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Weingarten, Slate Consolidate Power

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and her Unity slate scored a decisive victory in last week's union election, fending off challengers for all officer and executive board positions.

RANDI WEINGARTEN: Bolsters hold on union.

Ms. Weingarten was re-elected to her fourth full term with 87 percent of the 46,735 votes cast for president. Unity and the New Action caucus, which endorsed her for president, backed the same candidates for high school executive board seats and defeated the Teachers for a Just Contract/Independent Community of Educators slate, which had previously held them.

'Honored' by Vote

"I am honored that our members decided overwhelmingly to allow me to serve another term in office," said Ms. Weingarten in a statement. "It is an honor and privilege to champion their needs and aspirations."

About 22 percent of approximately 108,000 active members returned ballots, down from 29 percent three years ago. About 22,500 of the 50,000 retiree ballots were returned, and accounted for about 38 percent of the total vote. (According to union rules, retiree votes are pro-rated and only 18,000 were counted in the total.) New Action received 8 percent of the vote overall and TJC/ICE got about 13 percent.

MICHAEL SHULMAN: Dissident now an insider.

In 2004, New Action didn't run a candidate against Ms. Weingarten. In return, Unity didn't contest the high school executive board seats, and New Action lost their long-held positions to TJC/ICE. This election year's strategy of combining efforts with Unity paid off, and five other New Action candidates who were endorsed by Unity also got seats on the executive board.

Nonetheless, TJC/ICE candidates asserted that they were now the only legitimate opposition caucus in the union, noting that they received a total of 19 percent of the votes cast by active members - more than New Action.

"Interestingly, even though we lost the executive board seats," said TJC/ICE Presidential candidate Kit Wainer, "we did better than overall. We're not discouraged at all; we got more rank-and-file votes, and that's what's important moving forward."

Former TJC/ICE executive board member Jeff Kauffman said he was disappointed and thought that the loss would make things more difficult. "Now 36 percent of high school Teachers don't have an effective voice," he said, referring to the vote TJC/ICE received from active high school Teachers. "There's no longer an opposition on the executive board."

TJC/ICE Tapped Anger

New Action founder Mike Shulman, who won an at-large executive board seat, said the results were positive and disagreed that his group had been supplanted as the main opposition caucus.

"We're going to continue to work with the leadership and also prod them," he said. "I don't think [the TJC/ICE] vote represents strong support for TJC/ICE. There's a lot of anger out there, and they ran a very negative campaign that tapped into that."

TJC has filed a formal protest with the UFT Election Committee over a Unity campaign mailing that accused Mr. Wainer of being a socialist, because the mailing did not have a return address or indicate that it was campaign literature. New Action has also lodged a complaint over that mailing.

An unrelated complaint has also been filed with the American Arbitration Association over mislabeled envelopes which caused ballots to be returned to their sender. Some Teachers said they were not able to mail their ballots to the correct address in time to meet the election deadline.

Members of both opposition caucuses said they did not believe that the campaign mailing or the mistake by the AAA, which it sought to correct by re-mailing corrected ballots, had an impact on the overall results.

The new officials, board members and delegates will serve three-year terms beginning July 1, 2007.