Ontario Teachers Union Weights Votes Based on Race
A teachers union in the Canadian province of Ontario has implemented a new voting policy.
One branch of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation voted 68% in favor of giving its “Indigenous, Black and racialized” leaders more representation when voting on union policy.
The weighted voting applies to when the board of local presidents meets, each member representing one school from the area. The votes of racial minority members will be weighted to represent at least 50% of total votes.
For example, if 15 school representatives are white and 5 identify as “racialized” then each of the racialized representatives’ will be given 3x as many votes in order to even the balance between whites and non-whites.
Union members who complained that this is “reverse racism” were later told in emails by union leadership that the term was “harmful and discriminatory.”