No Cookies for Ballots...

...as Unity wants live voting, but only in their offices and gala events.

It’s tough to foster member involvement, as any chapter leader can attest. At Francis Lewis High School, I always thought we needed to participate as much as possible. We’re a big school, the largest in Queens. Our voice needs to be heard. It was my job to do everything in my power to make that happen.

Once, we had a very effective way to do just that. Our secret was chocolate chip cookies. One of our librarians, John Pagano, co-runs a Rockaway bakery called The Fat Cardinal.

Fat Cardinal makes the most amazing chocolate chip cookies you’ve ever had.

They’re pictured above, but the picture doesn’t do them justice. Francis Lewis UFT Sunshine Fund bought hundreds of them. Members of our consultation committee would sit in the teacher cafeteria and swap out giant cookies for ballots. Then, we’d place sealed ballots in the mailbox across the street.

Every member likely knew how I planned to vote. I’d stuffed the mailboxes multiple times, and unless they tossed the flyers in the trash without a glance, they had to see. And if people passed me in the hall and asked how to vote, I was not shy about telling them. Unity sent out their flyers as well. (Once, I was even aligned with them.)

One year I was told we could no longer trade cookies for votes. That would constitute undue influence, somehow. I’m absolutely certain our participation nose-dived after that. People like cookies. They don’t love going to mailboxes. Evidently I, as a partisan, could not be trusted to remain neutral. I was most certainly not neutral, ever. (I’m not neutral now either. It sounds too much like neutered. I can accept that in dogs, but not in people.)

For some reason, though, we’re expected not to attribute partisanship to the Unity Caucus.

They, evidently, are supposed to be above the fray. That’s why they can unilaterally announce live voting in borough offices and at union events. I will grant that live voting is preferable to mail only voting. However, who do you see in borough offices and union events? Overwhelmingly, you see Unity Caucus members, as virtually no one else is deemed eligible for union jobs.

Last week, for example, I went to the para rally downtown. I saw a whole lot of people from Unity. They were passing out t-shirts and signs for the crowd. Everyone got one—directly from the hands of Unity members.

Admittedly, they weren’t cookies. For the record, I’d have preferred cookies. I’ve been off refined sugar for a few years now, but you don’t forget Fat Cardinal cookies, ever. (Maybe I can persuade John to make sugar-free cookies one of these days.)

In fact, people don’t go to union offices just for fun. I never set foot in one until I was chapter leader. You go because you have a meeting or need a service. Maybe you need a pension consultation. Maybe you have another issue. Whatever it is, it’s a virtual certainly you’ll be visiting a member of the Unity Caucus.

And if all goes well, maybe they’ll encourage you to go vote. Interestingly, the live voting supersedes the mail voting. So if, for example, you voted for someone other than Unity, Unity patronage employees could tell you why Unity was the bestest thing ever, and if you believed them, they’ve turned a vote.

Now I can’t say that every Unity member will do this. I can say, though, that the ones I see on the net are hyper-partisan. They have no qualms whatsoever about personal attacks. I was a big target for them for quite a while. I may be still, but I tend not to read that stuff anymore. Will they repeat all this stuff in their offices and at the gala luncheons they run?

Perhaps they will. What if you go to some big event at the Hilton, to celebrate whatever happens to be celebrated that week? What if they send you on a weekend in some hotel somewhere? (Is it a coincidence there are more such events this year, or is it just election time?)

Maybe your Unity District Rep. invited you. Maybe your Unity District Rep. gave your Unity chapter leader free tickets. You can stay somewhere, eat some big meal or something, and maybe get a piece of cake. It won’t be Fat Cardinal quality, but cake is cake.

Everyone likes cake.

At the event, will the Unity District Reps and chapter leaders instruct members on all the fine points of the election? What does this slate support? What does that slate support? What are the arguments for and against each slate? Will the member go to the live voting booth making an informed decision?

That’s doubtful. Every single member of the Unity Caucus has signed a loyalty oath. One part of it reads thusly—members agree:

To support in Union elections only those individuals who are endorsed by the Caucus, and to actively campaign for his / her election;

Given that, it’s challenging for me to accept them as non-partisan. Now I’m sure some of them can and will claim otherwise. Maybe they’ll suggest I misinterpreted something. (Now I don’t like to brag, but English is my first language, and I’ve understood it fairly well for some time now.)

If you think you’ll get objective election advice from UFT employees, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

There is a way to make in person elections equitable. If Unity wished to do that, they’d place in-person voting in every school in the city. I understand that would be expensive. I further understand it’s therefore not viable.

A more reasonable and affordable alternative would be to enable in school voting, as we do for contracts. Far better would be electronic voting, so every member could vote on a personal phone or computer.

However, UFT bosses are opposed to that. They’ve been studying it for years and years now, and their plan is to study it some more. I’ll bet you dimes to dollars, if we commit the egregious error of allowing them to win this election, they’ll spend a few more decades studying.

Unity would much rather have leaders choose voters than have voters choose leaders. Who cares if three out of four members don’t want to walk to a mailbox? They pretend to care by allowing folks at union halls or events, many of whom are Unity, to more easily vote. They pretend not to have a huge influence over this process.

That is precisely why ABC challenges this process. It’s not remotely equitable.

Let’s face it—If I can’t be trusted to bring cookies to my chapter, Unity can’t be trusted to hold voting in their HQ or union events.

Unity’s been claiming to look into electronic voting for years. Other unions, like PSC, manage to pull it off. We could too. The fact is, though, that apathy is what wins elections for the Unity Caucus. It speaks volumes that three of four or us don’t find it worth our time to vote.

Given that, it’s disgraceful that the Unity Caucus solution entails expanded voting only in places and during events they dominate. They’ve taken us for fools for many years, and that hasn’t changed a bit.

I’ve had enough, and that’s why I’ll be voting for the ABC slate this May.