Retired Teacher election… What if?

What if the election were held tomorrow? And what if all the results were the same as 2022? Except the retirees were the same as the election that just happened?

Let me explain.

Unity controls (controlled?) just about everything…

The party, actually “caucus” that runs the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is called Unity. And Unity has controlled the union from its founding. Really controlled it. They do not have all the chapter leaders (stewards) but they dominate the rest. They have had all of the officers, for 3/4 of a century, with one exception for one term (Michael Shulman, New Action, High School VP for one term, then Unity changed the rules so that that could not occur again, without a sweep. They have had all the exec board positions – except they’ve lost the high schools, at least in recent years, more than they’ve won them (but that’s 7 seats out of 102), and back decades ago they lost the middle schools once or twice. Unity controls the “functional chapters” (secretaries, nurses, etc) – with a notable loss of the Occupational Therapists / Physical Therapists an election ago, and a footnote on the Paraprofessionals this time who contested and won some positions, but not Chapter Leader or delegates.

… but not the RTC

And now the Retirees. In an earthquake, the Retired Teachers Chapter voted Unity out of the leadership. 24.9% of eligible retirees voted for Bennett Fischer, and 14.7% voted for Tom Murphy. So the edge is big, 63% – 37% of those who voted, but because turnout was ok, almost 1 in 4 voting for Retiree Advocate (and Bennett) is a big deal. Consider the last general election, 2022, where Mulgrew got 16% beating Camille Eterno’s 8.4%. By comparison Bennett’s 25% is pretty big for a UFT election. Just to fill in a bit, Retiree Advocate also won 300 delegates (how many delegates are at the delegate assembly? 5000? More? Less?). I have been posting – my own mini-victory post – an account of realizing what was happening (we used to call this a tick-tock – but that now means something else) – and some thoughts on campaigning and how I’d missed the prediction.

Think about the 2022 UFT election

For as long as I’ve been around, there has been Unity, and there have been others. Sometimes the other groups unite for an election – sometimes not. Using numbers that go back for two decades, I came up with three points:

1. The retiree vote was stable, about 85-15%, for Unity, until the news of Medicare Advantage broke in 2021, and then it shifted to 70-30%, and now 37-63%. These numbers involve significant numbers of Unity voters switching sides, but also voters dropping out, and new voters coming in
2. The Unity vote has been slipping for all in-service categories, with minor blips, but a major twenty year downward trend. From 2004 to 2022, they’ve lost about half their teacher votes. These votes have NOT in general gone to opposition groups. Unity supporters quit voting.
3. The opposition group, totaled, has stayed pretty level over the same period. It generally goes down when the divisions are bigger, and goes up when the groups run together. Best two years, unsurprisingly, were 2016, when MORE and New Action ran together, and 2022 when a coalition called United for Change formed. Worst was 2019 when the divisions were bitter. In service totals (rounded) were: 6100, 6200, 6400, 5800, 8500, 4600, 8300. The ebbs and flows with these numbers do not correspond to opposite movement in Unity’s numbers – these are not Unity voters.

So Unity has been slipping. And in 2022 the opposition groups were united, which clearly generates extra votes. UFC won the high schools, and the middle schools were in range… but that’s only 7 of 103 seats, with another 4 that might have been possible.

Here’s the actual 2022 turnout numbers:

And here’s the actual 2022 results:

But what if…?

What if retirees voted in 2022 the way they did just now? Let’s change the table, and see.

An important note… retiree votes are “capped” at 22,000 23,500, to prevent us from outweighing in-service members in union-wide votes. So instead of the raw totals 17,227 RA, and 10,115 Unity, I am inputting 13,861 14,806 for UFC (which RA participated in) and 8139 8694 for Unity.

Fantasy results – 2022 – but with 2024 Retiree Numbers*

* Revised. The retiree cap is no longer 22,000, but now 23,500, leading to a slightly higher “fantasy” margin for United for Change

Look, there’s a lot of variables in play. These numbers do not represent an election that actually happened – I combined numbers from two elections. But we should not be talking about whether Unity will lose a division or two in 2025 – the overall vote is at stake.

I have not engaged in discussion, so I don’t know. I don’t know if an “opposition” will unite in 2025. I don’t know if the surge in retiree votes was a blip, and if it will revert to the mean. I don’t know if Unity will continue bleeding support. I don’t know how big that para vote was. But assuming a unified opposition? Big assumption – but assuming it – Unity would be favored to win elementary seats only, and middle school would be a toss up. The opposition would be favored to win high school, functional, and sweep the at-large positions.

Some considerations if this vote did happen

This would mean all 12 officers, 86 or 90 of 102 Executive Board seats, and 750 delegates to the AFT Convention. It would mean a voice on the national stage (or voices) that have previously been shut out. It would mean an opportunity to bring in democratic changes in the UFT, such as proportional representation, and ending winner-take-all, in a way that would be hard to undo (ironically, after one election cycle, this would guarantee Unity a voice, if it continued to exist).

On attitude – an open leadership would be more accessible to the membership. And we would also make sure that policies and proposals were reaching members in schools… we could reinvigorate the act of having a chapter or union-wide discussion. (We know, some resolutions are passed, filed away, and… nothing. We could stop that).

On policies? Certainly health care. Dental. Support for chapters in crisis. A platform discussion would be a serious thing – because it would have real implications. Where do we agree? What priorities could we agree to move? I like looking at the Retiree Advocate 2024 platform – both practical and progressive. But obviously there are more than retiree issues only. The 2022 UFC Platform was a mix of feel-good items and policy proposals. We would certainly want to look at that, especially in regards to items that we would jointly prioritize. Certainly this union needs to relearn how to mobilize membership. And as we do that, we will be capable, as a union, of doing more good for our members, our students, our city. Right? The question is not just a platform… we would be proposing change that we would be in a place to make happen.

How to make this happen?

It would be foolish to aim for 51%. A winning campaign would shoot much higher. In RA’s victory, because our margin was large, there was no challenge. Things would be different if it were close.

Certainly aiming for less than a unified coalition would be self-defeating. Too much is at stake for anyone to declare they would be satisfied with 7 or 11 Exec Board seats.

We would have to look at what went right and what went wrong in 2022. In some ways this will be easier, because there are fewer players. But clear guidelines will help. Who actually is at the table? Putting platform and division of position up front could establish better trust.

New Action has a leafletting operation – extensive, but with some questions about the impact. I think it is an essential part of a campaign, but not the only part. MORE did strong one on one work in some schools, and some text banking and phone banking. Those are very valuable. But there is a pretty big gap… outreach into schools and districts where we are not. Flyering a school where we have no one is better than not flyering, but has little impact. And one on one conversations can’t happen where we don’t have people. After actually forming a coalition, that outreach would be the biggest challenge.

Retiree Advocate’s recent victory helps provide some guidance. Certainly social media helped. We have, among us, bloggers (with more influence than me!) The NYCOPSR would have significant impact (the same or similar number in absolute terms, but less in relative terms since most of the votes will not be from retirees). But the ground game, the outreach – we would need to match that. “Each one – Reach one” would be pivotal. Leveraging personal networks into campaigning, and then GOTV work. And we could not run a symbolic slate. All the officers, all the exec board positions, and all 750 delegates. That’s because we would be running to win – but also because those 750 delegates would bring our ground game to life.

Will this happen? Lots could go wrong. Could it happen? Look at those numbers. You tell me.