What 'Victory'? CTU press aide continues to promote Stewart side in current dispute in official union notification
You would think that when one candidate out of five has received less than one-third of the votes in a hotly contested election that that candidate would refrain from claiming it had been a "victory." And many people think that the Chicago Teachers Union — the union itself — is a neutral party in the current election, where the union president and her caucus are one candidate.
But on May 22, the Chicago Teachers Union's official spokesman, on union letterhead, officially referred to the amount of votes received by Marilyn Stewart and her United Progressive Caucus as Stewart's "victory."
In a May 22 press release issued by the union on union letterhead, union press spokesman Rose Maria Genova referred to Stewart's "victory" in the May 21, 2010, election, while reporting, accurately, that Stewart would be one of two candidates in a runoff to be held on June 11, following the five-way race of May 21, 2010.
Below is the full text of the press release issued by the Chicago Teachers Union on Saturday May 22:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Rosemaria Genova
May 22, 2010 Office: 312/329-6250/Cell: 708/712-4629
STEWART AND LEWIS IN RUN-OFF FOR
HEAD OF CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION
Chicago—Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart, representing the United Progressive Caucus (UPC), will face a run-off election for the union presidency.
According to the American Arbitration Association which counted the ballots in yesterday’s election between the five candidates running for the top spot, Marilyn Stewart and Karen Lewis, of the Caucus Of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE) caucus, will now have to face each other in a June 11th run-off.
The vote breakdown from what has been counted as of early this morning, with approximately 36 of more than 600 schools still unaccounted for, gave Stewart roughly 6,280 or (32.3%) and CORE roughly 5,970 or (30.7%), PACT roughly 3,140 or (16.1%), CSDU roughly 1,270 or (6.5%), SEA roughly 1,130 (5.8%). Defeated were CTU Field Representative Theodore “Ted” Hajiharis, CTU Treasurer Linda Porter, and former CTU president Debbie Lynch. Nearly 20,000 of the 26,000 members eligible voted Friday. Union guidelines require that a candidate must win with 50% plus 1 in order to avoid a run-off election.
The Canvassing Committee will meet on Monday, May 24th, at the American Arbitration Association at 4:00 p.m. to count the remaining ballots and certify the results.
A confident Stewart thanked her union members for their support: “I want to thank all who supported our team. It is time now to come together and finish the job we started so we can continue to protect all of our members against the serious fiscal crisis we face in dealing with Chicago’s public schools.”
Stewart credited her victory on running a truthful campaign that addressed the members’ concerns. “Our caucus went from school to school and took time to put forth a realistic view of the situation. Many of my opponents chose to give ‘pie-in-the-sky’ promises in order to get a vote. Our team understood the importance of what is at stake with respect to the current situation. I believe the members saw through the empty rhetoric and false promises.”
Several factors played a key role in the election, including the threat of increasing class sizes to 35 and the threatened layoffs of thousands of teachers.
Stewart said her team would begin immediately to campaign for the support of members for the June 11th run-off. “We will continue to work hard to ensure the victory that began with today’s win.”
Stewart has been CTU president for the past six years. Prior to that, Stewart was a special education teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing for 28 years at Kinzie Elementary School on the city’s southwest side.
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The Chicago Teachers Union represents 31,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in the Chicago Public Schools. CTU, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, is the third largest union in the country and the largest local union in Illinois.
For further information regarding this press release and current CTU news, please visit our website at www.ctunet.com.
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By: Sharon Schmidt
Hilarious
That's a joke that that press release came from the CTU instead of UPC.