Unity Is Shocked, Outraged, but Promoting the Electronic Trustee Election Anyway

Emperor Mulgrew has no clothes.

As usual, UFT Unity is making a big fuss over something, the trustee election, way too late. You know, Tier 6 is a crisis, and we have to fix it RIGHT NOW, even though when it came out, UFT Unity did NOTHING. We have to fix class size RIGHT NOW, but we haven’t negotiated class size changes in the contract for over FIFTY YEARS , and we’ve done nothing to enforce class-size reducing C4E, which has lingered for DECADES.

More importantly, UFT voting numbers are abysmal, have been so for decades, and Unity has done absolutely nothing to fix it. They like it when the vast majority of membership has no voice and does not participate. You’ll hear them squawk about low turnout in local, state and national elections. Union elections? Crickets.

As for the election taking place today and tomorrow for trustee, here we are. Someone delayed it with a bunch of frivolous, ridiculous complaints and now they’re shocked, shocked that DOE came up with a practical solution. Electronic voting, still, violates city rules, so if Unity loses they can and will demand a re-do. (Heads I win, tails you lose.)

That may sound cynical (and it is), but that’s Unity’s MO. When Michael Shulman won HS VP, they redid the election. When the OT/PT chapter turned down the last sub-inflationary contract, they isolated them and made them vote on the Same Old Crap.

This notwithstanding, it’s clear Unity has decided to get on with things, using our union dues to electioneer via email for Michael Mulgrew’s hand-picked candidate. Evidently, using the internet to promote their interests is not objectionable. Interests of membership are another thing altogether.

Of couse it’s discouraging that they use our dues to promote Michael Mulgrew’s druthers rather than ours, but that’s how things go when you have bosses rather than leaders running your union. For Unity, the ends justify the means.

So for now, UFT Unity is now going along with electronic voting for Trustee, even though everything has been done, likely as not by their direction, to prevent there being a vote at all. After all, if they’d managed to disqualify Ben Morgenroth, they could just stick Mulgrew’s patronage employee in, and continue doing Whatever.

Looking at the record, Unity Cultists will tell you how great we have it with the 7% fixed TDA, but the fact is EVERY OTHER UNION gets 8.25. In the long haul, that translates to quite a bit of money we’re losing due to the initiatives of Mulgrew’s “very smart people.” And OF COURSE we didn’t get to VOTE on this. Personally, especially given the current health care debacle, I don’t trust Mulgrew’s political appointees to look after anything for us.

Now here’s the thing—if Mulgrew and his ducklings are gonna go along with an electronic election for Trustee, why on earth can’t we have one for UFT at large? Granted, Mulgrew LOVES elections where only 20% of rank and file walk to mailboxes. That means an 80% vote for I Don’t Give a Crap. With a vote like this, Mulgrew gets to draw 350K, two pensions, an expense account for all those Gala Luncheons, plus whatever he gets for those undemanding AFT and NYSUT gigs.

We know that there is a much bigger turnout for contract votes, which are done inside schools. Oddly, Unity doesn’t worry much about the integrity of these votes. Who cares if chapter leaders are carrying sacks full of votes to the Post Office? While I honestly don’t believe many chapter leaders are opening and resealing ballots (and I certainly never did), it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

Electronic voting is acceptable for Unity for SBOs. Unity doesn’t really have a stake in whether or not they pass, for the most part. So I trust the integrity of those elections. In my school, they seem to have followed similar patterns to paper voting.

Of course, for a vote in which Unity members were up for election, I wouldn’t trust them at all. Therefore, they could continue to retain the services of the American Arbitration Association and allow them to run the electronic vote. This would save days of sitting around watching machines count votes. More importantly, it would ensure a much wider vote.

I’m a retiree and I hardly ever use physical mailboxes these days. New teachers, for all I know, may see mailboxes as natural wonders along the lines of Stonehenge. I’m writing this in an office, waiting for my class to begin. I just asked the teenage student sitting next to me when the last time was she used a mailbox. She replied she has never used a mailbox in her life.

Regardless of age, a whole lot of people can’t be bothered to walk to a mailbox. This, we know absolutely, translates to very weak participation in union elections. It’s a fundamental shortcoming of our United Federation of Teachers that ineffectual, indifferent leaders like Mulgrew are selected by a tiny minority of membership.

The cure for that, of course, is a wholesale change in how voting is conducted. This terrifies Unity. That’s why they, under strict orders from Unity bosses, have voted lockstep against it whenever its come up. It’s time, though, for a change. It’s time for members to drive this union. Our prime concern cannot be Mike Mulgrew, or even his small army of patronage employees.

We need electronic voting, and we need it now. The fact that Unity is accepting it for the trustee vote indicates they are not fundamentally opposed to it. If they won’t go to court immediately to block the trustee election (and they won’t), that’s significant. It means they’ve paid lip service to opposing it, but really do not. As long as they get the result they want, they’re fine with it.

If Unity does not allow electronic voting for officers and delegates next year, it will further expose them as the self-serving hypocrites we already know them to be.

We can’t allow that to happen. We need a vote that encourages and embraces member participation. That said, for my money, Unity’s biggest threat is the upcoming retiree vote. I can’t wait to toss them out on their collective keester.

To that end, if you’re a retiree, vote for Retiree Advocate. If you’re in-service, don’t forget to vote for Ben Morgenroth today.