The State of UFT Elections: Membership Assembly - Who Are These People? Will Dormant UFT Members Arise?

The Membership Assembly is having ripples at my school.  One of our delegates and I were recapping it for people at lunch.  They want to know more. 

John Q. Teacher: I, and the other teachers at my school are confused about this. Are these meetings going to be used to organize a group of people to run in the upcoming election against Unity? "Making our voices heard" is nice and all, but is completely meaningless unless there is an organized group to run in the election. If Unity runs unopposed, they won't give a rats a** about a bunch of folks making demands. 

Anon:  Where are the caucuses? This seems ok but it's kind of worrying that none of the groups that I expect to see are represented here... is this group trying to be a spoiler? are they all gonna work together? what's going on???

Monday, Nov. 4, 2024

Will UFT Dormant Membership Arise?

These comments above were in response to the  Urgent Call to Action: RSVP for the UFT Members October Assembly which had almost 300 registrants and about 150 attending. One chapter leader came up with the lame excuse he had free tickets to the Yankee World Series game. No excuse. He could have zoomed from the Stadium. And they lost anyway.

 

My quick response:

Caucuses have been involved in some way - they have a process for making decisions - this group includes people from the caucuses but are a bit more impatient to get moving and not bogged down in caucus bureaucracy and also want to be more open to new voices and not only rely on the usual suspects. This is not a spoiler group. It only makes sense to run one slate against Unity or not run at all. What if there is no juice out there? Comments on blogs won't do. Needed are real bodies in the schools. Come on down.

I've talked about the state of oppo UFT caucuses in the past:  UFT Resistance Caucuses: We Need Them, But Why Not One Big ten

I've been a critic of the way most UFT caucuses operated even when I was in them, some of which I helped found. I tried to see beyond the often narrow confines of a caucus, with their rules and structures, which often (and still does) drive colleagues crazy. That is why I was most comfortable in the more free-flowing ICE, which I and James Eterno sort of ran (I drove him crazy too). But let's face it, there can be no organized resistance to Unity Caucus without caucuses, so love 'em or leave 'em, we need 'em. In fact in today's UFT world, the more caucuses the merrier. 

So what about the caucuses and the role they would play in a UFT election? I'm sure those caucuses that choose to run (not every caucus seems enthusiastic) will play a role.

Who are these people? Many are the usual suspects though in different configurations.  Sorry, you have to wade through a whole lot of preliminary crap in order to get the full context in follow-up blogs.  I understand the confusion, so let me try to clear a few things up, though there are still things I can't talk about -- you'll have to read the book.

Where Are the caucuses? the 1%

Ask the people you work with to identify UFT Caucuses - even Unity and see what they say. Ten percent might be able to give a cogent response -- actually more like 1%.

 

Let me state right up front. I'm in no way opposed to caucuses being involved in this election. I am opposed to any plan for the 3 self-identified major oppo caucuses meeting behind the curtain for months and deciding on the platform, the candidates and the format of the campaign  - the 6 men (and maybe a few women) in the room, and then sometime in January springing it on UFT members, going into 6 weeks of petitioning mode, then a few months of stuffing mailboxes (with little effect) and in May begging people to vote - which mostly they don't. Oh, the yawn!

In order to avoid caucus bureaucracies why not try something else? Gather a group of interested parties, hopefully with people from the caucuses, and start talking. Which is exactly what has been happening over the past past few months. Informal, ad hoc, open to people through the network. And over the past few weeks, that group has been expanding. And that has led to some of the most invigorating discussions I've seen in the UFT in some time. And I say this with some trepidation: Ex-Unity people have brought a lot to the table in terms of knowledge and analysis. And how little most of them know about the traditional oppo. I think the Unity people thought of oppo as a blob - they didn't distinguish the various components. Boy are they learning fast.

 

So why am I, who followed that model for election after election, now pushing back? One reason is that each caucus has its own procedures for making decisions. So imagine every major decision going back to some steering committee, or if not that, a tiny group of decisions makers at the caucus level and then going back to the election steering group to hash things out. Go watch grass grow.

A tiny group of decision makers (and I admit to being one at times) leaves out the 99% of working UFT members who wake up one day to find a slate - or two - or 3 - running against Unity. I could live with this process if it actually had some success in the past. But as one deeply involved in elections, the turnout  and votes for the oppo proves my point. Look at this chart below and how few in service people voted, especially in the 2022 election when all the 7 or 8 oppo united for the first time to force the first clear opp vs Unity face-off in decades. I went in expecting all these groups to pull people out in their schools and reach deeper into the 99%. 

It didn't happen.

 

No signs of a ground game -- except for James Eterno whose Queens network pulled hundreds of HS votes for UFC.

The results in terms of oppo votes were mostly the same as in 2016 when the oppo was much weaker. Sure UFC gained in % because Unity lost support, support that did not flow to the oppo, which if there was a real ground game, should have.  

 

Look at these numbers and compare to 2004 - other than retirees of course. Some of the discrepancies are due to D. 75 teachers being unfairly lumped into functional instead of their school chapter so they don't get counted for elem, ms and hs. Also the lower ms due to k-8 being elem and 6--12 as hs. Also note that from 2004 to 2022 there are 40k more UFT members while  turnout dropped on all levels.

Let's face it. No matter how many caucuses there are out there, the biggest one is over 70% non-voting DGAC- Don't Give a Crap. Let's take the 30 year RA out of it because we are no longer in the schools. NAC is 30 years old, MORE is 13 years old and has actually shrunk in size over the past 2 years while NAC has grown a bit, some from those leaving MORE.  ICE has become a minor player though we can play a role, as has Solidarity, which is still in business. Is the oppo stronger or weaker today than in 2022? (I will delve into this issue in a follow-up).

 

An election run solely by the caucuses had been a proven failure with "success" being electing the 7 HS Ex Bd out of the 102 members. After attending exec bd meetings after our "big win" in 2022 and seeing the energy drained from the oppo voices, this model has serious flaws unless infused with new people and new energy.

 

Let's win with the retiree vote is a dead end strategy

Now admittedly, things have changed since the June chapter and TRS elections (UFT's 3 Consequential Elections), offering people hope that the entire Unity machine can be defeated. 

 

But there is a fallacy in relying on the retiree vote to carry the day even if the DGAC numbers don't change much. If everything is equal and the retiree vote is the same as in June (not a sure bet), an oppo group might just eke out a win even with a lack of fundamental support in the schools. That thought seems to be driving some of the thinking in the oppo. And our leadership in Unity seems to actually be buying this argument and is running so scared they are actually making a lame attempt to service the members with school visits and love letters from Mulgrew. You might even notice improvements in healthcare --- score one for the oppo.

Let me blow a further hole in that thinking. RA won 63% based on Medicare, which Mulgrew is in a full scare propaganda blitz claiming he agrees. Will it work with most? No. But it might with some Unity people who deserted in the election and won't vote oppo in a general election that would make Unity lose control of the union. Expect some Unity votes to come home.

Also interest in this election by the new voters RA gained - expect some loses there.

And how much support does Marianne lends to this effort and activate her network of UFT retirees, a significant factor in the RA win.

Yes, I think we can win by holding some line in the retiree vote - and don't forget the para vote (though very low turnout usually) IF we get a significant growth in turnout in the HS, MS and Elem schools. And for that we need to REACH into the schools.

A new paradigm is needed to win the 2025 election

Are people out there who want to be involved in the UFT elections other than "just give us your vote"? People who could participate from the earliest days of a campaign? Imagine choosing candidates in an open forum instead of a back room. Sometimes I'm shocked at how little the union leadership AND the oppo leaders mistrust the membership.

If the apathy is the same,  the winning caucus is Don't Give a Crap. And Unity.

So, some people have advocated a different kind of election. Sure the caucuses need to be involved, but we need to get at least a portion of the former unreachable 99% involved in the election process from the very beginning of the campaign. Open up the process and let the sunlight in. 

A campaign based on individuals - most of them from the caucuses of course - and inclusive of those who are in or recently left Unity plus ICE, Solidarity and independents. 

 

A melting pot that would be inclusive, not exclusive of a broader based UFT membership than we've seen before. Of course the conundrum here is what if we issue a call and no one answers? The DGAC caucus wins again. 

There is actually such a group of people in a nascent stage of organizing who have been meeting and were behind the survey and the membership meeting. And so have the caucuses with communication between them.

Coming next: How we got here and where we may be going. And avoiding a horror show.

 

I'm glad Halloween is over.

-------------

You can still fill out the survey:

Prep for UFT Elections - Fill out a Survey for UFT Members - What Are Your Concerns?

Mulgrew Slammed as Delegates React to His Angry Rants - Delegate Assembly (Oct. 13) Report #1 - Updated

Mulgrew sounded like “my angry drunk father”  --- Newly elected Delegate at first DA who also posted-

The woman who stormed out is my chapter leader. She's the real deal.... Tweet

Is there potential of holding a people's DA downstairs outside the meeting -- why go in and be abused?

Friday, Oct. 15, 2021 - 9AM

I will have a lot to say about what happened Wednesday with the joint action of Retirees protesting outside and working members from all active groups in the UFT working the inside -- I have lots of background info and reports are still coming in, including the whining from Unity Caucus about how people are politicizing issues -- HELLO! James and Arthur have detailed reports:

NYC Educator -- On Persuasion, Lack Thereof, and UFT Endorsing a Bought-and-paid-for Charter Shill - Last night's DA was remarkable on multiple levels. There was talk about NYCH, a bill that would provide health care for all New Yorkers. 

 

ICEUFT Blog

LIVE BLOGGING FROM OCTOBER DA (unedited, updated with News 12 report); SOME DELEGATES CHANT "HANDS OFF OUR HEALTHCARE" AND WALK OUT AFTER MULGREW ONLY ALLOWS MEMBERS OF HIS UNITY CAUCUS TO MAKE MOTIONS WHILE IGNORING NON UNITY DELEGATES -

Here is an array of first impressions, many from newcomers to the DA.

The first delegate assembly of the 2021-22 school year displayed the full disarray, disorganized, and unhinged leadership of the union. 

Since the start of the pandemic we have had a union that is far removed from its members. Yesterday we saw a leadership that is now in open contempt of its own members. 

The president of our union, paid by our union dues, actually yelled at his own members, working classroom teachers, elected by their chapters. 

Our union leadership refuses to address changes in retiree healthcare which reduced coverage which is bound to happen to active members in the upcoming contract.UFT leadership endorsed a Mayoral candidate they previously opposed, they were forced to call on executive board members who are no longer in the classroom and retirees that last taught in the 1980’s. 

Mulgrew sounded like “my angry drunk father."

A resolution was passed calling for woman leadership of our city council “but we have all men running the largest union of women in the city”  -- Chapter leader and long time teacher

Mulgrew’s report was like the worst PD I ever had to sit through”  -- New chapter leader

Mulgrew and his Unity caucus are more disconnected than ever before. They haven’t been in the classroom since the pandemic, they have no clue about anything teachers or paras deal with daily and it shows when he talks... Veteran chapter leader

Every single health care speaker was chastised, interrupted, and deemed out of order. As a new delegate it appears I'll need clarification on when we're allowed to talk about health care, because this happened during multiple parts of the agenda... New delegate  

There's a lot more to come regarding the walkout, the joint action of so many, some of the speeches made outside, Mulgrew's increasing isolation and deterioration, scared Unity people who fear he may be blowing it for them as the opposition shows signs of uniting for next year's elections, the potential of holding a people's DA outside the meeting -- I mean why go in and be abused?

 

Delegate AssemblyGate: UFT Leaders blink, opposition organizes for Oct. 13 DA over medicare and health and safety issues

EdNotes - BREAKING - 3:15PM, Oct. 7 --  Notice to Attend DA Sent out during school day as UFT Leadership Packs Upcoming Delegate Assembly with Unity Caucus Members  ---  IMAGINE -- Actual working chapter leaders and delegates were sent a notice - purposefully when they were in the classroom, thus giving the vast Unity Caucus network, many not in classrooms an advantage in registering - and all seats were filled almost immediately -- thus shutting out the many newly elected (spring 2021) chapter leaders and delegates --- one of the stories was that MORE elected 100 of them and few of them will be able to get into the DA next Wednesday -- but we (Retiree Advocate) will be outside and will urge every ch and del shut out to join us outside shouting -- let us in....  - UFT Closes Doors to DA -- UFT Update: Ant...

Coming Wednesday (Oct. 13), ICE-UFT will be joining with multiple other opposition groups for a Healthcare-Health and Safety rally at the UFT's first Delegate Assembly of this school year. Delegates, Chapter Leaders, rank and file active UFTers, retirees and others will all be there. I have never seen this kind of excited pulling together among opposition groups in the UFT.... James Eterno at ICEUFT blog

Monday, October 11, 2021 - Good morning - happy day off (I barely noticed).

It's in the DNA of the UFT leadership over 60 years of Unity Caucus existence to hold on to power at all costs. This didn't play well with some.

How is this at all reasonable? A teachers union that locks teachers out of its meetings because they're...teaching? Space is certainly an issue, but if there are caps on attendees who want to be there, then this is de facto suppression of full delegate participation. ... A delegate

Chapter leaders and delegates are elected to FULLY REPRESENT their respective chapters endowed with FULL POWER TO LEGISLATE. This is yet another example of seeking to make the DA a rubber stamp for a @UFT leadership that doesn’t consult the rank and file. We must be & do better..... Delegate

Over decades, that has been the major thing they have been good at -- managing the membership. When it comes to the DOE or big progressive ideas or aligning with progressive politicians, the UFT leadership has been mush -- think Schumer compared to Mitch -- they have the same mentality -- it's not in their DNA to fight back, other than to fight back against dissident members of the UFT. That's where they show some level of militancy.

At some point, that single-minded focus on control, especially a leadership totally out of touch with the members, begins to fail. The attempt to pack the upcoming DA with Unity Caucus members while retirees rally outside over the Medicare issue (Rallies, Lawsuit Updates - Retirees go to court ), joined by newly united opposition protesting the way the leadership has handled safety in the schools, may seem like a minor failure, but it is indicative of an increasingly isolated leadership, even within the confines of Unity Caucus and middle management at the district rep level. 

Last Wednesday night Oct. 6), a joint zoom event was held where parents and teachers told their stories. Zoom -- ICEUFT, Educators of NYC (EONYC): Educators Speak Out on Unsafe Schools -

Of even greater concern to the UFT leadership was this posting by Daniel Alicea, of Educators of NYC, promoting the rally outside the Oct. 13 DA:

Note the logos at the bottom -- just about every group involved in the UFT other than Unity is listed -- possibly with more to come -- and of course independent non-affiliated who are always heavily recruited by Unity, especially the newly elected chapter leaders, of which there are many, might be tempted. That MORE can claim 100 CL and Del is significant.

Plus the delegates and Ch Ldrs connected to the other groups would be the first real threat to Unity control of the DA since the early 60s. Making sure to keep as many activists out of the in-person DA is right in the wheel alley of the UFT/Unity leadership.

If these groups can actually deliver getting their people to show up that would put icing on the cake and present a real long-time threat to Unity control of the DA -- just imagine if they have to drag out all their people every month -- why they'd have to offer them a post-DA dinner as a bribe.

Was it a glitch?

I was told after posting the breaking story of an attempt to pack the DA (rivaling FDR's attempt to pack the court) by someone with inside info that I was wrong - it was just a glitch and reversed a few hours later. 

I maintain it wasn't a glitch (I had info that for the Sept 22 CL meeting, some Unity people were sort of told to make sure to be there in person) but intentional.

By 5PM, the meeting that was supposed to be socially distanced - the excuse to limit in person attendance -- had been opened up. 

The reversal to open up the space inside the DA was incited by the outrage of chapter leaders and delegates calling and tweeting at union officials. By 5PM the so-called artificial "safety distance rules" set up for the DA - and for the Sept. 22 chapter leader meeting -- where Retiree Advocate/UFT Caucus people were also outside in force.

Let's follow the bouncing ball.

Since the registration [for Oct. 13 Delegate ASSEMBLY] email was sent during the work day, I opened it and registered less than 15 minutes after dismissing my kids. Virtual available only. No other option. Locked out of the full democratic process. Thanks for such a warm welcome to the DA, @UFT! ....Classroom teacher, newly elected delegate

The UFT executive board recently voted to allow a hybrid delegate assembly. While I support giving this option to members, I received an email to register for the DA at about 1:50. When I tried to register in person it said it’s at capacity… Classroom teacher, chapter leader

Response of Brian Gibbons, UFT social media head:

From reports, Brian Gibbons has not been a classroom teacher.

I do find it ironic that the UFT leadership seems fine with sending its members into crowded non-socially distance schools while using the safety issue to restrict attendance and limit democracy at union events. For instance, all Ex Bd meetings are supposed to be open to all members but right now you must be vaxed to attend (interesting that the unvaxed members the UFT is supporting in court would not be allowed in). All retiree meetings this year will be remote - there is one Oct. 13 from 1-3PM -- interesting how that meeting was moved from the usual Tuesday to just before the DA which starts at 4 -- the leadership knew we were planning to rally.

I'm proud of the work Retiree Advocate/UFT has done over the past year -- we are a group of people from various caucuses and have worked very well together - a model of sorts. I wrote this in April, 2021 -- The United Front: Retiree Advocate/UFT brings friends and former opponents together for Retiree Chapter election.

In some ways the actual issues pale compared to the fact that all groups are talking to each other at various levels - privately and in more official ways from what I hear. Working together for the Oct. 13 DA -- the first DA for many who had been elected last spring --- might turn into actually bringing a long-time dream of mine to fruition -- a united slate in this spring's UFT elections. 

Wishful thinking? I'm torn because I don't look forward to getting involved in another UFT election but if wishes come through I will be there.

UFT Elections: Boycott?- Why Run at all if Unity stacks the deck? - The Sunday Special

You know that bogus Einstein quote about the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different outcomes.

One thing never tried it a total boycott of UFT elections.

Sunday, Sept. 12 -- I keep asking myself this question every single election cycle. What's the point of running if you are bound to lose? Over 30 years the best the opposition could do was once win 13 Ex Bd seats (1991) and win the 7 high school seats most of the rest of the time. History counts -- the vote totals on all the elections are pretty consistent. 

Why is this year different/ (I know, it's Yom Kippur coming up, not Passover.) 

Well, there is the always eternal hope that there will be a head to head confrontation between a united opposition and Unity -- which we had (sort of) in 2016. Then there is the unpopularity of Mulgrew. Then there is the mishandling of the pandemic by the UFT on so many fronts. Then there is the union's turning off so many retirees, the lifeblood of Unity, by taking away their medicare. Then there was the OT/PT functional chapter revolt where MORE swept the chapter leader and delegate positions, a sigificant event. Then there is word from other functional chapters. Then there were the school chapter elections last year where anti-Unity voices made some headway. Then there is Educators of NYC run by Daniel Alicea who actually voted for Unity in 2019 but has become a strong critical independent voice. I bet there are a bunch of people out there like Daniel.

Then there is  ...... PLEASE STOP TRYING TO CONVINCE MYSELF TO PUT ANY TIME OR EFFORT INTO ANOTHER UFT ELECTION.

There is the history of elections where no matter how I get my hopes up the outcome is pretty much the same.

I was deeply involved in UFT elections in 2004, 07, 10 (ICE), 13, 16 (MORE). I was out of the 2019 elections as I was in the process of being purged from MORE for publicly disagreeing with the faction in control of MORE that engineered the decision not only to not run with other groups but to purposely run in a way to not contend for any winnable positions - A minimalist campaign for what purpose I still can't figure out. Ed Notes covered the contradiction in their position in March, 2019.

My final words to the MOREs was to either run with everyone in a serious manner to maximize the anti-Unity vote with the aim of winning the high schools and taking a serious shot at the middle schools or not run at all but use the election (which occupies a great deal of time) time saved as an organizing tool for the caucus. I told the MOREs that an election is like a high stakes test for a caucus. At the very least it must hold its own in vote totals but most people other than hard core organizers (like I was) get discouraged if these numbers don't grow. I can't tell you how many people I saw pass through the groups I was in over these 50 years.

I have been urging boycotts of UFT elections in every election since 2010 to emphasize the undemocratic nature of the UFT itself where winning an election is almost impossible. Why run of the outcome is pre-decided? John Lawhead from ICE and now Solidarity Caucus came up with the idea of uncaucusing for the elections and focusing on issues of concern to the members without engaging in the cumbersome and often distracting election process. Behind my idea was to leave the membership with no options on the ballot other than Unity as a wake-up call. I know that prospect actually scares the Unity people because it exposes them. If there were no opposition running Unity would make one up.

I was overruled every time and ended up throwing myself deep into the elections. I ran the petitioning campaigns for MORE in 2013, 2016 along with Ellen Fox. The MORE decision in 2019 relieved me of all that work and sitting out the election was a relief.

Now we are upon yet another UFT election cycle for 2022 and we are in the same position  - will the opposition come together this time with a united front challenge to Unity? So far most of the various caucus and uncaucus groups have spoken as Retiree Advocate, ICE, Solidarity, New Action, Educators of NYC - and even this lonely spot - Ed Notes - have endorsed that idea with rumors that MORE was taking a membership vote that ended Friday on a positive note.

The hard part would be to put everyone together in a room and lock the doors. The best thing about this election is that I will be outside that room blocking the exits.

Previous Ed Notes

Everything you wanted to know about UFT Elections ...

Annals of the UFT - On Democracy in the Current and Past UFT Delegate Assembly - Norm Scott

More than 2,000 elected school reps joined the January meeting by phone, a 40-percent increase over participation last spring that undoubtedly reflects a craving for information in circumstances that remain so fluid. However, the UFT delegate assembly was meant to be more than an information session. .... --- Solidarity Caucus Letter of complaint in letter to The Chief, posted on ICE Blog:

--------SOLIDARITY LETTER ON UFT LACK OF DEMOCRACY PRINTED IN CHIEF

March 31, 2021 -- 

My next to last pre-pandemic day in the city before heading back to Rockaway was March 11, 2020 when I attended the last in person UFT Delegate Assembly. Outside the meeting a chapter leader of one of the largest schools in the city told me his school had more cases than the DOE or UFT was admitting to and his complaints to the union were landing on deaf ears and he was thinking of going to the press. (I think he did and those articles put pressure on the DOE and UFT). Earlier that day my wife and I had attended almost empty classes for retirees at 52 Broadway that were cancelled for the rest of the year, it was clear things were going bad. The night before, March 10, we went to a crowded Broadway play - Broadway shut down 3 days later. Schools were shut shortly after though teachers were required to come in the next week without children for "training." Over 70 ended up dying. And the Delegate Assembly has only met remotely since then.

OK, that's some background but the intention here is to open a discussion on democracy at the UFT Delegate Assembly, currently and in the near and distant past. John Lawhead, one of the authors of the Solidarity letter, has been running a UFT history study group which has been fascinating and I've gotten a good handle on how a very democratic institution was turned into what it is today. Look for follow-up posts.

What is the Delegate Assembly?

It consists of the elected chapter leaders and delegates from the schools and functional chapters, where there is a 60-1 ratio, meaning a school with 300 UFT non-functional/classroom chapter members, gets 5 delegates. Large functional chapters get a load, like retirees with 70,000 members, get 300 members of the DA. 

 

Retiree Advocate running a slate vs Unity in chapter election

I'm working with Retiree Advocate to run a slate against Unity in the upcoming chapter election - if you are a retiree and want to run let me know - we won't win and Unity will claim winner take all despite us getting around 20% of the vote - which in a democratic institution would give us 60 delegates - we actually asked Unity for a measly 5 seats to at least represent that 20% and they said NO.

How many delegates?

Do the math and you can see there are probably over 4000 people who can attend a DA but in person the room only holds a max of 850, with a few breakout rooms.

But the reality is that there are often less than 600 in person - for from a quorum which makes meetings technically illegal, but who's counting? And Unity caucus people naturally dominate the crowd, especially when you add in retirees even if only 100 attend.

A key feature of the DAs, especially since Randi Weingarten took over have been long filibuster president reports that often take up to an hour and eat up time.

So by its very nature, DAs are undemocratic in practice. The pandemic has changed things and the union has had to adapt. 

The current situation is that many more people are attending the DA - I think I saw some 2000 at the January DA. Imagine zoom meetings with thousands and electronic voting which they have no way of controlling.

How do you do democracy in that environment? Most importantly, the number of eyes on the DA is itself more democratic and that has made the union leadership very nervous, even though they can easily shut people they don't want to hear from out. But I think the transparency is a bigger threat to them and I bet they are dying to get back to normal smaller DAs. But they have figured out a way to restrict democracy even further.

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:

UFT Election 2019 - Functional Chapters Based on Halabi Data

Functional chapters (non-teaching) are the mystery ship of the UFT - we address the fundamentals. There are about 40,000 working functionals - non-classroom plus 60,000 retirees and they are lumped together when they vote in UFT elections and get 19 Ex Bd seats. Thanks to Jonathan Halabi's efforts, we are getting some of the data from the UFT elections with his comparisons to previous elections. In this piece he provides info on the often mysterious functional chapter(s).

Actual teachers in the three divisions total over 70,000 so even if a strategy of winning the three teacher ex bd divisions (total- 23 seats) where retirees don't vote was successful, the UFT would still be under Unity control, but seriously threatened if the opposition could gain control of the functionals. Below I delve into why that would be so difficult. Even if the opposition were to win these 19 and add them to the 23 teaching seats the 42 seats would still fall short since there are 48 Ex Bd at-large seats where retirees vote. And in fact retirees vote and run for the functional ex bd seats too so that is how the election is rigged.

9000 non-retiree functional voted in this election out of the 40,000. Unity got 7200, a drop of around 400 from 2016 - maybe due to the OT/PT people. MORE received 824 and New Action 212 while together in 2016 they got 2200. So they lost 50% of the previous vote together but MORE even got less than they did in 2013, which is remarkable since they opportunistically focused their attention on the OT/PT chapter and ran one of the big voices in opposition to the contract as an officer. Let's assume a batch of their 824 came from that chapter.

The surprise was the showing of Solidarity (referring to them as Portelos' clique by Jonathan is disrespectful to the people involved) which got 917 votes, following their trend of tripling their 2016 votes across the board. I assume some of the unhappy OT/PT people went for them too. And secretaries are not happy either. Paras seemed to get some improvements in their contract and I would assume they went big for Unity.

I hear over 21000 retirees voted. (Some MORE supporters are whining about a phony issue where some retirees cut off the ballot in the middle and sent it in - we are addled, you know. And to count those the machines had to be reset. It seems that somehow counting these caused some to start charging it was fraud -- sure.)

In previous posts Jonathan covered the other divisions of the union and also did an overall summation (which we have yet to publish). I've been trying to break down the data with some analysis. Why? Because the past counts no matter how much people want to deny it and the patter in UFT elections is consistent. Yet we will see once again in 2022 caucuses claiming we need to vote in new leadership in the UFT. My goal is to get people to stop wasting everyone's time and energy unless you have built a massive and united opposition going head to head with Unity. That won't happen as long as caucuses see their priority as building their own narrow caucus instead of an opposition united on some basic principles. Let me know when that happens.

Here are my previous reports in reverse order of publishing with links to Jonathan's posts.

• UFT 2019 Election Report - MORE Follies, Middle an...
• UFT Election Results: Halabi Posts High School Tot...
• UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE t...
• UFT Election Report: What I learned - Don't Eat th...

Also read Arthur's take: MORE Plans to Fail, Fails to Plan to Fail Sufficiently, and Comes in Second Among Working Teachers

About the functional chapters: 
There were 13 colored ballots during the contract vote for the functionals. The biggest one is the para chapter with I am told 19,000 members. Secretaries were usually over 3000. Guidance counselors and social workers and OT/PT and school nurses and hospital nurses. Others are much smaller.

Each chapter elects its own chapter leader and delegates and an ex bd to run the chapter and Unity makes sure to control this process and make sure the chapters remain loyal and don't go off the reservation. They have been pretty successful in this -- I was in a functional in my last few years in the system - the teacher assigned chapter -- I worked for the district - and I believe Randi opened up a delegate position for me since I was not in critical mode at the time --- I was sort of told that they wanted to be pushed - a little -- but when my pushing went over a line they were not happy.

Functionals help Unity control elections and the delegate assembly
Retirees are a functional and there are 63,000 retirees with 300 delegates to the DA - and add all the other chapter delegates -- like paras etc -- all pretty much under Unity control - so the functional chapters when added to the Unity chapter leaders and delegates in the schools give Unity control over the DA too.

Retirees don't vote for contracts but do vote in UFT elections. But their vote is broken out separately because there is a cap on retiree votes - I think 21,000  - which means if more than 21,000 vote - as I think happened this time -- each vote becomes a fraction. Like this time maybe .95 or something.

The little trick Unity plays with the 19 functional ex bd seats is to lump them together instead of allowing each functional to elect its own member(s) to the Ex Bd. One reform of the UFT Ex Bd to open it up would be stop lumping them. And to manage the retiree issue I would give retirees a bunch of seats on the Ex Bd since they are such a big chapter -- say 5. But I would also cut down on the 300 Unity delegates they get in the DA. And I would also give retirees a seat on the ad com. But they would not vote for the rest of the adcom or at large ex bd. In fact, I would fundamentally eliminate the at-large seats or maybe reserve 10.

Well, I hope you understand more about the UFT functionals. If my plan to win the 23 ex bd teacher seats ever came about, an opposition would have make some inroads into some of the functionals. Ironically, the only chapter with even a semblance of an opposition is the retiree chapter where the Retiree Advocate operates with New Action and some of the former MOREs who are also still involved. We run in the chapter elections and put out a newsletter but of course getting retirees to go against Unity is a useless operation because who are the happiest people in the UFT?

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: 

NYC Educator

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:

• UFT Election Results: Halabi Posts High School Tot...
• UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE t...
• UFT Election Report: What I learned - Don't Eat th...

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.

UFT Election Results: Unity the BIG Winner, MORE the Biggest Loser, Solidarity Stays Alive

Mulgrew, the Unity Caucus candidate, received 38,591 votes, or 86.2 percent of the votes cast while Solidarity Caucus candidate Lydia Howrilka received 3,604 votes (8 percent) and Dermot Myrie the candidate of the MORE caucus, got 2,540 votes (5.6 percent).... All 102 seats on the union's Executive Board were won by the Unity caucus........UFT Web site 

My spin - a massive win for Unity and a massive loss for the

opposition even though Solidarity can claim the mantle of the only caucus that shows signs of growth.

Unity won by the biggest margin in years as the folly of 3 opposition caucuses was revealed. The total of Solidarity and MORE was roughly 6000 votes (we don't have New Action since they did not run officers). That Lydia finished second was the big surprise and the poor showing of MORE is making me eat a lot of crow with some former MOREs who predicted this disaster -- kudos to John G and Peter Z. John predicted Solidarity would beat MORE and Peter predicted MORE would finish under 4000 votes. Even he was over optimistic.

And for the first time since 1993, Unity won the high schools unassisted - Wait, Wait -- actually they were assisted by having Arthur and Mike join them and bring many former MORE votes with them to Unity.

I know this puts Solidarity in the titular position of the opposition with the most support but it is a hollow "victory." Sadly, it seems that New Action has faded so far and let's blame MORE's refusal to run with them as a reason. Some of us in the opposition might even join New Action to try to keep it alive.

In 2016 election MORE/New Action had almost 10,600 votes and Portelos running for Solidarity had 1400. 6000 (plus whatever New Action gets) combined this time is a drop in half of what the opposition received just 3 years ago. Sad. Remember - I urged people not to bother running because the outcomes mean something to people. So even if you don't want to troll for votes, people take the ability to get votes seriously even if you don't - yes, I'm talking to the faction in control of MORE who pushed this idea on some fairly inexperienced people and they just wasted 5 months of talking about the election. I bet they will have a victory party.

No one - MORE or New Action - wanted to run with Solidarity because they didn't have a big base. I didn't expect much from them and challenged them to prove they had a base of votes. And they did to some extent in that they finished ahead of all the other opposition groups and now can claim a mantle of the opposition with the most support even if it is minuscule. But they worked real hard to get on the ballot and get votes. Give them credit - let's see if they can build on this outcome. (Frankly, ICE got around that many votes in its first run in 2004 and I thought that was pathetic.)

Now Solidarity beating out MORE is a big thing in the tiny world of the opposition inside the UFT and their 3600 votes was in line with my prediction since I expected them to double their totals from last time especially since they had a slate this time. Showing some growth is essential but it was clear they didn't have enough of a base to make much bigger gains. But no matter what people say, the real race was to beat MORE -

and
-
Shockingly they did. I expected MORE to lose thousands of votes - but MORE dropped so drastically and so quickly. Jia Lee who was the presidential candidate and received 10,700 votes in 2016 ran for VP Special Ed this time and received only 2700 votes to Solidarity's Quinn Zanoni's 3600. Jia's vote totals dropped by 8000 votes and it has nothing to do with her but it does in this sense - she backed all the way the MORE moves that have turned it into a boutique caucus.

Think of it - in 3 years MORE lost 8000 votes. Someone do the % drop math -- from 10,600 to 2,600. Is 75% a rough figure or am I way off?

From what I've been hearing a whole bunch of votes for Solidarity came from people who voted for MORE last time. Let's say 1000 - the difference in their totals. But what happened to the other 6000 votes that the opposition got in 2016 - and also remember that 12000 people did vote against the contract. MORE lost them or even didn't try very hard to get them. And don't forget, they must have had some support from inside the OT/PT unit, so imagine their base in terms of classroom teachers is even smaller.

Here is my first impressions of where MORE lost votes:
Solidarity, Unity, and non-voting.

But watch the spin - MORE will declare victory - that they didn't really try and purposely ran not to win and that there are 2600 people out there to organize for their platform -- just like they organized the 10,600 last time.

All the years of building up to 12000 votes and it all went crashing against the rocks of MORE sectarianism.

At the end of the day, the opposition in the UFT is decimated and Unity Caucus is more empowered than ever. Nice work.

The faction in control of MORE ought to write  book - how to destroy a union opposition and empower the ruling power.

Here is the UFT posting.

Michael Mulgrew re-elected UFT president

My UFT Election Choices: Duke Breaks Bracket, Ex-MORES In Play on Unity Slate - Yes, My Choices are Personal

An ecclectic group for sure:
5 for Solidarity, 4 for Unity, 3 for MORE
Howrilka, Portelos, Sill, Manning, Brown, De Jesus, Lupkin, Prosen, Hinds, Severenson, Zannoni, Diaz - Below, the reasons for why I voted for whom and why I didn't vote for whom - if you dare to wade through the muck.

People have been emailing asking me and others - Gloria has had numerous requests too - for voting recommendations - not for March Madness but for the UFT election. Today is the big reveal. Warning -  it's a long a tedious read. (I will make my final election voting outcome predictions before April 17.)

Duke, the Unity Caucus of the NCAA loses - a harbinger?

Unitymustgo: Here’s why I say no to MORE

Voting in the 2019 UFT Elections

I'm postponing publishing my list of people I voted for to publish this.

Unitymustgo! -- Here’s why I say no to MORE. Currently there are several posts/ads from MORE on my Facebook stream. Not one of them speaks of fighting for me. They all speak about social justice issues. That’s all well and good, but I believe the primary purpose of a union is to fight to improve the working conditions and benefits of the people who pay them. Period. Do I care about social issues? Sure I do. Are there tons of social issues that affect our students? Yup there are. They affect many of our members to. Do I believe a teacher’s union should speak up about the social issues that affect members and students? Yes, yes I do. But, and here’s the thing, if you think, I think, the real issue(s) I have with our union is that Unity just doesn’t focus enough on social issues, well then you are really woefully out of touch with your fellow members. Perhaps, even more so than Unity. Not to go off on a tangent, but I actually think Unity isn’t so much out of touch with the real daily, grinding, piercing travesties members have to deal with. I think they have made a conscious calculated decision not to do much about any of it. MORE’s messaging makes me think MORE doesn’t get the simple idea, that members who don’t vote aren’t not voting because they are just so frustrated that the UFT just isn’t doing enough about social justice issues. Nor, does MORE seem to get the even bigger and even simpler idea that those members who are out there actually seeking alternative leadership are most definitely not doing so because of social justice issues. HEAR ME Unity. HEAR ME MORE, HEAR me anybody that wants my support. I want my union to focus on me. Period. There is plenty to do to improve the working conditions and benefits of our members. Can someone? Anyone? Just do that. ....comment on "UFT Election Update: I Vote Thrice": 

There's one point about MORE and the reason you don't see the kind of angst from them about the way teachers are treated in schools. Most of them have found "safe" schools and they bring other MOREs in so we have a few clusters of people working in some of the better schools in the city - which allows them the luxury to focus on social justice instead of the fight for daily survival.

Yesterday I published another comment from Unity Must Go, a longtime anti-Unity chapter leader who has supported the opposition for a decade - he seemed somewhat reluctantly to decide to vote for Solidarity:  UFT Elections: Solidarity Picking up Defections from MORE

The problem with Solidarity is that its main boast is a web site, not a presence in the schools. Now if people like Unitymustgo who is a CL with his own constituency goes beyond voting for Solidarity, they might yet become a real caucus with real people doing real things.

Fighting Unity requires being in the schools --  as you can see from the ballot they have 750-800 running -- while many are retirees and staffers for the UFT, many are also chapter leaders and delegates and have constituencies in their schools. The total of 3 caucuses is less than 150.

Is there a life for the opposition after this election? Let's see how many people see things the way Unitymustgo does. I heard a rough straw poll in what has been a strong opposition and pro-MORE school until now where there were a number of people who had voted for MORE now voting for Unity, and not one vote for Solidarity with one vote for New Action.

While UnityMustGo resisted in 2013, he decided to run with MORE in 2016.

When I met with him in his school and we went for lunch during the last election he mentioned that in his district CL meetings everyone seemed to be Unity or Unity supporters. I pointed to a chapter leader in his district who had always been an ICE supporter and ran with ICE - he hadn't realized that. I've always maintained that anti-Unity CLs should use the monthly CL meetings as an organizing tool. But that hasn't happened, even among the so-called militants.

In my mind, he is a prototypical rank and filer any opposition would want to organize as a backbone of challenging Unity in the schools. But - and this is not an accident - MORE doesn't want people like him precisely because of what he said in his comment -- he wants a union to fight for HIM, not social justice. And MORE doesn't want these type of people.

I don't quite agree with him since I feel there needs to be a balance of SJ and teacher rights.

That was the essence of the internal struggle in MORE from day 1 when it was organized -- I felt we - mostly the ICE people - we were SJ people too - and some allies - kept some balance between SJ and bread and butter --  but ultimately we lost the internal battle.

And we lost because an non-elected faction of MORE vigilantes decided to take drastic action against what they viewed as the opposition to their plan to morph more away from a broad tent - the ICE core. I still think there are a number of MORE supporters who have no idea what really occurred. But they seem perfectly happy to not have the rancor internally even at the expense of democracy -- an analogy to what we see generally in politics.

--- but Unity Must GO is right about the MORE messaging. It is purposely designed to not attract him or the mainstream of the UFT but a particular slice of young social justice oriented teachers - it's a dog whistle and the entire election for MORE in not running to win anything in a limited campaign was to have the opportunity to put out those dog whistles in the hope of attracting the left in the UFT. And they have been successful to a limited extent with new people who are fundamentally clueless about the UFT - some still call me for info.

A key event for MORE is the monthly happy hours with teachers from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) before the MORE meetings -- this has become the main organizing tool of MORE.

So for those who think MORE may be going away, don't bet on it -- there will always be a left in the UFT who will go along with the program put out by MORE. Expect them to operate the same way in the 2022 UFT elections. The problem with the MORE plan is that it actually makes Unity stronger and gives them even less influence - but they don't worry about that -- MORE is about recruitment, not influencing real change.

I wouldn't be shocked to see the exact same scenario played out in 2022. Which is why I advocate throwing in the towel in terms of a formal opposition to Unity - just don't run in elections. And why I support Arthur, Mike and Mindy for running with Unity where they are at least free to advocate - in a limited manner --- but given the alternative what else is there to do? My problem with them is voting the straight Unity slate, endorsing a caucus that has made Unity Must Go so disgusted - and a betrayal of loyal supporters of our blogs like him. At best it is insensitive politically.

I may organize a post-election forum which I will call: What is to be done? (ref, intentional).

UFT Election Update: I Vote Thrice

Hi Norm - I just got my UFT ballot in the mail. I've never received one, and today was perfect timing, because I had it out with someone in the UFT office. They have not responded to my email sent in October, despite me following up every month or so. I may need to start advising young teachers to save their dues for getting their own personal champion rather than have faith in the UFT's ability to even respond to an email within 6 months....
What do you recommend I do with the ballot? Did you have a falling out with MORE?

People have been asking me for UFT voting advice. I am flummoxed. This is where the long-term dangers lie for the UFT - arrogance and ignoring the pleas of people under assault. And I certainly won't tell anyone to vote for MORE. But.....

My teacher friends and neighbors are in California for 6 months and I am taking care of their house and mail. I asked what to do with their ballots -- we forward all their mail - and they told me to decide who to vote for since they usually ask me who to vote for anyway.

This time things are a bit more complicated since there is no slate I would recommend.  However, it does give me a chance to have one of my friends vote for New Action and the other for Solidarity while I in essence toss away my ballot and vote for individual candidates from all 4 slates - Unity too.

Why am I throwing away my ballot? The individual votes are counted -- they have to tear the booklets apart and feed them through the machine and this process delays the count by hours. But they only give us the slate vote totals and that is what gets reported. So those individual votes, which are usually around a couple of hundred people, don't count for much. But this time I have to do it on my ballot.

So, I'm going through the pages of the ballot and voting for people from all caucuses that I like or respect or know. It is tedious work. We have to pick out 48 names from the at-large Ex Bd candidates. Then 750 at most from the AFT/NYSUT convention list - which is easy to do since Unity has 750 running and MORE, Solidarity, New Action COMBINED have less than 150 -- that is why even a combined opposition can't come close to Unity. (The only time I can remember matching them in numbers was around 1980, but I hear from Ellen Fox they did match a few times -- but certainly not close since I became involved in elections again in 2004.)

Well, anyhow -- I will do a follow-up with a list of some of the candidates I voted for and why. I did manage to find a few MOREs that I still like and respect to vote for plus every New Action candidate even if I didn't know them. Plus every Solidarity candidate I know - minus a few that I have had some bad blood with in the past.

Whither/Wither The Opposition -- Past, Present and Future Tense - Part 1

Whither: to what place or state. --- old Eng.
Wither: become dry and shriveled.

What will be the state of the opposition in the UFT at the end of this election cycle in April? One of my multiple New Years resolutions is to tell the story of the on-going history of the opposition inside the UFT over the 5 decades of my own involvement. Given I am sitting out the UFT elections, I have plenty of time on my hands. The problem is, where to start?

We are a few days away from the official opening of another UFT election period and all three caucuses running on their own against Unity have been issuing calls for people to run with them and to get ready for the petition campaign which begins at the Jan. 16 Delegate Assembly. In normal times, I would be spending all my time getting ready for a 5 week long petition campaign.


For me, what a relief to be an observer and reporter in the upcoming UFT elections after having been intensely involved in five elections since the 2004 campaign.

But these are not normal times. I saw Ellen Fox the other day at the UFT Ex Bd meeting and she said for her this was the first time in 40 years she will not be involved in an election.
 
Are there so many fractures, will there be no hope for the future growth of the opposition to become an effective force to counter the 60 year old Unity Caucus machine?

It's very disappointing so see what has happened over the past 5 years after the promise of MORE when it began in 2011-12 with the support of almost all the leading voices in the opposition to Unity over the years. New Action was still aligned with Unity but over time I expected that that aging caucus would eventually join with MORE in coalition (it did in 2016) and hopefully merge. A disappointment was the defection of Portelos in 2014 when he formed his own caucus -- there were reasons he will argue. I would argue if he has remained in MORE and brought his supporters in, it would have strengthened the hands of the faction in MORE that was eventually pushed out -- the ICEUFT people. We would have had a stronger opposition to push back against the faction that gained total control of MORE with an boutique agenda aimed at a small segment of the UFT rather than the broader rank and file. That's boiling down the essential disagreements that took place in MORE over the years.


With the Los Angeles teachers in the UTLA about to strike Monday (changed from today - an unfortunate snafu due to a UTLA miscalculation) under the leadership of a progressive, left-leaning social justice caucus and with Chicago TU in the hands of a similar caucus - two of the three largest cities --- proof that such social justice like groups can succeed in winning and maintaining power -- here in NYC we find ourselves in possibly the worst situation we have faced since the New Action defection to Unity in 2003.

There is no clearer difference in the opposition in the 3 cities than to look at union elections. The NYC version of the progressive caucus - MORE - doesn't want to win anything in the election while citing the work of the groups running LA and Chi -- but never seeming to realize that those groups actually did run to win - and they did win. Which is why they can talk about striking.

If MORE had real power school level power through influence in many schools so as to raise its issues with a broad rank and file then a discussion of strike feasibility can be opened. For MORE, which weakened itself to a point where it has less influence than it has had in 5 years, to talk about strikes here in NYC, is sort of ludicrous. Instead the MORE campaigns to get the union leadership it so vilifies to do take up the MORE campaign. In Chicago and LA the caucuses themselves had enough widespread support as to take on bigger issues without relying on the union leadership. Here MORE tries to be a lobby caucus.

A fractured opposition

Now we know we can't win the whole ball of wax here but we could chip away at Unity power in the schools which is where the battle will take place. An election campaign could help build power through gathering of votes. The ballot box does count. MORE/NA getting almost 11,000 votes last time was the largest total in a long time and an opportunity. An opportunity lost.

There are consequences for this gap between the 3 big cities. Chicago and LA, have pushed back against the ed deform movement, while here in NYC we have seen the UFT be complicit with so much of ed deform, from testing to charters to teachers being held accountable based on test scores. And of course the willingness to stand by as abusive principals chop up our members. Our own union has partnered with the ed deformers all along the way. And as far as I am concerned, MORE itself has dropped the ball in many areas of push back against deformers. That there is no caucus strong enough to become a bulwark leaves us in a precarious position.

It is a sad situation where each of the three caucuses will be running their own independent campaigns with the clear outcome that none of them can win anything on their own.

In what place or state will we find the caucuses post election? Whither or just plain withered?

I see little point in running in an election where the 3 groups end up competing as much as with each other than Unity for votes and candidates and support. There is a lot of blame to go around but let's not get into those weeds at this time.

What a waste of time and energy. I urged MORE to either unite with everyone or don't run and use the opportunity to engage in their campaign outside the election process.

The leadership of MORE, which includes a bunch of people who used to run Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC), a caucus that had shrunk significantly and merged into MORE, opposed me. They argued we would miss a chance to get 2 pages in the NY Teacher - which I had pointed out are barely read by anyone. And they also said they would gain access to all the schools by running -- I pointed out they could gain access to all the schools, even by not running.

When the vote was taken, we could see a lot of doubt about running coming from the newer, younger and untenured people in MORE, which seemed to surprise the old TJC crowd. So they scaled back -- you don't have to run around the city putting stuff in the mail boxes - the very opposite of the argument they used against my position for not running.

Then came the news that even 2 people can get pages in the NY Teacher if they run -- countering their other argument for running a slate.

The only way forward post-election is some kind of united front - a big tent opposition, even if the purists have to retreat somewhat. The Unity machine is the problem and why NYC is different from Chicago and LA. I looked back to the past.

The United Front of the 80s and 90s
In recent posts I've been exploring the historical record as recorded by me over the past 22 years in Ed Notes, but especially the early hard copy publications from 1997-2005. I am reminding myself of all the issues we faced back then, with a lot to echo today's issues.
These had wider distribution I believe than the Ed Notes blog -- the Del Ass and into the schools directly in the latter years of 2002-5 after I retired.

After the 2001 election, which despite New Action winning the high school seats, showed them declining, I tried to play the role of peacemaker between all the groups (NAC, PAC, TJC) and independents by calling for meetings to form a coalition for the next election in 2004. That effort fell apart very quickly and I saw first hand the level of hostility and infighting that existed - to the extent that I, for the first time began to think that a new caucus was necessary to take on issues being ignored and thus was born ICE a few years later. The 2004 election had 3 opposition groups running, the only time other than the present.

I was reminded of the impact the mass campaigns against Unity by all elements of the opposition had in the 80s and 90s when a coalition of groups and individuals under the New Action Coalition (NAC) began to come together in the late 70-early 80s and found a united front was able to recruit a full slate of 800 people to run. And they began to chip a way at Unity power for the first time.

Now we are back to the beginning where we stood in the mid-70s.  The only way forward is for people to get some sense after the election and sit down and find a way to move toward a united front.

I made a chart with the historical links between caucuses over the decades. One day I would like to see them all culminate into one box.




Here are links to recent Ed Notes posts on this topic:

• UFT Caucus Roundup: Rallies Galore - Ed Notes, Dec...
• Breaking UFT Election News: A Gaggle of Caucuses ...
• UFT ELECTIONS ARE COMING! - 2001 edition --- If an... 
• UFT Elections: The Caucus of Goldstein and Schirtz...