Dear Delegates,
School Employee Alliance members were out in force at the November 2009 House of Delegates Meeting. We hope you received and have reviewed our materials which addressed two issues:

• Support for a proposed amendment which would have ensured that any union leadership must explain, discuss, and debate any and all referendums with a delegate’s recommendation before a full membership vote. We are disappointed with the typical partisan position of the officers availing themselves of unconfirmed technicalities, to once again deny the House of Delegates its proper authority.

• Our perspective on the November 20th referendum (vote) in schools, as we have indicated, is that the current elected leadership is using our union dues, and all the resources and manpower at their disposal to protect their own politically tenuous positions.
  CTU/UPC “Leadership” Under Marilyn Stewart Speaks for Itself.

• In August, 2007, Ms. Stewart et al imposed the current contract on the membership by denying the House of Delegates an opportunity for a legitimate vote. Since that defining moment of Stewart’s tenure House meetings have continued to be plagued with fraudulent vote counts.

• In May, 2008, Delegates were brazenly informed that the Chicago Teachers Union was bankrupt. Stewart blamed everyone and everything but her administration, in spite of having been in office for over four years and having inherited a 5.2 million dollar surplus from the previous administration. That year ended with a June 2008 budget vote in which Stewart and her cronies flipped a clearly failed budget vote of 194-163 to a passed vote of 194-163.

• The 2008-2009 school year however, saw a September House of Delegates meeting which overwhelmingly passed a new voting procedure; dividing the House of Delegates and counting off votes one by one to halt Stewart & Co.’s deceitful vote counting practices. Stewart then cancelled the October, 2008 meeting leading to speculation of fear the delegates wouldn’t support her pension candidates.

• Again Stewart’s UPC mailed materials urging support for their Executive Board endorsed candidates without approval of the delegates. This mailing, again, presumably paid for with our dues money.

• Subsequent monthly meetings provided the new voting procedure to be utilized effecting accurate vote counts. Stewart did everything she could to thwart the new procedure, but on numerous occasions, her initial vote counts were clearly discredited by the new method.

Learn more about us and our plans for saving our union from further ruin!