Organizing 300 Delegates

(Part 1)

June 14, 2024, Retiree Advocate beat Unity for the leadership of the Retired Teachers Chapter. Bennett Fischer became Chapter Leader. Another 24 people became RTC officers or RTC Executive Board members, including me (Assistant Secretary). But that was not all that we won. We beat Unity in a winner-take-all election for Delegates to the UFT Delegate Assembly. We won 300 delegates.

Who are these 300 people? There’s really not a single description. The biggest group came from New Action (I’m omitting the number. Two reasons. One is just to avoid getting too specific. The second is that there is overlap between groups, meaning different people will count differently). In the previous election, Retiree Advocate ran 125 or so. That was a big source, though some of that is overlap with New Action. We, the RA organizers, reached out personally to contacts. And for some of us that meant tapping into brand new folks, and with different backgrounds. At the end of December Marianne Pizzitola put out a call for delegates on our behalf. Roughly 30 - 40 came that way. And once we were close to 300, we asked delegates, some of whom were new to us, to recruit more delegates. A few dozen came like that.

Many of our delegates have previously been Chapter Leaders or Delegates (upwards of 100). Some had recently been at Delegate Assemblies. Others had last attended a DA in the 1990s, at Fashion Industries. Few have experienced the “hybrid” remote/in person Delegate Assemblies of the last few years. And most of our delegates had never been delegates before. We really had a huge range of backgrounds (including political backgrounds) and experience. We have delegates who are deeply involved in progressive politics. We have delegates who had worked closely with the union leadership, including former Unity members. We have delegates who came to us only because of healthcare.

An option, one that we wisely did not choose, would have been to say “Ok, you are delegates, you will get emails that tell you how to attend Delegate Assemblies. See you there.”

But we knew that would not do. Our 300 delegates would have maximum impact if they knew what was going on. They would need to know the technical aspects. They would need to know about Unity’s manipulations in advance, so as not to be completely discouraged and fall away in disgust. If 300 delegates were going to have an impact, as 300, they would need to actually attend the Delegate Assemblies - not just once - but each month.

Two Steps in August

Knowing we needed to be organized is one thing. Organizing is something else. There was discussion in Retiree Advocate. I was clear - we had to find a way to bring delegates into the Delegate Assembly, and had to keep morale up so they kept attending. Ideas floated around… and there was on in particular…

Teams. Gloria Brandman suggested we use teams. A team approach. It took a while to come into full focus. But that’s what we did. We recruited “team leaders” - then changed the names a few times: captains, organizers, and eventually settled on “delegate liaisons” or just “liaisons.” Liaisons would work directly with small groups of delegates, keep them informed, communicate about upcoming dates, take questions, troubleshoot, help with registration, and build relationships.

An easier idea was to hold a big Zoom. An August Zoom. A “Delegates’ Nuts & Bolts” Zoom. Brand new delegates. Pre-hybrid delegates. Everyone could benefit. Plus many of the 300 were excited to see one another face to face. The agenda was easy: What is the Delegate Assembly, how does it run, how do you get there (with in person and remote options and directions) and what we can do there.

Organizing Opportunity

Do you know what came next? Pause for a moment. See if you can guess.

Did you guess? What an opportunity… Our liaisons did their initial outreach - to bring delegates to the Nuts & Bolts Zoom. For an added touch of realism, our zoom was 4:15 on a Wednesday afternoon - just like the Delegate Assemblies. We built our teams by building the zoom, and we built our meeting by building the teams.

We started building relationships. And we got over 200 delegates in a zoom, learning about the Delegate Assembly, and what our role was going to be. It was something to be there. Everybody seemed excited. And everybody was ready to go. But it was August, and the first Delegate Assembly was almost two months away.

Part II next week: Building for October, the first Delegate Assembly of the year.