Calculating the totals for the UFT Divisional Executive Boards gives us a look at how each division voted in the election. What is up for grabs for teachers are 23 Divisional Executive Board seats out of a 102 person Executive Board that runs the union. 23 out of 102 is all the teachers choose in the union called The United Federation of Teachers.
We could win over the elementary, middle school and high school teachers and we still wouldn't have a quarter of the Executive Board.
Let's look at the actual numbers:
The total breakdown for each division is based on the top vote recipients for each caucus divided by the total votes to base the percentages on.
Elementary Schools--Total 9652 votes counted
Unity MORE-NAC Solidarity
7065 2333 254
73% 24% 3%
Middle Schools--Total 2754 votes counted
Unity MORE-NAC Solidarity
1655 904 195
60% 33% 7%
High Schools--Total 4490 votes counted
Unity MORE-NAC Solidarity
2077 2292 121
46% 51% 3%
For the total teacher vote--Votes counted 16,896
Unity MORE-NAC Solidarity
10,797 5529 570
64% 33% 3%
Functionals (non teachers) Total 10,404 votes counted
Unity MORE-NAC Solidarity
7748 2333 323
75% 22% 3%
The UFT election is at large for most of the Executive Board and all of the Officers. All members, including retirees and non-teachers, vote as a single group. Unity Caucus sets it up this way on purpose since there is no way for an opposition group to get to most of the voters in the detailed way that is necessary to really have a chance so Unity is assured victory in the overall election before it starts.
To be fair, opposition does get to have a New York Teacher ad and now an email to members. That is certainly not as strong as Meet the President and having Unity employees do their union "jobs" by going to schools and meeting members. Remember the three rules of politics:
1-Do they know you?
2-Do they like you?
3-Do they trust you?
An ad in a newspaper and an email does not compare to incumbency. The only way to crack the Unity machine is to have respected opposition people in schools to counter the Unity spin. We do better in the high schools than the other divisions because we have more opposition people in the high schools. It's been that way for decades. If we won the teacher vote, we would have the leverage to demand change in how the union operates.
Certainly winning the high schools by 5% (8% if you include the Solidarity votes) is an impressive accomplishment and we should demand structural change.
For those who prefer the individual totals:
Elementary Schools
MORE-NEW ACTION
Sharon Coughlin --2333
Katherine Lapham--2306
Tracey Pearson--2324
Patricia Dobosz--2307
Donald Doyle--2319
Dan Lupkin--2328
Michael Striker--2322
Yelena Siwinski--2324
Janice Manning--2328
Alexandra Alves--2318
Michelle Baptiste--2330
Unity
Carol Harrison--7053
Martin McKeown--7050
Sean Rotkowitz--7065
Alan Abrams--7055
Greer Hansen-Velazquez--7040
Camille Eaddy--7043
Donna Manganello--7059
Wendy Walker Wilson--7056
Lamar Hughes--7045
Mayra Hiciano-Cruz--7041
Haydee Melendez--7048
Solidarity
Elizabeth Gioia--250
Doreida Cela--237
Jeff Losak--222
Linda Acevedo--246
Jonathan Hinesley--242
Jacqueline Vinet---242
Adele Chavarria--254
The Middle Schools
MORE-NEW ACTION
Richard Covelli--896
Andrea McManus--904
Francesca Gomes--889
Dermott Myrie---882
Robert Diefenback--885
Unity
Rashad Brown--1649
David Waltzer--1650
Marcus Escobar--1653
Alexandra Fischer--1655
Joseph Usatch--1649
Solidarity
Ellen Brach--195
Asiya Joseph--179
Tamika Wilson--181
Patricio Freire--185
Christopher Rogers--178
For the High School Division
MORE-NEW ACTION
Michael Schirtzer--2286
Kujit Ahluwalia--2275
Marcus McArthur--2276
David Garcia-Rosen--2280
Arthur Goldstein--2292
Jonathan Halabi--2290
Ashraya Gupta--2289
Unity
Anthony Klug--2077
Winnie Thompson--2073
Sean Ramos--2070
James Duncan--2061
Jacqueline Shendler--2070
James Vasquez--2070
Robert Roache--2063
Solidarity
Quinn Zannoni--120
Anurag Jaiman--121
David Suker--110
Christopher Alena--119
Robert Torrens--110
James Mills--121
Christopher Denigris--108
18 comments:
Why use the top vote total? Isn't that guaranteed to be the furthest away from the slate vote?
Jonathan
You are right but we are talking about a difference of 15 or 16 votes out of over 4000 cast in the high schools. Comparing top to top, average to average or bottom to bottom doesn't make any real difference in the percentages so I think it works in any of these ways. I just looked at the top votes and figured why not look at it from the top with the biggest number from all three sides?
It artificially rounds up the minor group. And the lower numbers are closer to slate. I would have done it differently.
Not saying it is perfect but counting from top gives the top possible denominator of total voters and captures Solidarity voters too. Does counting from bottom change percentages much? I doubt it but I will try to recalculate if I have time.
I just did high school numbers with lowest vote.
Unity gets 2061 or 46.38%
MORE-NEW ACTION gets 2275 or 51.20%
Solidarity gets 108 or 2.43%.
Total is 4444
Overall numbers don't change much.
I would put higher numbers to prop up third slate to see where caucus support is because if Solidarity had a slate designation, surely their numbers would have been greater.
I doubt that there are any UNITY supporters here. If there are, could one of you UNITY supporters please tell me why they would vote for a caucus that has done nothing but harm to our profession? UNITY got thousands of elementary votes. Who are these voters? Are they happy with Danielson and the constant nitpicking by administration and the DOE? What do UNITY supporters think they are getting by voting for UNITY? I am serious here.
Obviously, we don't believe that UNITY is responsible for the bad stuff. We believe that, without Mulgrew's political skill, Cuomo would have killed us last year. And Bloomberg before him. And two thirds of active teachers agree with that. While "it could have been worse" is a poor campaign slogan, we believe that MORE would have taken us over the cliff.
I know you think we are wrong, and maybe we are, but that is the answer to your question.
Mulgrew is perhaps the only labor leader who does not believe in retroactive pay for its members. Mulgrew neverror responded to the regular propaganda attacks against teachers in the local papers when Bloomberg was mayor. Mulgrew's support is starting to wane with his percent of the vote going from 91% to 76%.
Anyway to make any sense out of what might have happened (or will happen if Solidarity has the slightest staying power) had it been able to get slate designation?
Solidarity would have gotten some more voted if it had slate designation but really how many more given that we believe most votes come out of the schools where we have people active. Francis Lewis HS alone due to Arthur probably gave us 125 or more votes or more for the high school EB slate and another 50 for the functionals.
Solidarity did not have slate designation for a reason - it didn't get 40 people. That says something for outreach and we know that a Get out the vote campaign in schools makes a difference.
I can judge the lower totals in the ms and elem to the basic lack of enough outreach by MORE and NA in those divisions. If we could match the hundreds of Unity chapter leaders we would be challenging them in those divisions.
So the Solidarity issue is somewhat mute since compared to MORE/NA they just don't have the organization in the schools. The almost 10-1 difference in votes reflects that. If they were on the ballot I would give them another 1000 votes - some from MORE but mostly from new voters.
I included their numbers. What else could I do to figure out their support?
I want to add one more point reinforcing that people in the schools make a difference. Francesco told me that their biggest strength was in the middle schools and he was proven right - look how well they did relatively to the other divisions? 6% vs 2-3%.
Clearly they have some people in some schools - even though when we talk about 200+ votes out of 11,500 cast it looks pretty bad - just as our totals under 1000 also don't look great. But Unity got 1600 - also miniscule - however they had a nice jump from the 1150 in 2013.
They have lots more people in the schools and yet they don't get a massive vote considering how many people Unity has. Which means the strategy of building an organized caucus that can match the Unity numbers is the way to go in the future.
I can predict an election outcome based on how many people are working with MORE - and I have to say that I do not think MORE has done enough to accomplish this and needs to face this fact and not make external excuses or engage in false celebrations. By now MORE should have been further along - and I know some people won't like me saying that - but if more had done a better job of getting out the vote even in their own schools, the numbers would have been better.
It's not just people in the buildings - although that is important. There need to be people invested deeply enough to vote, and turned off by the leadership enough to oppose them, who know someone on the team they are voting for - AND there needs to be "the issue" for that person.
I believe the MORE/NAC elementary vote total was greater than the sum of the parts 2300 up from 1600, because those conditions were met in some schools. But I also think that "the issue" was often "Opt Out" - which does not have the same resonance in all districts.
I wish we had district by district returns. The districts where you have recruited are the districts where we got votes, not cause and effect, but correlated with opt out.
AAA has that info and even though the UFT denies it I bet they have that info too. We can try to demand that info be released at this time or wait till next time.
But for me the vote always reflects the number of committed people in the building based on buildings where there is no one to agitate. In most cases unless there is someone on site to share info with people the UFT elections often mean little - and in fact there is not much at stake in terms of winning as long as retirees play a major factor.
People who do not read these blogs have absolutely no idea what's going on. They think Unity and Mulgrew are doing a swell job. Anytime I try to inform people of what's going on a get a very surprised and confused reaction. The only thing I'm starting to see is people annoyed when they see how pathetic our raises are in their checks. They're also starting to get scared about healthcare costs after realizing the co-pay change could be the first of many changes.
We didn't even get the returns by division this year let alone by school or district.
I'm a recent convert to the theory that the people who do not know what is going on are making a conscious decision not to know or care because even if they have gripes they don't see the union as the cause and in fact are fairly happy. Only the bloggers and readers seem to be the conduit of bad news - maybe a few hundred. The election outcomes match. 25% like the contract -- voted against Unity, 75% didn't vote - the same per cent that voted for the contract. Things are never so bad - until there are so bad it is too late.
FYI, 16 election complaints launched. http://www.uftsolidarity.org/electioncomplaints/
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