New York School Aide Booted from Ballot

Tripping up an insurgent campaign among school aides, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 372 disqualified in mid-November a dissident candidate for the union’s executive board.

Tony Ferina sought election to the school aide chapter chair in the local, part of AFSCME District Council 37, one of the nation’s largest public sector unions.

Ferina had announced his intention to seek office next spring in Local 372’s election on the “Mail Ballot” slate, which campaigns on a good-governance platform and calls on the local to provide members a ballot at their home. Members from all five boroughs currently must travel to Manhattan to vote, where polls are open for nine hours.

The three-term president of the local, Virginia Montgomery-Costa, won re-election two years ago with 417 votes from among the local’s 27,000 members. Ferina contested that election, too, losing the secretary-treasurer race by a 375-to-125 margin.

MEMBERSHIP DISPUTED

Ferina, an aide at Newtown High School in Queens, brought two fellow stewards to the nominating meeting in mid-October, anticipating that his candidacy to represent 14,000 school aides would be challenged. He received a letter from the union’s election committee two weeks before the November 13 election advising him that Belinda Boyd, who nominated him, had “failed to submit a completed membership application” despite paying dues for seven years and voting in the last union election.

SUPPORT LABOR NOTES

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR

Give $10 a month or more and get our "Fight the Boss, Build the Union" T-shirt.

Susan Vignola, another aide at Newtown, said all aides at their hiring date complete the membership form, which is required to authorize dues deductions.

“People are upset—we go months without seeing anybody from the union,” she said. “Why are we carrying around union cards and having $17.90 deducted every other week? They’re grasping at straws because they’re fearful that Tony is gaining ground.”

Boyd was unavailable for comment, and Costa did not return calls to Labor Notes. Ferina appealed, although his move didn’t delay the election. He noted that local rules and AFSCME guidelines prohibit write-in candidates.

Ferina said he sought the executive board seat because the local has failed to protect aides who take students off school grounds, and to challenge part-time wages and benefits for aides who work full-time schedules. Two candidates for the school-aide chair, both Costa supporters, will face each other again in a run-off in coming weeks after deadlocking at 12 votes each at the November poll, Ferina said.

“Costa controls everything so there’s no wrinkle in the system,” he said.