An unpleasant incident at the Convention

Sometime during Tuesday afternoon’s session (right before the election),  I found a copy of a post I had made a while back in front of my seat at the delegates’ table. Looking around, I discovered that it had been distributed to most of the delegates as a piece of campaign literature. Whoever printed it up and distributed it also went to the trouble of using yellow highlighter to mark all of my criticisms of Florence. And there was no indication at all of who had done all of that.

I was not happy about this. I had not been asked my permission to reprint what I had written and I had not been informed in advance. And I was extremely unhappy about being used as part of a political campaign, especially when the use was in such as way as to give Florence no chance to respond (although she did have the opportunity to respond on the blog at any time since the original post, of course).

I rose to a point of personal privilege before the voting began to inform the delegates that the distribution was unauthorized by me. The issue came up again on Wednesday morning when a delegate whose name I didn’t catch rose on a point of personal privilege to protest against the anonymous distribution of the post and to suggest that all campaign literature distributed in future AFM elections clearly indicate who was responsible for putting it out.

The question became more significant when the closeness of the vote became apparent. If 8 of Sam’s votes had gone for Florence, she would have won. If Florence had gotten 15 of the 19 votes not cast, she would have won. 8 votes likely represented no more than 3 or 4 delegates’ votes, and could have been as few as two. And it’s not impossible –OK, not even unlikely – that a handful of delegates changed their votes, or decided not to cast them at all,  because they read what I had written immediately before they voted.

The fact that I had not put it in front of them that afternoon doesn’t change the facts that I wrote it and that it might have cost Florence the election – and, of course, her job. That’s a very uncomfortable thought. I’ve spent a lot of emotional energy since Tuesday night trying to figure it out. On the one hand, I didn’t vote for her and didn’t think she should have been re-elected. On the other hand, I didn’t become a labor activist in order to cause people to lose their jobs. I’ve known Florence a long time and worked with her closely during the six years I was chair of ICSOM. I know her far more than well enough to imagine what she’s going through as a result of having lost this election. It’s easy to understand why she would blame me for it.

What I’ve been telling myself is that, if Florence had been widely respected as an AFM officer before the election, nothing I would have written would have made a rat’s ass worth of difference to her prospects (in fact she probably would have been unopposed). Florence was golden when she was first elected to the S/T position in 2001. She was popular, she had gotten more votes than any other candidate for any office, and everyone wanted her to succeed. If one document, distributed the day of the election, could have tipped the election, then she was way more vulnerable than anyone had thought, including me, Sam Folio (who had gone back to Reno right after the votes were cast in the clear expectation of losing), and her slatemates. And being that vulnerable required a four-year project in which I played no part at all until a few weeks ago.

All of that is absolutely and incontrovertibly true. Nonetheless, something about this doesn’t feel at all right to me, and I’m still trying to figure out if that something is anything I did. Reason tells me that it isn’t, but reason isn’t the only way of coming to correct conclusions.

Comments

[I saw 2 young women putting the stuff on the tables.]

I saw the young women who were working for Teresa Gafford placing the copies on the delegates tables of Robert Levine's AFM Obsverver post about Florence Nelson. This was very early one morning before most of us arrived in the hall. I was disgusted when I saw what they were putting there. It was clear they were mostly helping Tom Lee's campaign by putting his stuff out on each day too. I voted for Florence just because of that.

[Drew McManus]

People use your writings in ways you didn't intend? Not a new story but that doesn't make it any better. In the end, I'm still happy to see something like this site up because it increases dialog which, hopefully, results in better outcomes.

"You'll never stop bad people from doing bad things but you can reduce the temptation of good people to make bad decisions." - me.

[Pete Vriesenga]

Robert wrote: "Nonetheless, something about this doesn’t feel at all right to me, and I’m still trying to figure out if that something is anything I did. Reason tells me that it isn’t, but reason isn’t the only way of coming to correct conclusions."

This was a decision by a majority of the delegates, including myself. We all share responsibility for this outcome.

Your commentary on Florence's job performance as Secretary-Treasurer was a reasoned criticism and example of healthy discourse. Even still, Florence would have maintained my support. My loyalty slipped away when she signed on to Ed's slate; all of whom never convinced me of sufficient reasons to remove Tom.

I appreciate your feelings of personal responsibility, but this eleventh-hour bomb may have had the opposite affect. I was ready to again support Florence after I returned from a break to find your commentary on the tables, and would not be at all surprised if many delegates had the same reaction. This may have backfired to some degree in Florence's favor as many delegates must have shared my initial reaction: Who did this?

By the start of the elections it became apparent to me that the unauthorized distribution of your commentary was not from Sam's campaign. The anonymous anti-Florence folks who are so prevalent at two of four discussion blogs seem the more likely source.

In conclusion, I honestly don't believe this mean-spirited strategy had much affect on the outcome. The only certainty is the 2005 Convention will be remembered for some good work that was accomplished -- it will also be remembered for personal vendettas.

In Solidarity,
Pete Vriesenga