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AFT leader brings perspective and vision
Lorretta Johnson says unions and communities united can take on the right
AFT Secretary Treasurer Lorretta Johnson pledged to join the CFT in resisting. Except for one thing.
“I went to jail once in a teachers’ strike,” she said. “My husband heard I was in jail and he didn’t come get me — I vowed I’d never go back.”
Officer elections: Pechthalt, Freitas reelected
Delegates overwhelming elected the Unity Slate, led by CFT President Joshua Pechthalt and Secretary Treasurer Jeff Freitas. The slate’s 24 vice presidents were elected from among a field of 29 candidates. Pechthalt and Freitas have now begun their fourth two-year term as leaders of the California Federation of Teachers.
See more photos on Facebook. Members in Motion. Highlights Recap.
Spirited debate on resolutions
Issues range from academic freedom and racial justice to community schools
At the CFT Convention March 31 through April 2, delegates took action on 23 policy resolutions addressing topics from community schools to immigrant rights to the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Tom Steyer: Addresses climate, education
It’s typical for educators to lead the way, philanthropist Tom Steyer told attendees at the CFT Convention. As the son and grandson of teachers, Steyer founded NextGen Climate, a non-profit that acts politically to prevent climate disaster.
Panel on point: Understanding rights, rules, and the law
It’s not the work of a few vigilantes when Immigration Customs Enforcement agents target students, said Laura Flores of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation — it’s becoming the law of the land.
Delegates march for immigrant rights
DACA students, educators speak out at ICE building, state Capitol
Friday, Cesar Chavez Day, the first day of the CFT Convention, Art Pulaski of the California Labor Federation promised the delegates that he will make sure other unions — the plumbers, carpenters, and building trades — back up the CFT in their fight against charter schools and privatization. Then he got them fired up for the march in support of immigrant rights.
CFT Convention prepares us for tough challenges facing the union
By Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President
The CFT completed its 75th Convention and Jeff Freitas and I were honored to be re-elected by delegates to lead this great, progressive union. A new Executive Council was also elected, a diverse group of local leaders that will help guide this organization in the difficult period ahead.
Rank & Files, Apr-May 2017
David Stein, lecturer of history and African-American studies at UCLA and member of UC-AFT Los Angeles, Local 1990, received the Maria Stewart Best Journal Article Prize from the African American Intellectual History Society for his article titled “This Nation Has Never Honestly Dealt with the Question of a Peacetime ‘Economy’: Coretta Scott King and the Struggle for a Nonviolent Economy in the 1970s.” Stein also co-hosts a monthly podcast called Who Makes Cents covering the history of capitalism.
Local Wire, Apr-May 2017
MANY LOCALS
#ScienceMarch Numerous local unions took a stand for reason,
facts and scientific analysis in the Science March and Climate
March held during the month of May, including groups from the
Greater Santa Cruz Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2030, and
UC-AFT San Diego, AFT Local 2226.
Pension battles shift from ballots to courts
Tracking the latest strategies that attack public employee pensions
For years, people have been trying to attack pensions with ballot propositions, said Doug Orr, an economics professor at City College of San Francisco and the chair of the of the CFT Retirement Policy Committee. Those propositions always go down in defeat, Orr said, and now those attacks on pensions are coming to the courts.
Contingent faculty and academic freedom in the age of Trump
Organizing the disenfranchised is the key to success
By Bob Samuels, President UC-AFT
Now that more than 75 percent of the instructors teaching in higher education in the United States do not have tenure, it is important to think about how the current political climate affects those vulnerable teachers. Although we should pay attention to how all faculty are being threatened, non-tenured faculty are in an especially exposed position because they often lack any type of academic freedom or shared governance rights.
Faculty grill replacement leader of the ACCJC
Interim commission president listens, pledges some new ways forward
At the end of a CFT Convention Friday night Community College Council meeting that went over the 10 o’clock ending time, Richard Winn said he wanted to continue being a “thinking partner” with the CFT and thanked everyone for their honesty.
He might have preferred a little less honesty. Winn is the interim president of the Accreditation Commission of Community and Junior Colleges, and the assembled members of CFT had plenty to say about the commission’s unfairness, lack of transparency, and meddling in collective bargaining. The CFT has a federal lawsuit against ACCJC and continues to fight for a new accreditor.