To: SPFPA Local 1955 members
From: International Union, SPFPA International Executive Board and
SPFPA Local 1955 Executive Board
Date: September 4, 2026
Re: Disaffiliation Petition
The 2021 Affiliation Agreement permits a disaffiliation election only on the following conditions:
In order for such a vote to be conducted, at least 30% of the bargaining unit must sign and date a written statement requesting the vote, with such signatures dated at least 30 and no more than 60 days before the 5th anniversary date, and presented to the SPFPA Local 1955, IESA Secretary-Treasurer and the International Union SPFPA Secretary Treasurer. Affiliation Agreement, paragraph 7.
The window period for submitting the signatures expired no later than August 25, 2026.
On August 25, 2026, an email was received by the SPFPA Local 1955 Secretary Treasurer with an attachment containing scanned copies of various documents, including some identified with a header as petitions seeking a disaffiliation election. The documents included pages with lines that contained a total of 333 purported signatures. While some of the pages submitted included a heading that stated it was a disaffiliation petition, many other pages had no heading but just signatures. On pages with the petition heading, many of the signatures were incomplete, without date, or duplicates with others in the submitted pages. It appears that only 176 unique and dated signatures were submitted on petition forms identifying the purpose of the signature, and even those signatures have not been verified.
In any event, even if one assumed for the sake of argument that 333 signatures were submitted, this is 30% of only 1,110, significantly less than the more than 1500 bargaining unit members we have. The still unverified 176 submissions on a petition form with signature and date represents only approximately 11% of the bargaining unit, far short of the required signatures to permit an election to take place.
On the same date, a separate submission was made to the International Secretary Treasurer. It is noted that a preliminary review of those submissions also revealed duplicate signatures and other invalid signatures. Regardless, as the submission to the SPFPA Local 1955 Secretary Treasurer was not sufficient to permit the calling of an election, there is no need to review and determine whether the separate submission of signatures to the International Secretary Treasurer reached the required threshold.
Under the terms of the Affiliation Agreement, the International Union and Local 1955 Executive Boards determine the submissions to be insufficient to permit the scheduling of a disaffiliation election.