Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Rabble Rousers!
Or rather, the day before it. I didn’t really feel like delaying this news any longer than I already have!
Our protests worked! The July election has been overturned by AFSCME International.
What happens next?
We are currently planning our third campaign this year, and things will be different this time. After two failed elections, we need to get more aggressive. Our number one priority is voter turnout. 263 total members participated in the July election- out of 1153 members. That’s about 22%. In the perfect world, we’d like to see 100% voter turnout, obviously, but more realistically we are aiming for 50%. The deadline for this third run of the election is Monday, 27 November.
That’s going to be a little complicated.
Local 696 likes to do things on Thursdays. General Membership Meetings, as enshrined in the Local Constitution, are always on Thursdays. Elections are always on Thursdays. The Thursday before the deadline is Thanksgiving.
We don’t yet know how the Election Committee will resolve this issue, but we will post again when we know!
What happened?
We were pretty stunned at the decision by Judicial Panel Member Michael L. DeMarco. Protests 1 and 2, we felt, were some of our strongest and most likely to succeed. Protest 3, which was upheld, was our strongest protest (shout-out to Evelyn Flint who did all the hours and hours of necessary digging to write it!). We were also disappointed that DeMarco did not choose to have AFSCME International run the election themselves, which was our goal.
However, we are very pleased with the decision in its entirety.
We are very tired.
Look, you’re probably tired of hearing about the 2023 Local 696 election. We’re tired of living it. The Election Committee is tired. Anthony Dinkins and the SBU are tired. We are all tired. None of us want to do this anymore. We are continuing forward because it’s right. It is the right and moral thing to do to hold leadership accountable and make sure the membership has their right to vote freely and fairly. We will keep fighting and protesting until we have a fair election for the membership- one where everyone follows the rules and everyone has a reasonable opportunity to vote without being deliberately misinformed. We are not fighting for ego, for power, or for ourselves. We’re fighting for you.
And we won’t stop.