ARE THE NEA AND AFT LEADERS GUN SHY ON A PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENT THIS TIME?
When Clare Kelly and Trisha Connolly, Evanston teachers and delegates to last summer’s National Education Association’s Representative Assembly, offered their new business item which directed NEA “to make endorsements for political candidates at the national level through direct membership vote only,” it was pretty much doomed.
Union democracy has its limits when it comes to political endorsements.
So, rather than allowing a vote, Clare and Trisha’s NBI was referred the executive committee, consisting of NEA’s nine highest-ranking officers.
“Referring to committee” is where rank and file members’ ideas go to die if the leadership isn’t happy with them.
But Clare and Trisha’s NBI was prompted by the wide-spread criticism from members – mainly Bernie supporters – of the bullshit tactics and manipulated process that NEA leaders used to ensure its endorsement of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.
Clare told me recently, “If elected (as a delegate) to the NEA RA, we will definitely present it again.”
On the AFT side, President Randi Weingarten has been silent this time on who the AFT will endorse, but she has not been quiet about her dislike for the progressive CONTINUE READING: Are the NEA and AFT leaders gun shy on a presidential endorsement this time? – Fred Klonsky