The American Federation of Teachers has ordered the Baltimore Teachers Union to throw out results of its May election for teacher chapter president and hold new balloting, exacerbating tensions within the fractured group.
After investigating a challenge to the two-vote victory of Sharon Blake over Marietta A. English, the AFT concluded that local union members should be given a "fresh opportunity to express their preferences in a rerun that is free from material irregularities."
Other officers in the teacher chapter - several of whose contests were decided by fewer than 20 votes - also would have to run again in the new election.
The AFT's investigation committee, which issued a report on the election Tuesday, determined that some union members were prevented from voting because they were not provided "clear" information about polling sites, while others were mistakenly allowed to vote. Several ballots were left uncounted, and accurate membership lists were not distributed to every polling location, the report indicated.
Blake, a former social studies teacher at Douglass High School, said yesterday that she was considering an appeal to the U.S. Labor Department.
"I don't think we have any choice but to continue on through the democratic process," she said.
Lorretta Johnson, president of the BTU's teacher aide chapter for nearly 30 years and an English supporter, said she favors another election, which probably would be held at the end of next month or the beginning of October. She also questioned the merit of an appeal.
"Both the [local] election committee and the AFT investigated this situation and made a [similar] recommendation," she said. "That's enough."
English, who with the local election committee had challenged the election results, called the AFT decision fair and said she would campaign "equally as hard, if not harder" in a new election.
Blake's narrow victory in May set off an internal struggle for control of the 8,500-member BTU, which has teacher and teacher aide chapters.
An influential vice president of the national AFT and president of the state AFT, Johnson had been the unofficial leader of both local chapters, which had functioned as one. After her election, Blake moved to separate them, segregating their finances and creating an independent executive board, shifting the balance of power away from Johnson for the first time in years.
