from New Politics, where a key editor has fundamentally supported the undemocratic actions within MORE. Expect more fawning from NP.



The 2019 DSA Convention: Showdown at the Caucus Corral

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/08/the-2019-dsa-convention-showdown-at-the-caucus-corral

Friday, May 17, 2019

Social Justice Activist Ousts Randi Ally, 21-Year Incumbent as Baltimore Teachers Union President - Antonucci

The Union We Deserve slate, which is an alliance of two opposition caucuses within BTU – the Baltimore Movement of Rank-and-File Educators and the Baltimore Caucus of Educators for Democracy and Equity. Both caucuses have a social justice focus....
Brown is the latest in a string of candidates who have managed to defeat established union incumbents with a social justice platform. Though not strong everywhere, such candidates have had their greatest success by forming coalitions to present a united opposition..... Intercepts, Mike Antonucci
How much irony that the Baltimore MORE united with the other opposition groups while our own MORE divided the opposition here in NYC.

Let me point out that I and others called for a similar alliance of all forces here under the banner of a united front to confront the Unity monster in the recent election disaster in the UFT where MORE finished behind a ghost caucus. Maybe studying the Baltimore situation will be a lesson, though I doubt the wounds can be healed, especially as long as the ISO faction that took control of MORE is still dominant - which I expect they are despite the dismemberment of ISO - expect former ISOers to regroup somewhere else.

In Los Angeles a similar coalition of groups united under Union Power to win in 2014. Pay attention to the lessons of history which I tried to point out up to my final moments in MORE.

The Union We Deserve
The Baltimore coalition of two caucuses combined to run against the long-entrenched Unity Caucus-like leadership in Baltimore (it's called the Progressive Caucus - the same name as the Unity version in the AFT), defeating a 21 year incumbent and Randi ally who is a VP of the AFT. More lessons for us here in the UFT.
a preliminary tally shows a 901-839 margin for Brown. BTU has approximately 7,000 members.
Looks like the turnout might be less than here in NYC.

Antonucci has an interesting point:
The opposition slate appears to have won almost all of the teacher seats on the union’s executive committee, while the incumbent Progressive slate seems to have captured all the education support employee seats.
Interesting -- the opposition won the schools while the incumbents won what we would call the Functionals.

The strategy here in NYC has always been to go after the school divisional seats where retirees don't vote -- and I bet retirees don't vote in Baltimore - or anywhere else most probably -- and my point has been to win the 3 divisions and then go to court to fight the retiree vote - but that will never happen here as long as the opposition is divided and inept.

Don't expect this Baltimore outcome to be accepted by the caucus in power - Unity-like caucuses do not give up power easily. They will probably go to the AFT to adjudicate -- and Antonucci makes this point:
Whatever the ultimate outcome in Baltimore, English remains the president of AFT Maryland and one of the many vice presidents of AFT national.
"English, in a statement, pledged to challenge the preliminary results. “Throughout this campaign, there were egregious violations of the elections process,” she wrote. “I can’t in good faith concede this election.”"

Right - Her caucus ran the election. Reminds me of when Mike Shulman won the high school VP position in 1985 and Unity protested the election they ran and actually got a new election - which they then lost.

The opposition protested too:
Teachers who supported Brown’s slate of candidates said the union election was not conducted fairly. They have accused the elections committee of attempting to suppress the vote by having limited voting hours and locations, and denying the majority of absentee ballot requests. They also say educators had to use a confusing ballot that favored English’s team.... Only by the third page did he get the option to vote for people on the Union We Deserve ticket. Daniels was frustrated and upset — just imagine, he said, if the Democratic party tried to get away with that style of ballot during a citywide election.
Union We Deserve was not able to fill an entire slate, because some of its candidates for the executive board were rejected by the elections committee.
We know the AFT has a history of goon takeovers of locals, so this may be a big mess. Watch carefully - a new election wouldn't surprise me.

By the way -- our local conspiracy theorists always complain about the mail ballot we use here but look at the issues related to in-school voting which would take place on one day -- and in fact today's Chicago election is also taking place in schools.

That there are two caucuses coming together for the election should be interesting. Why are there two social justice caucuses? Hit the links to see where they stand - and will this alliance break down under differences?

Baltimore Movement of Rank-and-File Educators and the Baltimore Caucus of Educators for Democracy and Equity.

BMORE seems very similar to MORE in focus and is probably part of UCORE. CEDE is a facebook page and seems to be a less ideological group -- so it is possible to combine a heavy duty SJ caucus with others in a united front.

Today is the election in Chicago where CORE, the granddaddy of social justice teacher caucuses, to win as the incumbent against Members First (Chicago Teachers Union CORE Caucus challenged). There are attempts to brand Members First as right wing in the left wing press -- as if people calling for more attention to be paid to basic working conditions is right wing.

When CORE won in 2010 it was the most broad-based caucus and did not unite with other caucuses running against the Unity style leadership - but that was a special case - there were 5 caucuses running, 2 of them a split leadership and one pretty irrelevant -- and there was a run-off --- so the CORE strategy was based on finishing 2nd and gaining the support of the other key opposition. It was like the Democratic primaries coming up -- the more the merrier as long as you finish 2nd and then unite the rest.

Funny how a long-time voice in the opposition used the example of CORE as an excuse for MORE to run alone --- a specious argument that ignores what really happened in Chicago.

Mike Antonucci has the short report based on a Baltimore Sun article and both are published in full below the break.

Thursday, May 9, 2019

Notes on a Staggering ISO - Louis Poyect - 2014

I want to address the question of the “right” of a Leninist organization to keep its discussions shielded from public view at the end of this article... Louis Proyect

This article from 2014 is important to understand what happened to MORE which was taken over by the ISO faction in a sort of coup d'etat that included so many features Louis Proyect, who bills himself as an unrepentant Marxist.

His comment opening the article is relevant to my banishment from MORE for posting some comments made at a MORE meeting. The ISO faction brought into MORE the precepts their own organization operated under -- and worse than anything, the so-called newbie Democratic Socialists ate it all up without a whisper of dissent. I will be publishing the internal memos from MORE members to the ISO leadership on how they won the battle for MORE which will be illuminating. The entire process makes me cautious about the direction DSA will end up going due to the influences of the former ISO faction and their allies. Don't think the recent election debacle and the dumb December 23 petition are not relevant. (See James placing blame at the ICEUFT Blog : WHO IS THE MOST CULPABLE FOR SCHOOL BEING OPEN MONDAY, ON DECEMBER 23? - And let me point out that the majority of people who started ICE and are still involved would classify themselves as Marxists and they have been among the most critical of ISO from the very beginning.

UPDATE - I added this to my facebook post:
From 2014 - a precursor from a long-time left activist with lots of signposts for teacher caucuses as former ISO teacher factions jump into DSA, a danger to attempts to build broad based inclusive progressive movements inside teacher unions instead of narrow ideologies dominated by a few voices and aimed at a narrow audience with only acceptable ideologies. We will be discussing the ideologies involved in small meetings and will have lots more to say about these issues over the next few months. Current and future activists may find the analysis useful. I can live in a system of democratic centralism and controlled output from an organization  - like Unity Caucus operates -  if it is not sneaked into the back door but discussed openly and honestly. That did not happen in MORE/UFT. 

Notes on a Staggering ISO - Louis Poyect

https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/18/notes-on-a-staggering-iso/



Wednesday, May 8, 2019

December 23, 2019: A Day of Infamy - Reports from the field and FB Outrage, including MORE Follies

MORE, the caucus that wants a militant UFT won't be militant by, say, calling for a sickout on Dec. 23. Instead they want to add a day at the end of the school year - June 29, a Saturday --   How much do you want to bet that if the UFT had done that in the first place MORE would have opposed? As of last count almost 15,000 people have signed. There's militancy for you.
....the UFT was negligent in not covering the calendar issue in contract negotiations. Those talks culminated in a contract in October even though the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) put out a Fact Sheet in September telling local unions that the State Education Department expects new collective bargaining agreements to comply with new minimum instructional days (180) and hours (900/990) regulations.... James Eterno

I brought this to UFT Executive Board last week, and you can see what leadership said a little further down the blog. This is one of the stupidest things I've seen in over three decades of teaching in NYC, and that's saying a lot. Asking for another useless June day is hardly a solution, and asking for it on a Saturday pushes the absurdity even further.... Arthur Goldstein 
Oh the angst and anger over next year's school calendar which lists Monday Dec. 23, 2019 as a work day. At times it seems a bit much considering all the other issues out there to be outraged about. But I do get it - many people go away or prepare for Xmas and having Monday off allows people to travel with plenty of time to spare. Plus consider how many teachers are from other places and probably go home for the holidays.

One retired friend with a son who teaches and grandchildren who go to the public schools was surprisingly outraged - she says it just shows the level of disrespect and almost mocking of a working staff that is abused in so many ways. And she also blames the UFT for making excuses - she absolutely believes they could have stopped this if they were bothering to pay attention.

James Eterno has led the battle at the ICEUFT blog and fundamentally agrees and heaps scorn on the UFT--- he goes into the reasons -- the UFT was negligent.  James was one of the first out of the box at the ICEUFT blog and at last count had over 7,000 hits. And look at those comments. And all the math people are doing to add up the school days and minutes. And the research into what other districts have school on that day. 

NY1 did a story on James leading the fight.
NY 1 COVERS CONTROVERSY ON NYC SCHOOLS BEING OPENED ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2019 AND MORE ON THE SUBJECT
And we can see his kids too video of the news report.

James has posted extensively on the issue and has put a lot of time into doing the research -- OK- I can think of better things to do but here are the links:
While James blames the UFT, Arthur Goldstein heaps scorn on the State Ed Dept and the DOE. Arthur asked the question at the Ex Bd and has written about the entire folly of working Monday Dec. 23
NYSED, December 23rd, and Wasting Time and Money

Arthur and his pal Mike Schirtzer have come under attack for not attacking the UFT leadership over issues like this. I find myself in the middle of this argument.

I see both points of view - the UFT leadership need to be criticized but Arthur and Mike have chosen a different path -- try to get them to act not by criticizing but by trying to build alliances with people in the union who might be willing to act. And you don't do that by calling them slugs - which has been pointed out to me numerous times. I've been on both sides of this issue -- Ed Notes in its earliest years did not attack the leadership and I attempted to build alliances - ultimately I failed and then went on the attack. But Arthur and Mike feel the times have changed and more can be won by not attacking. Time will tell whether James' approach has a better outcome than Arthur's and Mikes.

In the meantime, Arthur has been having fun at MORE's expense.

More in Bad Ideas from MORE--Opening School Saturday, June 27th 2020 - After MORE dumped all my friends in an effort to achieve ideological purity and cleanse itself, it managed to go from winning the high schools to winning ...

And a follow up: MORE Alters Petition After People Signed It
Arthur mocks MORE for coming up with an idea that is as bad as working Dec. 23.

As usual, the opportunists in MORE, desperately seeking issues to raise jumped on the bandwagon Eterno created and created a petition on the Dec. 23 issue. And people were signing it in droves. Except they didn't read the fine print that MORE was calling for Dec. 23 to be replaced by adding June 27 to the school year, even dumber than the UFT plan. And even worse, June 27 is a Saturday. MORE has come under attack on FB by rank and filers. MORE then changed the petition to call for school on Monday June 29.

This petition indicates how democracy has fallen apart in MORE. In the days we were there we would have called for a full vetting of the idea on the listserve and fought it out. But when no dissent is allowed you fall into the world of stupid.

Well, if you want my theory on why MORE would call for adding a day to replace Dec. 23 here it is. Can the social justice caucus of the UFT call for taking away a day of instruction? Just sayin'.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

UFT Election Overall and Retiree Data: Halabi Reports

Mulgrew had 37,000 votes and over 20,000 came from retirees, a warning shot across the bow of the UFT leadership and to some extent it explains their reaching out to former opposition people to stay on the Ex Bd by running on the Unity line. It won't do them much good as the UFT needs deep structural changes instead of cosmetic ones.
It was a bad election for the UFT. Vote totals were down across the board. My caucus, New Action, did particularly poorly
Unity did sweep the seats. But the group that has a monopoly on power has a growing inability to turn out votes, even after turning a popular chapter leader of a huge school, and a prominent Bernie Sanders supporter, with following.....
....Unity can claim a victory – they took an absolute majority of the high school votes for the first time since I’ve been a teacher… but with their second lowest vote total in years, perhaps ever.
I’ve seen speculation about who came in second overall. These results make me think Unity came in second – and those with an interest in promoting distance between the members and the union – our enemies – came in first...
..... Jonathan Halabi, https://jd2718.org
I've been posting the election data as Jonathan compiles it division by division. Below are the retiree votes -- which seem to have leveled off at around 21,000 with Unity getting almost 90% of the votes. First here are his rough overall totals. The numbers are pathetic for everyone.


Here is the rough skinny on the retiree vote:

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

UFT 2019 Election Report - MORE Follies, Middle and Elem from Halabi Data

A united front in UFT elections might actually have won the middle schools in addition to the high schools and possibly made a dent in the elementary schools.

MORE shrinks rank and file power
MORE is contending that attempts to win these seats is somehow counter to what they term as "building rank and file power", another piece of rhetoric that is fundamentally meaningless, as if having the rank and file actually cast a vote for you doesn't really mean very much. The actions of MORE have actually shrunk rank and file power by undermining the general opposition to Unity Caucus and strengthened the ruling power. Building real rank and file power requires weakening the control of Unity and how driving out people into the arms of Unity does that is beyond me.

Arthur has a must-read funny and devastating blog post on the MORE folly of not winning: 
MORE Plans to Fail, Fails to Plan to Fail Sufficiently, and Comes in Second Among Working Teachers
MORE went into this election cycle with the clear goal of losing. Optimally they would get no votes whatsoever. However, an election campaign requires that you ask people to vote for you. Otherwise, it would not be a campaign. So there's the rub--when you run to lose you have to at least pretend to run to win, or people will find you insincere. Now it's pretty tough, when you are sincerely insincere, to prove you are not. So that was one quandary.
The ISO (now disbanded) wing of MORE (which is still intact and in control of MORE) in its internal reports to the ISO leadership (which I will be publishing excerpts of) were selling the idea to the newly recruited Democratic Socialists (DSA) that the now purged ICEUFT wing of MORE was somehow right wing - a joke since it was mostly socialist or left Democrats - and that in order to win seats on the UFT Ex Bd MORE would have to dilute the social justice message where in reality we called for cutting the rhetoric and dog whistles and presenting a broader base of ideas without labeling things as bread and butter or social justice. As a lifelong socialist in ICEUFT recently commented: We are not ceding to MORE that their vision of social justice is the correct one.

ICEUFT was truly a rational social justice caucus. That real conditions teachers and students were facing in the schools not the agenda of a tiny group of people is the real way to drive building rank and file power.

The ISO fraction (as they call themselves) viewed winning as being just for the sake of winning. Arthur takes that down with:
... you run no candidates whatsoever for the high school seats, because last time you won them, and that was a disaster. I mean, there were those people going to Executive Board twice a month, making themselves available to anyone who wanted to talk to them, and advocating for just about anyone who asked. Worse, they didn't bother to advocate for the things you wanted because it was Monday night and hey, Monday night is rumba lessons.
The point I could never seem to get across within MORE was that winning seats from Unity IS a message to the rank and file, which has its only opportunity to participate during elections and gives them a chance to send the UFT leadership a message. And by winning or at least challenging seriously, the leadership itself feels threatened enough to possibly modify its policies. For me the golden oak leaf cluster would be to win all three school divisions where retirees can't vote --- that would not only send a message, but would also open up the idea of a law suit on the retiree issue -- that the working teachers were voting opposition but were thwarted.

That dream is done in by the sectarian actions of the MORE leadership under the control of the ISO faction or fraction or whatever.

In this election, whatever share of the rank and file that votes shat on the MORE vision of building rank and file power.

Middle and Elem school election outcome
Jonathan Halabi has been doing a yeoman job parsing UFT election data. (What a way to spend a week off. But look at me spending time on doing the same thing.) Here is his middle and elementary school data with my commentary.

While we considered winning the high school ex bd seats a pretty sure bet with a united front, the middle school ex bd seats were deemed remotely winnable if a concerted effort was made by a united opposition. That may not be obvious at first but look at Jonathan's data over the past 3 elections - 13, 16, 19. In 2016, MORE/New Action with Solidarity data hit 39%, withing striking range in 2019 with a concerted effort to hit the largest middle schools from the beginning of the school year. Notice the drop in Unity votes from 2016 (think of it - Unity gets 1236 out of a potential 12,000 MS teachers). If you take the opposition totals from 2016 and apply them to 2019 (not a given), we would have been in striking range. The only time the opposition won the middle and high schools (13 seats) was in 1991.

MORE received only 145 ms votes - and they had one strong school - Kevin Prosen's where I bet many of the votes came from. Solidarity despite the low totals actually has made its best showing in MS % wise - and bested MORE with 188 votes. New Action's 74 votes is mostly due to the work of the tireless of Greg DiStefano in Staten Island.

Where did the rank and file strategy go in the middle schools when 882 people voted for MORE/NA in 2016 and only 219 MS teachers voted for them individually this time, a drop of about 75%? As Arthur said, MORE failed in its attempt to get 0 votes but got close.



Now the elementary schools are a different kettle of fish and winning this division would require a district based strategy, which no opposition in history has had(other than my group, Another View in District 14 in the early 70s). I did try to bring that idea to MORE with a focus on the one district where we seemed to have some strong elementary school people - District 15 -- but that effort fell apart as people left and other reasons. My idea was that a strong effort in just a few districts might pull enough elementary school votes to get close. That idea is not dead too.

But again look at the Unity numbers - 7k in 2016, 6k in 2019. MORE/NA did not do too bad in 2016 - over 2500 elem school votes if you add Solidarity. I believe most of these elem school votes came from MORE which in 2016 still had some force in District 15 and a few other districts.

And look how Solidarity outpolled MORE in the elem schools this time -- 519-433.  A disastrous drop for MORE -- probably closer to 80%. Hail to building rank and file power.


Here are my previous election reports:

Sunday, April 21, 2019

UFT Election Results: Halabi Posts High School Totals Plus Historical Perspective

I've been reporting on UFT elections - UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE the Biggest Loser, Solidarity Stays Alive-
based on the data I've been given. Election results have been coming in piecemeal - Since I'm  not attached to any caucus I don't get official results. New Action's Jonathan Halabi posted these interesting high school vote totals on his blog where you should check out his comments. I left this comment on his first election post:
As a UFT wonk these numbers are fascinating to parse. Don’t forget that in 2004, ICE-TJC won the high schools because Unity didn’t run candidates. Unity vote went up very little. Total opposition vote went down drastically. The reason? Has to be the split in the opposition. Longtime anti-Unity voters just sat it out. The MORE drop from 2013 is stark. 60 or so people who signed up to run on the Solidarity ticket including a people who are respected in the UFT. Portelos played so much of smaller role this time — if he had played a bigger role they might have gotten more votes. The pattern of 30 years was broken not by Unity but by decisions made by the opposition caucuses. The so called Portelos clique which was considered marginal was given life by the MORE disaster. Also the idea that Arthur and Mike brought votes to Unity might be valid when you look at Unity’s 2013 totals – or not valid when comparing to 2016. The 50 extra votes this time could be from Arthur’s school plus some from Mike’s. Both schools had voted heavy for MORE/NA last time.
He also did a followup which I will address in tomorrow's post.

UFT 2019 High School Election results compared to previous years.


Analysis: There are about 20,000 high school teachers in the UFT .... Only 3265 voted in 2019

Unity
WOW! The numbers are ridiculous. Jonathan is painting this low turnout as a big loss for the UFT even if a win for Unity. But I don't even see this as a win for Unity in this sense. It is clear that if there were a united opposition that went after winning, Unity would have lost again.

2004
Look at the Unity numbers over the 6 election cycles Jonathan posted. The height of their vote totals in the HS was in 2004 but ironically, they didn't run any HS Ex Bd candidates due to their deal with New Action, which lost to the ICE/TJC which got 1417, less than half what Unity got. NA got 700 - so even if you added that to ICE/TJC, Unity would have won outright.

2016/19
Now consider that they only got 50 more votes this time than in 2016 and also that Arthur and Mike brought them a batch of votes over from MORE. So this makes Unity look even worse in the high schools. Mike got a bunch people to vote Unity at Leon Goldstein, which had been a TJC and then MORE school - and 4 faculty ran with MORE this time. Assume Arthur shifted at least a 100 or maybe 150 votes to Unity. It is clear to me that Unity is as weak as ever in the high schools, if not more so and that a united opposition that started early could win these seats in 2022 even if Arthur and Mike stayed with Unity. My question is why bother?

Solidarity
Some are painting the outcome as a big win for Solidarity over MORE but I don't see it that way. MORE, though suffering a tremendous drop in the high schools still beat Solidarity 544-376 with New Action getting 242, which is not totally out of line with the past performance since NA only got 454 in 2013.

But note that even with the ballot line and running candidates for HS Ex Bd, Solidarity went from 108 to 376 - which some are saying is a major move - more than tripling. I guess, but given that there are 20,000 hs teachers, that the HS have always been the most militant part of the union and that MORE ran no candidates for the winnable ex bd seats, claiming 376 votes as a victory is farcical.

New Action
The question is whether they survive. I think they do decide to continue a presence in the UFT and I hope they do. If the landscape changes within the opponents to Unity, they may have a role.

MORE: Plus A little history going back to the 2016 election
Since MORE was a combination of ICE and TJC plus others, Halabi has a continuous record of high school voting since 2004. Note the consistency over 4 election cycles from 2004 through 2013 - MORE's first year. 1417, 1524, 1369 with ICE/TJC and then when they combined with NYCORE and others  -- a shockingly consistent 1430 in 2013 even with so many new people. For MORE to drop from 1430 in 2013 to 544 in 6 years is a shocking loss of support.

I think MORE will just shrug the outcomes off and try to sell the idea they really didn't put much effort into this election and they never really cared about the outcome anyway. Will the members buy it? Since MORE is fundamentally a DSA oriented group I think most will because they have a bigger agenda than UFT politics.

But they must deal with the fact that ICE/TJC and MORE through 5 election cycles, with a broader agenda than just social justice pretty much were able to get 1350-2200 votes in the high schools. And look at the MORE candidates and the high schools they came from - count the potential votes and you will see even in the schools where they had a base they didn't necessarily get overwhelming support. I heard reports from one school with a prominent MORE as CL where people complained that chapter meetings were all about issues that they felt had nothing to do with them - like the fact Mulgrew signed on to bringing Amazon back - something they couldn't care less about.

To say MORE didn't put effort into the election is not totally true. The election is pretty much all MORE talked about at its meetings since October and they kept pushing people to get out the vote in their schools. Since MORE is almost all high school based, the 544 votes is a sign of how weak an impact MORE is having. But they may even try to sell this as a base with the argument that MORE in essence remade itself into a new caucus after the purges and was essentially starting over. Still, there are those numbers from 2013  - 1435 - when MORE was a new caucus to explain.

Also consider that some of that 544 comes from legacy voting - people not aware of changes in MORE but who had voted for MORE in 2016. Thus the actual strength is less than 544. Also consider the two schools Arthur and Mike come from. Arthur probably brought 150 or more votes to MORE in 16 and assume some shift of these to Unity. And Mike's school, which had always been opposition due to TJC's Kit Wainer, was split this time.

Background to MORE internals in the 2013 and 2016 election and signs of divisions

With all the action around the founding of MORE, with the ICE and TJC and NYCORE connections, especially in the high schools, in 2013, I expected we had a chance to compete for winning the HS ex bd seats. So when all we got was 1430 and Unity 1592 to which New Action's 452 were added, it was a bitter pill that all we needed was 2000 votes in the high schools to win and fell so far short.

It was clear not enough outreach even in their own schools had been done and it was at that point that I saw that MORE as an electoral entity did not have much promise, which is why I fundamentally urged them not to run unless it was in coalitions. MORE held a "2013 victory" party on the day the results were being announced attended by 80 people and when I showed up crestfallen to deliver the outcomes - they begged me to show a happy face. Also a clue that they did not want to face reality but wanted a positive spin. But imagine that 80 or more people came out in 2013 and compare to today? The MORE promise and where it went? would make a good study.

Some of us knew that with better organizing we could get at least 2000 or more in 2016 and we set out to do so -- but disruptions internally in MORE in 2014 derailed us.

Mike, James, Arthur and I - and the rest of the ICE wing of MORE - were the leading proponents of going all out to win the high school seats in 2016 as a way to show the membership Unity could be beaten in at least one division with the hope that would lead to a move to defeat Unity in the middle schools and eventually the elementary schools in the 2019 election.

That we had to put up a fight internally in MORE to go for these seats was a sign of things to come.

In the spring of 2015 we began a high school newsletter outside the bounds of MORE because trying to do so inside would be a struggle with the ideologues. But that newsletter - The High School Forum - got some resonance and distribution we were asked to bring that inside MORE, which later on co-opted the name. We formed a MORE high school committee which none of the MORE sectarians got involved in - at first. And that allowed us to take the lead. (We also urged the other divisions in MORE to do the same -MS and ES -- and that never happened.)

By early summer 2015 when NA was still with Unity, we organized at the MORE convention to focus the high school committee on winning and the vote was very favorable. We really thought we might win the high schools even if Unity and New Action ran together. After all, in 2013 Unity only had 1592 and New Action brought only 452. So we aimed at 2500 votes even if NA stayed with Unity.

Rumors were that NA was not happy with Mulgrew and I and a few others did see that if New Action could be lured away from Unity and into an alliance with MORE we could beat Unity in the high schools for sure in 2016.

At the convention we put together a MORE high school committee basically run - in the early stages - July, 2015 - by the ICE wing and its supporters - much to the dissatisfaction of the ISO led ideology wing which didn't really want to go after these seats - they didn't see winning as a fruitful exercise - (given today's context I might take the same position).

We reached out to New Action and there was a positive response and thus an alliance was born -- though I do remember some of the ideologues pushing back at a MORE meeting in September of October 2015 that New Action wasn't ideologically kosher enough due to its 12 year alliance with Unity. That winning came second to ideological purity. The majority of MORE at that point was overwhelmingly for the alliance. How things changed by the fall of 2018 and I would say the split in MORE was fundamentally over these kinds of issues.

By the fall it was clear we had some momentum and at this point the MORE sectarian ideologues became concerned enough to jump onto the HS committee, which led to struggles through the fall of 2015 to shunt Mike and Arthur off the ballot, with unmatched levels of skulduggery which we managed to beat back. I kept stressing that Arthur's large school was the key to winning a close vote.

We won that internal battle at the time but the ideologues used their own negative reactions to the victory in the election as an internal organizing tool against Arthur and Mike.

And they literally began their attacks within weeks of winning the high schools in May 2016. But that's a story for another day.

I may even write a play.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Election Numbers - The Caucus With Social Justice "Crap" Got Almost 11,000 Votes

Aixa: Social justice is not crap. Teacher issues are not crap. Actually they overlap, and intersect, you know, are connected. It would be nice if all non unity caucuses dedicated efforts to address common issues and build name recognition and real victories. How about ADA accessibility for parents and students and teachers. Join with civil orgs to check crosswalks for proper curb cuts, drainage, for ramps, for deploying school safety to entrances that are ADA compliant and accessible. Training and outreach to CLs, recruitment of retirees to update retirees on what is happening. Addressing slow unjust response to reassignment and discontinuance. Addressing abusive principals. How about addressing the calendar of DA meetings and PEP meetings happening on the same day across the city from each other? How about addressing school closure as a mechanism for ageism. How about massive waste and fraud in the school renewal initiative, and implementation of engageNY. How about unsafe working conditions ducttaped walls, labs without safety equipment, ceiling panels that are falling, leaks from pipes. How about engaging with gentrification activists to force tighter work between community boards handling zoning and local CECs to bring the truth out about land use and building new schools. How about addressing the issue of a lack of transparency in mayoral control and the disenfranchisement of nyc citizens. Lets see the intersectionality of the issues and work toward documenting and addressing them with our local elected officials. Lets unleash the power of our networks and social media.... Aixa, who has fought battles on all fronts, replies to Chaz comment on my post UFT Elections - Some thoughts. 
Norm: Maybe MORE will now move away from that "social justice" crap and concentrate on "teacher justice" as James Eterno and Co advocate. When MORE eliminates the "social justice" plank, then I and others may become more involved...  Chaz
Thank you Aixa, who has been so wonderful to work with and never stops fighting for teachers, students, community - she is the perfect blend of people I hope MORE can attract - and by the way, I don't even know if she is a MORE officially but certainly she is in spirit. I hope one day she will run for MORE steering and keep MORE on track.

When we started ICE in late 2003, my friend and mentor, the late Paul Baizerman, one of the architects of the original ICE, said to me, "I'm not coming out of retirement to do this just to fight for teacher prep periods." He wanted ICE to address the defense budget and race - Paul crossed the 1968 UFT picket lines - but also was a major fighter on grievances and for teacher rights. The other retirees from our very SJ oriented group from the 70s - Vera Pavone, Ira Goldfine and Loretta and Gene Prisco came on board to work with getting ICE going - joined by Michael Fiorillo, John Lawhead, Sean Ahern, Julie Woodward, Lisa North and ask anyone - if not for these leftists, there would not have been an ICE. I would say I was the least left of the group. All of us were fierce defenders of teachers and the union - but if we stopped there we would have never got anywhere. Sorry, Chaz, you can't build an opposition movement on your politics - it has never been done and it will not happen, especially in the UFT. The right wing of the UFT will never be able to organize itself into a potent organization - but Chaz is welcome to try.

The just-completed UFT elections pretty much proved my point.
Did Jia Lee, with all her SJ "crap" not get almost 11,000 votes?

Here is the comment Chaz left on my post UFT Elections - Some thoughts.
Norm: Maybe MORE will now move away from that "social justice" crap and concentrate on "teacher justice" as James Eterno and Co advocate. When MORE eliminates the "social justice" plank, then I and others may become more involved...
Chaz doesn't get what drives people to do this work.

I have never been hassled as a teacher. My involvement in union activities came because I felt kids, not teachers were getting screwed. That was in 1970.  Call me a social justice teacher - and I fought many battles with my colleagues over the fact that we had to not only defend ourselves but also the children we taught every day.

Thus I wonder when teachers seem to want us to ignore the issues of the students who supposedly sit in front of them every day. Are they teaching widgets?

Why would MORE move away from SJ when we just made progress in the election? James and Co support MORE - obviously - even with its SJ "crap." I join James and others in MORE calling or balance, not the elimination of SJ. I replied:
Chaz
I think you need to be clear. If more eliminates social justice I and most others will be out. You don't seem to get that Ice was social justice and most of us are leftist oriented. You will never find MORE as a pure caucus you want. Best you look elsewhere. What does it say that almost 11000 people voted for a group that advocates social justice crap alongside teacher justice crap. Focusing on just one or the other leads to a dead end. You are doomed to endless frustration because MORE is not going anywhere 
Our pal Roseanne McCosh, who was one of two winners of the MORE award for signing up the most people in her school to join MORE, is not a lefty or focused on SJ - but she supports MORE. She emailed at one point that as long as MORE takes care of teacher related issues, the SJ stuff doesn't bother her.

MORE needs people like Roseanne and she is my weather vane - she will let us know if things tip too far into SJ without connections to the work being done in the schools. If they tip too far the other way -- we are only about teacher interests, I'm sure there are others to let us know.

Chaz wants a pure caucus devoted only to teacher issues - in a union that at this point where classroom teachers are a smaller percentage. Where there has been a major turnover in teaching staff over the past 15 years - younger and interested in social justice issues. MORE would not exist if it did not address social justice issues in addition to teacher issues. The problem for some of us in MORE is when things tip too far or are not blended into a unified whole. Chaz doesn't get it - that people like me would never be in a narrow-minded caucus that ignores the issues affecting our students' lives. That is what brought me to activism in 1970 -- my students, not some outrage committed against me as a teacher. A prime task for a union is to pay attention to its members but also to make the connections. All the things Chaz writes about are connected to the ed deform assault on the profession and the only way to battle that is through avoiding isolation by addressing the very issues that the deformers have used to attack all of us. Chaz wrote about the impact of the Opt out movement yet voted against Jia because of her SJ "crap". In the 2019 elections he may face the same choice. Maybe he can vote against Jia in advance.

AFTERBURN
I also want to point out that ICE and our group from the 70s did not push SJ into people's faces like some MOREs are want to do -- and I can sympathize with some annoyance. If I could I would get rid of the somewhat arrogant "We are THE social justice caucus" since I believe that Unity does some good SJ work too - I won't get into that now. I could live with we are A social justice caucus. I'm stuck with 5 MORE tee-shirts but I may find a way to white out THE.

I don't care if right wingers will never vote for MORE or Unity -- we saw some very graphic examples in the returns - over 1000 ballots were invalid due to all kinds of things written on the cover without a voting box checked - I guess the frustration of the right.

But I will point out that from hanging out with some leading Unity people during the vote count, MORE and Unity have a lot more SJ commonality with each other than with the right wing of the UFT. 

So here's a message to the right wingers - go make a caucus and see how you do.

AFTERBURN 2
From an email to MORE: Numbers
There is a range because it's the total slate votes plus split tickets -

So to explain  in high schools Each member gets every vote from those that marked off MORE/NA but then one member of our slate got 2292 while another got 2276 because their individual tallies were different, some voters do split ticket- where instead of marking off a slate they voted for individuals.

High schools: MORE-NEW ACTION 2276-2292

UNITY: 2063-2077

Solidarity: 110-121

Middle schools:

Unity: 1649-1655

MORE-NEW ACTION : 882-904

Solidarity: 179-195

Elementary schools:

Unity : 7041-7065

MORE-NEW ACTION : 2306-2333

Solidarity: 222-254

Functionals:

Unity : 7651-7728

MORE -NEW ACTION: 2248-2333

Solidarity : 108 -323.
From James Eterno

On this page are the vote totals from the American Arbitration Association for the officers and vice presidents.
Some of our candidates went way over 10,800 votes with Lauren Cohen leading the way and Greg DeStefano and Camille Eterno right behind. These are the highest opposition totals since 2001 and we won the high schools.

Sorry I don't have slate numbers because unlike in past elections, the AAA didn't give us them.

President
Jia Lee, MORE/NEW ACTION          10,743.073
Michael Mulgrew, Unity                       39,175.623
Francesco Portelos, Solidarity               1,455.958

Secretary
Camille Eterno, MORE/NAC:              10,815.386
Howard Schoor, Unity                            38,851.577
Michael Herman, Solidarity:                   1,466.236

Assistant Secretary
Carol Ramos-Widom, MORE/NAC         10,773.42
Leroy Barr, Unity                                        38,858.577
Christopher Wierzbicki, Solidarity             1,466.446

Treasurer
Kate Martin-Bridge, MORE/NAC             10,762.691
Mel Aaronson, Unity                                   38,991.073
Victor Jordon, Solidarity                              1,387.992

Assistant Treasurer
Gregory Distefano, MORE/NAC                 10,840.012
Thomas Brown, Unity                                    38,906.127
Felix Backer, Solidarity                                 1,368.992

Vice President At Large
Minday Rosier, MORE/NAC                        10,714.317
Evelyn De Jesus, Unity                                   38,964.436
Scott Krivitsky, Solidarity                               1435.755

Vice President Elementary Schools
Lauren Cohen, MORE/NAC                            10,867.943
Karen Alford, Unity                                           38,901.127                                                     
Poonita Beemsigne, Solidarity                           1,333.439

Vice President Intermediate/Middle Schools
Nelson Santiago, MORE/NAC                         10,806.317
Richard Mantell, Unity                                       38,850.058
Nancy Zazulka, Solidarity                                   1,416.271

Vice President Academic High Schools
James Eterno, MORE/NAC                              10,762.351
Janella Hinds, Unity                                           38,866.088
John Silvers, Solidarity                                       1,440.378

Vice President CTE High Schools
Christine Gross, MORE/NAC                            10,748.557
Sterling Roberson, Unity                                     38.824.951
Judeth Napoli, Solidarity                                      1,474.137

Vice President Special Education
Margaret Hobson-Shand, MORE/NAC               10,626.622
Carmen Alvarez, Unity                                         39,119.34
Eric Severson, Solidarity                                         1,391.168

Vice President NON DOE
Anne Goldman, Unity                                              39,646.455

The fractions are there because retiree votes are capped at 24,000 so after that it is pro rated based on 24,000.

Here's Jonathan new action numbers
https://jd2718.org/2016/05/27/uft-elections-2016-some-initial-results/