How Many Delegates?

The governing body of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is the Delegate Assembly. In theory. In practice for many years the DA has been a rubber stamp for the Executive Board, which in turn has been a rubber stamp for the Administrative Committee (AdCom) – essentially the officers and friends.

In two decades the DA had rarely if ever (scratching my head for examples – I don’t want to write never, but maybe?) not done what the officers have asked. Until the pandemic.

The officers, the leadership of the union, has been tightly controlled by Unity Caucus. They use winner-take-all voting and patronage jobs and perks (and the promise of jobs and perks in the future) to keep their people in line – and to try to keep their people’s contacts in line. They run DA rehearsals, I think it is called “debate club,” so that Mulgrew can practice. Debate Club also plants questions – so Mulgrew knows who to call on to get a softball question. Unity distributes written statements, so that when Unity delegates get the floor, they are reading words that Unity has written. At the DA, delegates are instructed to follow Unity leaders. And if they are not sure, Secretary LeRoy Barr signals Unity delegates by taking off or putting on his glasses.

And it’s been fairly effective. Unity District Reps scold Unity members if they ever vote the wrong way. And in the past, they actually watched their chapter leaders vote, so they could tell. When LeRoy thinks delegates are confused, he slows down, and exaggerates the glasses gesture.

A few things changed during the pandemic. Delegates joined by telephone only (at first) and then by telephone or in person (that’s how it is now). That meant that Unity delegates who were at home could vote as they wanted… and some did. In person voting is now by clickers, not raising cards, and even here it is easier to vote without a Unity enforcer looking over your shoulder. Hybrid DAs also made attending easier – there was a new group of delegates who had never been in person, and had not internalized any of that dynamic.

And those changes led to other changes. Unity has some close votes in 2021 and 2022, even on procedure. In April 2021 the DA rejected some political endorsements (I don’t think the DA had ever done that before). The following year there were more close votes, and some losses for Unity – not many – but enough that it was no longer a shock. Just this last April Unity defeated a resolution to increase dental benefits (kept it off the agenda) – but just by 3 votes.

And then the Retirees Voted

This past June there was a huge upset in the retiree elections: Retiree Advocate beat Unity. In the winner-take-all system not only did we win all ten officers (I am now Assistant Secretary) we also won all fifteen Executive Board seats (with 63% of the vote).

And delegates were also up for election. Retiree Advocate made a bold decision in August or September 2023 – if we were going to seriously contest the election, we would not run just 100 or 120 or 150 delegates. We were going to run 300. Several of us, including me, worked for months to make that true. We recruited 331, and were done months before Unity.

Delegates are winner-take-all. 300 delegates. And Retiree Advocate won all 300. I am now a delegate. My last DA was June 2022. My next will be October 2024.

300 out of How Many?

In terms of delegates – quite a lot. Let’s start with how many delegates there are.

Every school gets at least two: the Chapter Leader is a delegate, and at least one more person is a delegate. There is a provision for schools that are bigger to get more delegates. I think a school gets a second delegate at 150 members, and then an additional for every 60 additional members. (but maybe that starts at 90, not 150. I really don’t know – and I’m hoping someone will clarify). But ok, every school gets at least two, and a huge school would get, what, six?

How many schools are there? More than 1600. Less than 1900. Call it 1750. That times two would be 3500. Throw in 500 delegates for bigger schools (wild guess). And now 300 for retirees. Maybe 450 for other functional chapters. 100 Executive Board. I’m getting nearly 5000 delegates. The DA has about 5000 delegates.

But in December 2021 a delegate asked about quorum, and Mulgrew said quorum was 732. And quorum in the UFT is one fifth of the delegates, which would imply there were 3660 delegates. And I have no idea – is it 3660? is it about 5000? I should ask someone who knows. But here’s what I do know:

How Many Delegates Come to DAs?

I scoured minutes from James, from fall 2021 through April 2023, when he suffered a stroke, and from Nick after that. I recorded any votes that they noted – as long as they gave full results. With the current system vote numbers are announced, no one guesses at how many cards are up, but there is a count from the phone, a separate from the hall, and a combined total. Quite often James or Nick got part, but not all, of the results. I did not include those. I got 89 full results. The highest was 1070 votes. The lowest was 560 votes. Average was 790 votes.

We can look at the votes over time. There may be a general increase. Post-pandemic rebound? I don’t know. (The pandemic is not as scary today, but it’s not really over, is it?) Or is it just an artifact from two high-turn out DAs: January 2023 and November 2023? The increase IS counter-intuitive. When new delegates are elected, the following October (there’s no DA in September), the DA is flooded with new delegates, but that number drops off in November, and keeps slipping over the next three years. Do we see the opposite happening? The average in 2021-22 was 678, the next year 773, and last year 817. I’m not sure. (The data is incomplete, but there is no reason to think that the sample is skewed.)

The marks on each vertical line represent the vote totals at that month’s DA. The month labels don’t quite line up – sorry.

So October 2024 will be the first DA after spring chapter elections. There might be a big surge, that then dies down. But do we have a baseline of 900, a surge to 1800, and we sink back to 1200 regularly? Or do we have a baseline of 700, we surge to 1200, and sink back to 800? I am going to guess – just a guess – that after October, votes will hover around 1000 total for the rest of the year. So a bumper crop in October, and then about 1000 delegates at the rest of this year’s DAs (remotely or in person).

What does that mean for Retiree Advocate?

To answer that, we need to look at how close these votes have been. And in fact, most are not close. Think about it – we see resolutions against charter school expansion – to recognize new holidays – to support people facing environmental disasters. Apple pie resolutions. And even where we disagree, sometimes the discussion is over, and we vote overwhelmingly to “call the question” and move on to the actual vote. Of the 89 votes I have counts for, 55 were decided with 90% or more on one side. But 13 votes were decided between 33 and 66%. And for all of these votes, the margins were less 300. And for four votes, the margins were less than 20 votes.

So you know what this means for Retiree Advocate? It means that our delegates would have made a decisive difference on several votes, including, for example, the April 2024 vote on putting improved dental benefits on the agenda. Unity barely blocked delegates from debating the resolution 482 – 479. With Retiree Advocate’s 300 delegates there, the outcome would have been reversed. By the way, we may not get a chance to beat Unity on Dental. Rumor has it that Mulgrew’s people saw what we see, and are improving dental benefits (announcement later today?) before we have a chance to push the issue.

The marks on each vertical line represent the vote totals at that month’s DA. The month labels don’t quite line up – sorry.

Take a look at these margins. The tight ones might have been reversed. But how many votes will RA flip? Think about 300 Unity retiree delegates who we just voted out. I don’t know how many came to DAs. I’m guessing 150, half. And I don’t know how disciplined their voting was, especially when they were on the phone, and their votes couldn’t be tracked – but I figure Unity’s retirees were fairly loyal. So say Unity loses a margin of 125-25 = 100 votes. And RA, how many delegates will come to DAs? We are working on that. We could get 250 at some DAs. Routinely we should be over 200. And while we do not plan to “whip” votes – that’s a bit insulting to intelligent delegates, even if Unity did it – on obvious issues like Dental we should get close to 100%. So call that 200. And combine them, minus 100 for Unity, plus 200 for us. We would have flipped many 200 close votes, some 200 margin votes, and maybe even some 300 margin votes.

At a 300 vote swing, that’s 14 of the 89 votes listed here – which is about half the votes from the last three years. Could we change the outcome of 30 votes? So yeah, that’s a lot. And we have not talked about how our 300 delegates will change the agenda. Real impact.

Just wrapping up this thought – Retirees will have 200 – 250 delegates at any given DA, replacing maybe 150 Unity delegates. And I think the DAs will be mostly 800 – 1000 delegates. We will be a 20% – 30% bloc. How’s that? Ready for some change?

Other Delegates

Many delegates are not affiliated with a caucus. Understandably, they are the least likely to attend (though I would encourage EVERYONE to come. It’s one meeting, less than two hours, once a month, you can join by phone, and you officially make UFT policy. And better than that, this year you might have real chances to make a difference. The Delegate Assembly will no longer be a one-party show). There will still be many Unity delegates, starting, ex officio, with about 100 UFT Executive Board members. There will be New Action delegates, and MORE delegates, probably more MORE than New Action, but combined still fewer than the retirees.

The Paraprofessional Chapter has 260 delegates. While the Retirees were beating Unity, an insurgent campaign won Paraprofessional officer and Executive Board positions. By margin, it was a more impressive victory – 74% – 26%. (We, Retiree Advocate, won 63% – 37%, of course with much higher vote totals). But the insurgents, Fix Para Pay (FPP), did not win a single delegate. What happened?

First off, it really was an amazing margin. Hats off to the nine winners, who took on all of Unity. They were brave, and refused to be intimidated. Unity played dirty tricks, campaigned dirty, bullied, made outrageous personal attacks – and none of it won them any votes. There was a guy who signed on to run as the FPP chapter leader candidate, and then when it was too late to change him, announced he was supporting Unity. Unity also changed the rules, so that Executive Board and Officer candidates could not run for delegate as well. That cost FPP 9 delegates. But even had they not, delegates would have been 251 Unity, 9 FPP. FPP did not recruit a slate of delegates (the way that Retiree Advocate recruited a slate of 300 delegates)

The candidates did an amazing job, but needed help. If a caucus had helped, it would have immediately realized that delegates were at stake, and helped the FPP champions recruit and do the paperwork and the legwork. That goes for New Action, MORE, or Retiree Advocate. Any one of the three would have been able to assist FPP finding delegates, and would have been able to directly offer some delegate candidates. I don’t know the para chapter, so I don’t know if recruiting a full 260 was possible, but I’m guessing it would have been.

It seems that the FPP candidates did have some assistance – individuals? Some of the campaigning they clearly prepared themselves – regular letters and communications which are so important. But some of the memes, and support, and videos…probably had help. Also, did FPP come up with that name, the nine of them? If so, brilliant – a real winner. Fix Para Pay. Or did a supporter come up with it? Still brilliant, a winner. Either way. But despite some great campaigning, and a great name, there was a problem. So how did individuals know how to create clever memes, but did not know to suggest a slate of delegates? That’s where individuals are just not able to match the work of a caucus. Caucuses may move more slowly – but by bringing together the collective thoughts of many, they are far less likely to overlook major opportunities. Also, caucuses bring together the collective work of many. A huge piece of work may be daunting for individuals, but caucuses can distribute the labor, and make big projects seem possible. If a caucus had been directly involved, FPP would have been much more likely to get the delegates right, and not leave that part of the slate blank. They could have prevented Unity from scooping up 260 delegates that Unity should have lost. Unity will have up to 260 delegates at DAs that they should not have had.

And what would that have meant?

If there were 260 FPP delegates, say 150 to 200 come to any given DA. And there are 300 Retiree Advocate delegates. And we expect 200 to 250 to be at any given DA. That would be combined 350 to 450 FPP+RA delegates. Out of perhaps 800 – 1000 delegates. Here’s the math. 350/1000 is 35%, that would be the minimum. 450/800 = 56%, which would be the maximum. Between 35% – 56%. Stopping Unity nonsense. Overruling, where necessary, the chair. Extending discussion when Mulgrew tries to cut it off. And passing resolutions to improve our jobs, our benefits, and our lives. This is what we lost.

Some of the dark blue dots on the left are Unity, but also New Action, MORE, and independents. Mulgrew-skeptical delegates may have been in the majority in the diagram on the left – but of course we are dealing with the diagram on the right. Damned reality.

No sense crying over what might have been. And clearly individuals can do valuable work. But for the serious labor and strategizing of a campaign? We should remember this.

And today we look forward to three years of Delegate Assemblies with a huge block of Unity delegates replaced by a huge block of Retiree Advocate – independent thinking delegates. Three hundred of us. The Delegate Assembly will not be the same.