As chapter leader, your responsibilities include the following:
- Holding at least six regularly scheduled chapter meetings each year.
- Forming a chapter consultation committee,meeting monthly with the committee and the principal, and reporting the results of the meeting to the chapter.
- Representing all chapter members in informal resolutions of problems with the administration and in grievances.
- Involving the chapter with the union by advising members of meetings, programs, rallies and other activities.
- Attending Delegate Assembly, district and citywide chapter leader meetings and divisional meetings where the concerns of the chapter can be transmitted.
- Explaining VOTE/COPE to the members and collecting VOTE/COPE checkoff cards.
- Explaining the union’s positions to members.
- Providing for informal resolution of problems between members.
- Serving as a resource for members about pensions, health coverage and other matters.
- Providing regular communications to chapter members (emails, electronic or print newsletters) and maintaining the UFT bulletin board.
- Working with the district representative and other union representatives.
- Inviting union speakers into school regularly: officers, staff, the district representative, Welfare Fund speakers and pension experts.
- Contacting and lobbying politicians.
- Registering members to vote.
- Working with parent groups.
- Taking the lead in seeking to ensure that the health, welfare and rights of members are protected.
- Disseminating UFT materials via members’ mailboxes and/or electronically.
- Conducting letter-writing campaigns and other union activities.
- Attending training sessions in order to serve the members better.
- Distributing Welfare Fund forms.
- Protecting the confidentiality of all members.
- Involving newer members and members of functional chapters in the life of the school chapter.
- Ensuring that the negotiated contracts are enforced and implemented at the school level, and that UFT members’ rights and benefits are protected.
- Leading the chapter in discussion, development and implementation of educational policies in the school in accordance with union policy.
- Functioning as the chapter’s historian,keeping records that need to be handed down.