Some Union News
Some interesting teacher union tidbits coming in this week…
- One of the largest NYSUT locals, the Buffalo Teachers Federation, concluded a contested election for it’s leadership. President Phil Rumore, won re-election with 707 votes. Challengers Pat Foster and Marc Bruno had 344 and 299 votes respectively. What is interesting is that Rumore had about 52% of the vote. Had he not received 51% or more a runoff would have been forced between he and Foster. Had Bruno supporters decided to back the other challenger in Foster there could have been a real threat to Rumore. Some rumors suggest Rumore would have retired rather than try to win in the runoff.
- While Rumore has shown to be a Unity Caucus supporter at the state level, Stronger Together member Kevin Gibson won re-election on the BTF’s executive committee. He was joined by Teresa Leatherbarrow, a member of the same Renew slate that Gibson ran on, and Sean Crowley, writer of the always entertaining B-LoEdScene blog. How this election impacts things at the NYSUT and AFT levels remains to be seen.
- Out in Hawaii, a slate of opposition candidates called Hawaii Teachers for Change challenged for the leadership of their statewide union. After they won the president and secretary treasurer seats, the incumbents voted not to certify the election yet have failed to provide any reason for doing so, other than citing “irregularities.” It’s the old “If you lose, just keep having elections until you win!” trick. Norm Scott says that it reminds him of the UFT circa 1985.
- The above mentioned Scott and Mike Schirtzer, both of MORE, held a debate in a Manhattan diner over whether or not it was worth it for MORE to run a slate of candidates in the 2016 UFT elections. My favorite part was also James Eterno’s…
It was a healthy exchange of ideas but the best part of the evening for me was passing the application sheets around and having almost everyone there fill out the form and pay the fee to join the new statewide opposition to Michael Mulgrew’s Unity Caucus called Stronger Together.
The Offical Website of the PJSTA 
Almost time for Stronger Together/AFT — get people around the nation to join. Form the national version as an alt to the national Unity (Progressive Caucus).