Teachers for a Just Contract Position on the Selection of District Representatives and the "Multi-Partisan District Representative Selection Committee"
 
Approved by the Teachers for a Just Contract, December 3, 2006
 

Teachers for a Just Contract is not in a position to participate on this committee.  Some of the reasons are mentioned below.  However, we wish to go on record regarding our position on how district representatives should be chosen. 
 
We support a return to the original weighted election of district representatives (D.R.s) by the chapter leaders in their districts.    We feel this system had many advantages.  Most important, it made the D.R.s accountable to the chapter leaders whose chapters they served.  It was an important guarantee that D.R.s would be responsive.   Our union gives chapter leaders the power and right to elect chapter leaders for this same reason: to make sure that the chapter leaders serve the members' interests, are responsive to their needs and problems, and represent them democratically.  We believe District Representatives should be elected for the same reasons.  If a chapter leader fails to do his or her job, this democratic system ensures that he or she can be replaced by someone who shows the potential to do so.  The same democratic mechanism should exist for D.R.s.
 
We tend to believe that chapter leaders are in the best position to exercise this democratic control over D.R.s.  They know the D.R.s best, since they work closely with them.  They also know the other chapter leaders in their District, who are the potential alternatives and/or successors to the incumbent D.R.    However, we would be open to arguments in favor of giving all the members in a district the right to vote for their D.R. We also believe this would be better than the present system of appointment from above, which was introduced as a "temporary" measure and now shows clear signs of becoming the new rule. 
 
This system of appointment of D.R.s by the president increases the already alarming extent to which a single caucus, the Unity Caucus, controls our union.  By giving the president, who is the head of the Unity Caucus, total power to appoint and fire at will each and every D.R., it gives Unity one more way to exercise total control over every aspect of the UFT's functioning.  It makes it matter more that a D.R. carries out the Unity line than that he or she is responsive to the needs and interests of the rank and file.  It makes the D.R.s servants of the bureaucratic interests of the top leadership.  Correspondingly, it gives them the ability to ignore with impunity the voice of the chapter leaders who are the day to day activists and workplace leaders of the union.  Although many D.R.s may continue to carry out their jobs conscientiously, we no longer have any structural guarantees that they will. 
 
President Weingarten has stated publically that this new "interim" system is more democratic, and make D.R.s accountable to the union as a whole,  since she represents the membership as a whole.  We view this differently.  The top levels of the Unity Caucus have developed into an ossified, entrenched, self-perpetuating bureaucracy.  Their working conditions, social status and income are world's apart from those of the typical UFT member.  Through the organizational mechanisms of caucus and bureaucracy, as well as control of the union's material resources, they can maintain their power even while the membership is largely dissatisfied with and/or alienated from the union.  As the powerful figure at the pinnacle of this bureaucracy, the UFT President's decisions - from whom she calls on at a Delegate Assembly to whom she appoints as a D.R. - is aimed at perpetuating its own power rather than fulfilling the interests of the membership. 
 
TJC has considered the possibility of taking part in this committee and rejected it for two reasons.  First, we have very limited discretionary time at our disposal, organizationally and as individuals.  We all work full-time and carry full programs with the exception of what time some of us have as chapter leaders, which is often more demanding than the corresponding class time.  None of us is a retiree.  Therefore, we have to carefully weigh the likely value of any participation we undertake. 
 
Several of us did participate in the UFT Negotiating Committee, a similar "bipartisan" endeavor.  Our experience there did nothing to encourage us to devote further time to such ventures.  We found that any positions we took that were any different from the Unity leadership's were not merely argued against.  The UFT leadership disparaged, dismissed and even falsely characterized our positions as dangerous and even illegal.  Given that our time is so limited, we prefer to use it to speak directly to the membership rather than take it up speaking to members of Unity who are under discipline to their caucus to follow a "party line."