Union Wide:
The Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers is holding an election on Dec. 6 2005, to fill vacancies on the Executive Board, some Joint Councils, and some Union Representatives. I cannot tell you all that is going on Union wide because that information is not routinely provided by the Union Office.
I believe that a healthy Union would.
FAS Arts: Fenstermacher casts support to Butler:
The Guy by the Door nominated himself for Executive Board from the Arts Region of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. While I have worked with the Reform slate in the past, I felt then and still feel that their campaign approach is rigid and narrow. The issues are good, but the presentation is a tedious monotone. I think their are people who would vote the platform if arguments were less didactic and more dialectical . However, I have been unable to execute the kind of campaign I think the HUCTW rank and file deserve. My clear second choice is Genevieve Butler who while less experienced in campaigning than I am, is younger and stronger than I am. Further, she has more time to learn. I ask anyone who had considered voting for me to consider voting for her. If you do vote for her based on my suggestion, you are welcome to ask me to intervene if you feel that, in the excercise of her office, she is not communicating with you as well as she should. Hopefully, this will not be necessary.
Harvard College Library Joint Council
My hat is still in the ring for the Harvard College Joint Council. If you are tired of figuring out which way to swipe your card on the way into Widener and/or Lamont, vote for me. It’s just one example silly 🙂 [I mentioned it to Lynn 2 or more years ago. Nada!]
Union Participation
HUCTW has been a very low participation Union for as long as I have been a member. In the last election, only eight people from the Medical School voted. I spoke with Scott Morley, now at MIT, who formerly worked there. He said that he had been barely aware of any activity in the Union. Elections can be an important part of keeping a Union active and strong. Yet they aren’t.
The Election Process
I claim that the administration of the elections contributes to low voter turnout. The rigid control of information about the elections discourages greater involvement in the Union. As mentioned above, I think Union members ought to be aware of what’s going on in other regions of Harvard. For example, we on the Cambridge Campus ought to know what the issues are facing the folks who work in the Med School. At the SEIU 615 rally at the Harvard Club, I saw many familar faces from previous campaigns. They were not just from Cambridge. Some were from the B school, and some from the Med School. In my mind, that is a sign of a better organized Union.
Tomorrow, as in previous elections, the polling will take place in an elaborate checker board of locations. Polling places pop up in places for an hour or two and are gone. You have to know the schedule to vote. I am told that the schedule was mailed to all members homes. I haven’t seen it yet. I did get the nomination annoucement, so my address entry in Union database was correct at one point.
We could get better turnout if the the schedule were, in addition to being mailed, also posted to the Union website. The word processor that was used to prepare the hard copy of the schedule can not doubt be induced to emit crude HTML. Besides, we’re supposed to be the CLERICAL and TECHNICAL Union. Surely we can do it. Right now I have to go check in with SLAM and later Dorchester People for Peace, but I will post the Polling Schedule to the OpenHUCTW website later tonight.