NEA members organize to rescind Biden endorsement.
The tradition of early Democratic Party presidential endorsements while asking for nothing in return.
The National Education Association, the largest labor union in the United States, endorsed Joe Biden for a second term in April of last year.
Early endorsements of Democrats for president is an NEA tradition.
Nothing is asked for in return and that’s been my beef with the leadership. It’s not a good look for a union that doesn’t even try to bargain for their endorsement.
I was a member for over thirty years and this kind of stuff drove me nuts.
When the NEA endorsed Obama early, what did we get? Arne Duncan.
When the NEA gave Hillary Clinton an early endorsement I opposed it. What did we get in exchange for that endorsement? Donald Trump.
I blogged about it at the time.
Leaked emails revealed how the NEA rank and file was being manipulated and lied to by union leadership in order to seal the deal on a Hillary endorsement over Bernie Sanders.
In 2016 I resigned my position from the editorial committee of the IEA Insider after the IEA communications director at the time, Charles McBarron, refused to link any of the articles from this blog, in part because I wrote of of my opposition to the early Hillary endorsement.
As I say, the deal was already sealed.
What did we get for this early endorsement of Hillary Clinton?
We demanded nothing and got nothing but a terrible candidate and four years of Donald Trump.
This year Joe Biden has a clear path to nomination but the outcome of the November election is very much in doubt.
A major issue dividing the Democrats is the continued administration support for Israeli slaughter in Gaza and the West Bank.
In fact, it may be the issue that costs Biden the election and gives us Donald Trump.
Again.
Now it seems some rank and file NEA members are urging the union to rescind its support for President Biden until a "permanent cease-fire" occurs in Gaza.
According to The Nation, teachers are organizing to urge the NEA to rescind its support for Biden’s re-election after first announcing it last April.
Rahaf Othman, a 45-year-old Palestinian American and social studies teacher, told The Nation that she was "distraught" to find out about the Israel-Palestinian conflict that started with the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7.
She explained, "our union has been very focused on racial and social justice, and supporting him when he is not only funding but also sending weapons killing my people sends me the message that we don’t matter, and that we are collateral damage and that’s OK."
Othman, a member of the Illinois Education Association (IEA) Local 218, said she joined the effort to sway the NEA to drop its endorsement for Biden until he "secures a permanent cease-fire," The Nation reported.
The Nation described the effort as a "small-but-growing campaign in the US labor movement."
The teachers plan to withhold voluntary donations from the union’s political action committee "until NEA takes this step."
Members are not planning to withhold union dues, however.
Rank and file NEA members have pushed 19 local, state, and regional bodies of the NEA to pass resolutions calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and claim credit for NEA President Becky Pringle’s tweet in support of a cease-fire.