Well, you're reading the words of United Teachers of Los Angeles' Political Action Committee member. Elected today out of 6 candidates (they took 4) I managed to have the second highest tally of votes by using my one-minute speech to say something other than "i've been in the union for a long time and give a lot of money to it," namely "I actually have political experience." The rest of my first union meeting seemed to be mostly about trying to get people who have obviously been there for a long time to remember how parliamentary procedure works (ie: you can't have a motion that just has a whole bunch of "since the district does this..." complaints and no actual action). Why is it that, no matter if it's teachers with masters degrees or plumbers, all union members look the same? Do they all buy their satin too-small baseball jackets from the same union-bug textile manufacturer? Also, somewhat disturbing in a district where about a quarter of teachers are in their first or second year, that I was the youngest person there by 10 years.