Democratic Socialists of America backed candidates in the running for United Federation of Teachers leadership - largest local teachers union in country

In a 2018 memo, the DSA outlined its strategy for infiltration and control of the UFT

Three slates of candidates are running in the United Federation of Teachers elections: Unity, Arise, and A Better Contract.

Unity is current president Michael Mulgrew’s slate of candidates.

Arise is headed by Olivia Swisher - running for UFT President. Olivia Swisher follows, and is followed by, NYCEducatorsforPalestine on instagram, the group behind the Teach Palestine Week resources covered in this Substack. She also follows Woke Kindergarten.

Swisher is a member of the More Caucus (movement of rank and file educators) within UFT. MORE also has ties to the People’s Forum, which bills itself as an “incubator” for the “working class” and spends much of its time providing extreme anti-Israel content and activities in partnership with extremist groups like Palestinian Youth Movement. The MORE caucus is followed by the NYCDSA, and MORE appears to be backing the ARISE slate in the upcoming election.

The NYC branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, in a strategy memo published in 2018, identified the MORE Caucus as the best entryway to influencing the United Federation of Teachers. As they write in the memo:

“Political Status: UFT is the largest local of one of the largest unions in the country. It has the potential to be extremely influential in electoral politics. It is extremely internally undemocratic, but there is a reform caucus, MORE, which has many active DSA members.”

“There are many DSA teachers, and there is a large support network for new teachers and teacher activists….here is a reform caucus, MORE, which has many active DSA members”

“DSA Member Density - Anecdotally speaking, education seems to be one of the sectors with the largest concentration of NYC DSA active union membership. The teachers’ working group meets regularly and has regular happy hours, and has already had some success encouraging and supporting DSA members in making the career switch into education. Even beyond active labor branch members, it seems possible that there could be over a hundred DSA teachers (numbers that would make our teacher membership larger than the most significant UFT reform caucus). There is a significant support network for new DSA teachers, with a large number of experienced rank and file activists and leaders in the organization.”

“There is a reform caucus, the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) that shows promise and has many DSA members that participate actively. With more DSA teachers, we could bolster and significantly support the internal movement for democracy and militant organizing within the union, but it will likely take years to reform the UFT, for new teachers to gain the experience and credibility that it will take to play a meaningful role in that work, and for the landscape to shift in such a way as to be amenable to the kind of militancy and worker democracy to which we aspire.”

One of these things is not like the other:

Then there’s the A Better Contract (ABC) slate headed by Amy Arundell who, on her now deleted X account, reposted that “Zionists are literally the most evil people to walk this earth.” Arundell had been removed from her position as a UFT representative for the Queens Borough after she criticized the UFT’s decision to condemn the October 7th terror attack by Hamas.

According to an End Jew Hatred petition, Arundell is supported by CAIR and is also a member of the DSA-supported MORE caucus.

Also on the ABC slate is Steve Swieciki. Swieciki is a high school social studies teacher and a member of the DSA.

The United Federation of Teachers represents most public school teachers in NYC - it has around 200, 000 members, and of those roughly 75 000 are teachers. It is the largest local teachers union in the United States. And two out of its three candidate slates are being run by DSA- aligned candidates.

It seems that with this 2025 election, the DSA’s 2018 strategy is beginning to pay off.