In a landslide victory for United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) incumbent President Alex Caputo-Pearl, he and his fellow Union Power candidates have been re-elected by a substantial margin- a strong endorsement of the union’s direction in de-centralizing power and the union’s movement toward community organizing that has been UTLA’s focus since his tenure began in 2014.

Caputo-Pearl, who heads the Union Power ticket, received 82% of the vote to his challenger’s 18%. Union Power candidates won all seven officer positions outright and all positions they ran for on the Board of Directors, building on Union Power’s decisive results from 2014. Officer candidates must secure more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff and be elected.

Since Caputo-Pearl and his leadership team took office in 2014, UTLA has reinvented itself as a proactive, organizing union, building coalitions with parents and the community to make progress for our schools and protect public education from privatization under the banner of the Schools LA Students Deserve campaign.

Caputo-Pearl’s victory and the broader results for Union Power reflect a mandate and build greater momentum behind the union’s immediate priorities:

 

 

• Building escalating actions in support of re-opener and successor contract bargaining, including demands for salary increases, protection of active and retiree health benefits, class-size reduction, increases in staff supporting the social and emotional well-being of students, and more, within the framework of bargaining for the common good.

 

• Organizing behind recently submitted state legislation in support of funding a community school model and in support of equity, access, local accountability, and transparency for charter school operators.

 

• Defending our students and communities from federal anti-immigrant and anti-human rights attacks, while continuing to expose the Trump/DeVos/CA Charter Schools Association privatization agenda.

 

• Organizing behind pro-public school, pro-community school candidates in the School Board elections.

 

• Increasing site organizing and representation power to improve conditions at local schools.

 

The election results are pending challenges and must be certified by the UTLA Board to be official. The new officers and Board of Directors members take office July 1, 2017, and will serve until June 30, 2020. Ballots were sent to 31,036 members, and 8,187 ballots were cast, a higher turnout than the last citywide election, in 2014, when 7,158 members voted out of 31,505 ballots sent.

Complete election results are posted at www.utla.net/members/utla-elections/all-candidate-election-results<http://www.utla.net/members/utla-elections/all-candidate-election-results?utm_source=All+Member+Email+List%2C+Started+9%2F25%2F2015&utm_campaign=e2a9567268-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_02_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a7138b2d58-e2a9567268->

UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union local, represents more than 35,000 teachers and health & human services professionals who work in the Los Angeles Unified School District and in charter schools.

www.utla.net<http://www.utla.net/>

http://wearepublicschools.org<http://wearepublicschools.org/>