NTEU PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN BEGINS
The Washington Post carried a nice piece March 9th about the retiring NTEU National President, but the bigger news may be what it did not address, namely, the campaign to replace her. The first announced candidates appear to be Tony Reardon and Jim Bailey for President and Executive Vice President, respectively. Both have been NTEU staffers almost from the day they graduated from school. Tony spent most of his time with NTEU running the business side of the $40 million dollar a year operation, namely, accounting, real estate, investments, technology, etc. However, over a year ago he was elected National Executive Vice President which put him into significant representational work. For example, he chaired the recently completed NTEU-IRS contract. Jim is an attorney who came up through the ranks of the field staff. Most recently he has been in charge of how local chapters got serviced, e.g., arbitration of selected grievances, local bargaining assistance, membership building, field staff assignments, etc.. The election is early this August and we will report if any other candidates arise from the membership to create a race. This election is not just a big deal for NTEU, but the entire federal sector given the pivotal position NTEU holds to drive change in many unions.