Occupy MTA
End Rule by the 1%, Allow Members to Vote
Last October, the MTA President and Vice President invited members to join a rally on Boston Common to defend democracy. The MTA Board of Directors had passed a new business item stating “organized labor and its allied labor organizations must respond with nonviolent action to defend the democratic process, the Constitution and an orderly transfer of power that is one of the historic hallmarks of American democracy.”
More ironic words were never written.
MTA leaders were calling on members to congregate on Boston Common to hold signs to defend the “democratic process,” yet every single one of them owes their positions to the suppression of member votes and a general perversion of democracy.
MTA Bylaws explicitly state that MTA members DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE for their representatives. Here’s the Bylaws: “The President and Vice President shall be elected by majority vote of the delegates at the Annual Meeting of Delegates.” Only delegates to the Annual Meeting may vote.
If you belong to the MTA, chances are you have no choice. Your local is affiliated with the MTA; you want the protections your union provides. If you’re a teacher, you pay the MTA $500 per year for the privilege of belonging to your own local.
Let me say that I believe in teacher unions. I used to believe in the MTA in spite of its flaws. Now I’m not so sure. In the last 18 months, I’ve learned a lot, and as a small d democratic, I’m mad as hell about the lack of democracy in the MTA. Seriously, the situation is so bad that most of our 117,000 members don’t even realize that they can’t vote for those who allegedly represent us.
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Recently, the District Director, our representative for District 6A on the MTA Board of Directors, resigned. A friend suggested that I run for the position. Okay, I thought. I’ve been critical of the MTA Leadership for the last year and a half, and why not put my money where my mouth has been? I could work to improve things from the inside.
Last Friday, I started to put a campaign together. I made a list of people to contact in each of the 6A school systems. I drafted a letter to send to local presidents. I planned to follow up with a Facebook group where people in District 6A could post questions and comments. Aside from teaching, I’ve worked in politics and government for 20 years.
Fool that I am, I had assumed that the dues-paying teachers and paraprofessionals who worked in District 6A would vote for me or whoever else decided to run. I’m embarrassed and angry to say that’s not the case. MTA Members do not get to vote on the people who represent them.
Our MTA Leadership may be worried about the democratic process in Washington, but closer to home, the Bylaws explicitly limit votes to delegates who attend the Annual Meeting. How many members become delegates and attend the meeting? About one percent.
If I ran for District Director, only people who attended the previous Annual Meeting would be able to vote for me. That left out the entire school system of East Longmeadow. None of us attended the annual meeting. I couldn’t even vote for myself.
Four people in neighboring Longmeadow attended the Annual Meeting. So did four in the neighboring Hampden-Wilbraham school system. I doubt other locals in my district had had a better turnout. At most 20 people from District 6A could have voted if I ran.
The dirty secret of MTA democracy is MEMBERS CAN’T VOTE for the people who represent them. You may pay dues. You may be active in your local. You may believe (or not) in everything the MTA President says. But YOU DON’T GET TO VOTE for the people that are supposed to represent you.
The only people that count in MTA elections are the one percent of the membership that attends the Annual Meeting. The President speaks for our entire union, but she is elected by less than 1% of the membership. YOU CAN’T VOTE.
If I had kept myself in the running for the Board of Directors, I might have been elected. I might have run unopposed. But I have withdrawn my candidacy. I had thought I might be able to make the MTA more democratic by working within it. But I’ve decided, that’s too much to expect from an organization that protests threats to democracy in Washington and ignores its own deeply undemocratic practices at home.
Most people are familiar with the fact that American colonists once rebelled based on the principle that “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” There is less at stake, but the MTA is no different. We pay dues, but we can’t choose our own representatives. DELEGATES COUNT, MEMBERS DON’T. It’s that simple.
The leaders of the MTA do not “represent” us in any democratic sense. They are elected by the handful of activists who may or may not have our best interests in mind. (I know many of them. They are good folks who do care about members).
This may not be tyranny, but it sure as hell is not democracy.