The National Education Association still has hopes of holding its annual Representative Assembly in July in Atlanta. Over the past few years the union has made great strides in virtual conferencing, but a meeting with 6,000 delegates can’t be done like a Zoom get-together. (Although it seems the Nebraska State Education Association is going to try it with 300.)
One way or another, there will be some changes. NEA has informed its state affiliates that all delegates to the convention will have to be elected under the rules established by the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA).
This is a tacit admission that the union expects the new “intermediate bodies” regulation of the U.S. Department of Labor to soon become finalized.
The LMRDA requires unions to annually report detailed financial transactions, among other things. Public sector unions have always been exempt, unless they have as few as a single member who works in the private sector.
NEA, AFT, and a handful of their affiliates have always been subject to LMRDA, because they have members in health care or private education support businesses. Under the new regulation, all NEA and AFT affiliates would be subject to the law, because they are “intermediate bodies” of the national unions.
NEA has battled against this interpretation since it was first proposed during the George W. Bush administration. In one respect, it has given up the fight.
NEA informed all its affiliates that delegates to the 2020 Representative Assembly must be elected according to LMRDA rules.
Some affiliates have historically allowed incumbent union officers to automatically serve as RA delegates, and others simply ask for volunteers to fill those slots. Under the new rules, those practices will not be permitted.
Members have to be notified by mail of the nomination and ballot process. Delegate elections must be open to the entire rank-and-file and be conducted by secret ballot, either by mail or approved electronic procedure.
Some affiliates had previously put these procedures into place, but the NEA mandate now suggests the union expects to live in an LMRDA world.
What this means for members and the rest of us is that financial disclosures of the type we currently have for the national union will soon start appearing for affiliates like the California Teachers Association, New Jersey Education Association and Massachusetts Teachers Association.
The election procedure itself may be academic, at least for 2020. Somehow I don’t think NEA will want to place thousands of delegates in an enclosed space for hours on end for four or more days, then send them home to all 50 states, regardless of how well we have weathered the virus by July.
