UFT Solidarity and the ICEUFTblog sent the update below to Solidarity members and to ICE-mail concerning UFT Chapter Elections that will be taking place this May or June in all schools and non-teaching chapters.
Procedures will be somewhat different this year with telephone voting due to the pandemic for in-school elections and voting by mail for functional (nonteaching) chapters. It is crucial that members know the rules.
If you are thinking about running for a position, nominations will be earlier this year than usual as the American Arbitration Association is running the school-based elections which before were run exclusively by school election committees. The committees will still exist and take nominations so it is important to know what is going on in your school, even if you are not running but want to support a candidate for chapter leader who is not beholden to the principal and/or to Michael Mulgrew's Unity Caucus.
Remember, Unity Caucus binds their chapter leaders and delegates to:
- Support the decisions of Caucus / Union leadership in public or Union forums.
This is nicknamed the Unity Loyalty Oath.
This blog has a different independent idea of being loyal to chapter members for chapter leaders and delegates:
- If elected to a UFT position, I pledge to be loyal only to the will of the majority of the members of the UFT Chapter that elected me and to my conscience, not to the decisions of any caucus or whims of school administrators.
You may want to watch our Zoom session (see below) to hear from Solidarity leader Lydia Howrilka, my wife Camille, Johnny Hinsley, and me about the chapter election process and what the jobs of chapter leader and Delegate involve.