Strengthening Union Democracy

"A union will act in the interests of members only if those members control the union." - Labor Notes' Democracy is Power (2005)

Our Theory of Change: Democracy = Power

At the root of what we are working towards is the necessary expansion of democracy in the WTU. It is not enough to hold leadership elections every 3 years. Rank and file members must be directly involved in union decision-making on all important decisions. Not only will this ensure that those decisions are in the best interest of all members, it will allow our union to take on more actions and issues. We have seen positive changes in teachers' unions from our neighbors in Baltimore to the midwest in Minneapolis and Chicago all the way to the west in Seattle, Portland, Oakland and Los Angeles. We too can be a part of this movement for change.

How to expand democracy

Join our Bylaws Campaign

1. Update and Follow the WTU Constitution and Bylaws: The current Constitution and Bylaws already allow for the WTU Representative Assembly (made up of WTU Representatives and Delegates from every school) to set the policies of the WTU. But this is not happening. There are almost never any votes at all at the Rep Assembly level and when a voting member brings a motion up for a vote, it is often a fight to even be "allowed" to vote. To fix this we are campaigning to create updates to the bylaws before taking office so that the Rep Assembly can be better respected.

2. Activate the Committee Structure: Committees allow interested members to have the opportunity to propose, discuss and create policies, actions, statements, and more for the WTU to act upon. This is where the real work can get done. By spreading committee leadership to rank and file members and supporting their development as leaders, not only can we get more done as a union, we can nurture and grow the next generation of dedicated union leaders. The WTU has a robust committee structure already in place, and more can be proposed through our existing bylaws. Unfortunately for the past three years, most committees have not been meeting regularly and only a few people are invited to lead the meetings, making them hard to schedule and putting too much work on too few shoulders.

3. Bring complete transparency and active communication to all aspects of WTU decision-making:

   • WTU Members should have easy online access to all WTU Minutes, agendas, meeting notes, calendars, financial reports and more.

   • But that is not enough, the WTU must do more to break down and actively communicate what has happened in the past and what is coming up into easily accessible bites of information.

   • Calendar invitations, agendas and relevant documents must be prepared and widely published well in advance of all meetings so that members are aware of what is being discussed

   • Further, members must be invited and allowed to attend any WTU meeting - including all WTU negotiations over the Collective Bargaining Agreement through Open Bargaining.

     
     

Democracy In Action: The Secondary Grading Policy Taskforce

In October 2022 Boswain Shaw posted to the DCPS Educators Only Facebook group his frustration over DCPS' Secondary grading policy and how it was setting his students up to fail. Many people liked and commented on it sharing their frustrations with it. Laura Fuchs reached out over DM and they began drafting some ideas that eventually became a resolution that was presented and passed at the October Representative Assembly Meeting. As the maker of the motion Laura Fuchs used her skills from chair other Union Committees (see below) and serving as the WTU Secretary to create agendas, meeting reminders, a policy report and more. About 10-12 WTU Members, WTU Field Reps and WTU Vice President Regina Bell and WTU President Jaqueline Pogue-Lyons worked together to discuss what changes they would like to see with several members, including Michael Donaldson at Deal and Lashunda Reyonds at McKinley Tech in particular took the lead to create a clear presentation for DCPS. Once the WTU Rep Assembly had voted on the final recommendations from the task force, Regina Bell helped secure a meeting with DCPS officials and policy ideas were presented. DCPS then began their own reexamining of the policy which led to several changes, including a mid-point grading deadline, substandard work definition and an academic integrity policy. Changes around attendance requirements for half-credit courses as well as other potential changes are also possibly to come.

"While the changes were modest, nothing at all would have been done had members not used their collective voice to raise concerns and then put their ideas into action. If the Union had more rank and file member power to back up the work of our committees, I can see greater changes being won on a much larger scale and wider array of issues." - Laura Fuchs

A proven track record: ETA Candidate for WTU President Laura Fuchs has led the way to expanding Union Democracy in the WTU, and she isn't done yet.

Building a Democratic Process with WTU COPE

In 2014 Laura Fuchs was nominated by WTU President Elizabeth Davis to chair the WTU's Committee on Political Education (COPE). Previously decisions on who the union would endorse were made behind closed doors, leading to some arguably questionable choices. Under Laura and Liz's leadership, a process was developed where rank and file members of the committee would provide a questionnaire, interview the candidates, and then vote on recommendations to be brought to the WTU Representative Assembly for final approval. Over the years this process has been put to the test when either the President, WTU Staff or the Executive Board did not agree with the committee's recommendations, but ultimately the WTU Representative Assembly or Membership Assembly always got the final say.

"I had hoped that using the committee and Rep Assembly vote process for COPE would help other committees get the same opportunities to bring their ideas to the members for a vote, but there always seemed to be an excuse for why it couldn't be so." - Laura Fuchs

Showing the possibilities of Open Negotiations during the COVID Pandemic

When classrooms went on lockdown in Spring of 2020 WTU President Davis, union leaders and members quickly realized that the DC Mayor was not going to create a plan to mitigate the spread of the virus in classrooms unless she was forced to. In May of 2020 Laura Fuchs volunteered with other Executive Board Members to research what other Districts were doing. This work morphed into a ~200 person group where members organized themselves by subgroup to create a draft a COVID Memorandum of Agreement to present to the WTU Bargaining Team and DCPS. Using the skills developed as WTU Secretary and COPE Chair, Laura Fuchs helped coordinate the groups, creating the document, compiling the information from each group and bridging the rank and file members with the WTU Executive Board. Combined with radical actions being created and executed by the WTU Organizing Committee chaired by Steve Donkin of Cardozo and the implementation of the actions assisted by Laura, members were able to force the mayor to concede that more had to be done in order to safely reopen schools.

"Unfortunately, after rank and file members presented the COVID MOA to DCPS and the WTU Bargaining Committee, negotiations proceeded behind closed doors and it was significantly weakened, but the document is a testament to what is possible with member input." - Laura Fuchs