New election to be held for GFT president

by Krystal Paco

Guam - A new election for the president of the Guam Federation of Teachers union will have to be held before May 15.  The election is part of an agreement between the GFT and the U.S. Department of Labor. The election follows complaints filed by Carol Somerfleck, who ran for president of the union against Matt Rector last February.

The union maintains that it unintentionally left out of its election mailer to members that they would be able to vote at the GFT office in the event their polling site was not open. According to USDOL's investigation, several polling sites were not open during the February election and members were not notified they could not vote at the union's office in Mangilao.

Somerfleck said, "From this, I'm hoping is that we will finally have a true, transparent and democratic process in this election process. Mr. Rector has not been transparent with the members about what has been going on; a lot of members did not know about the DOL investigation. I think it's important that as president he should have disclosed this to the membership. He should've told them all the findings, he has still up to now not released that."

The new election will be held under the supervision of the secretary of labor.