Congratulations, Thank You, and Remember...

Some delayed "first" reactions to the end of the 2025 UFT elections

Some personal thoughts I want to share – I know, it’s been a full week since the UFT election results were announced – but the campaign was long – I took time to breathe first.

I apologize if you’ve been waiting for something profound; this is not it.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Unity for sweeping. Congratulations to my friends among the winners. Congratulations to any candidate who intends to use their victory to make our union stronger, more responsive to our members, and more engaged with the issues that affect our students, families, and communities. Congratulations to Unity for running a better campaign in 2025. Congratulations on getting so many non-voting members to vote this time. Congratulations to whoever got those Substacks going – not that I loved all the content – but it is a genuine step forward to allow – even encourage – individual voices.

Thank you

Thank you to ARISE. Thank you to retirees who said “of course” when I asked you to be involved. Thank you to retirees who I didn’t know before this campaign, but jumped right in.

Thank you to the ARISE Steering committee – who made it so easy to discuss, plan, and work together. It was great meeting so many activists along the way – you were truly inspiring. And I am fortunate to have made new friends – now that life is quieter I look forward to spending more time with you.

Remember

Your opponents (whichever caucus you ran with) in this campaign, many of them, no matter how horribly you think they conducted themselves, are core UFT activists who make this union run. You don’t have to like them or forgive them, but we will work together. Personal feelings need to be pushed aside.

Remember that this union depends on its members. And we depend especially on a specific group of members: activists, grass roots leaders, many of them chapter leaders or consultation committee members or delegates. These are the real core, the backbone of our union. Very little that the people with office jobs at 52 Broadway decide or do would matter if we did not have our leaders in the schools. And they are the face of the union for most of our members. And leaders in schools could get very little done without our rank and file activists. If a member knows just one “union person” it is probably their chapter leader, and if they know just a few “union people” they are probably the CL and some rank and file activists in their school. And just because one of these folks ran against you, behaved badly, said stupid things – that doesn’t change how important they are to the health and future of the United Federation of Teachers.

I was thinking about naming someone who was a jerk to me throughout this campaign. A complete asshole. But there’s no need. Someone who is a chapter leader, no matter their behavior in the campaign is the face of the union for their members. If they do a good job, so much the better. No matter what they did, they are part of the backbone of the union. Would I socialize with such a person? Not too likely, not today. But treat them with the respect due a rank and file leader in our union? Absolutely.

That’s it?

No. I will write more. There is “what happened” - the stories need to be told. There is the ARISE campaign - what worked, what didn’t. And of course there are the numbers. Serious analysis is important, and will take some time.